Bicentennial Core and Brain Corals

     The bicentennial core is able to reveal a coral chronology that dates back to before the 1600s. The bands in the coral are able to tell if there are cold fronts that also affected the temperature. There was a great freeze in 1896 that made Henry Flagler build a railroad from Miami to Key West, which eventually turned into the Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park that we visited today.      Sclerochronology is the method of researching the ring like growth bands of corals, mollusks, and other lime producing marine organisms. The coral core samples are able to record the history of climate and water quality over hundreds of years. So how does this process work? Two divers must bring a hydraulic drill in shallow water and they drill through the coral to remove the core. The core is then x-rayed to determine past environmental conditions from these growing coral. The hole left is filled with a cement plug to prevent erosion of the coral skeleton from other organisms. After one year the coral growth may erase all evidence of coding in four years time by covering its edges. Unfortunately so many corals have been damaged in the Keys and so techniques have been developed to cement the damaged areas to prevent further damage.      The park exhibited so many preserved corals in the stones that were discovered years later. The brain coral was one of the corals that I saw the most throughout the park. You can always tell that it is brain coral because it looks like the inside of a brain. The brain coral was so well preserved that it actually looked just like the brain coral that we were able to see during our dives in the Keys. Overall, the fossils were very well preserved including many other corals and even some small organisms, like snails, small fish, clams, and mollusks. The state park was very interesting and definitely worth visiting to learn more about the railroad and Flagler after weheard the story from Doug at the Bahia Honda visitor center. For more information about the Winsley Key State Park visit: floridastateparks.org For more information about corals in the Florida Keys visit: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu#Fossils #BrainCorals

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