Holocene evolution and accumulation rates for Rodrigues Fringing Reef in the Southwest Indian Ocean

Created 23/06/2025

Updated 23/06/2025

Rodrigues is located at latitude 19°43' S and longitude 63°25' E in the Southwest Indian Ocean and features the best developed reefs in the Mascarenes. In 2001 a field expedition to Rodrigues recovered six drill cores using a portable hydraulic drilling rig. In all, two cores were recovered from the windward margin (cores 10 and 17), with a maximum depth of penetration of 4 m. Four cores were recovered from the leeward margin (8, 14, 15, 18) where the maximum depth penetration attained was 4.2 m. Recovery ranged from 23 to 63 %. Thin sections were made and examined petrographically. Radiocarbon dating was performed on selected corals from the base of each core interpreted to have grown in situ and to be free from intraskeletal contamination. Radiometric dating suggests that Rodrigues reefs approached sea level between 3.1 ± 0.3 cal kyr BP and 1.3 ± 0.2 cal kyr BP. In fact, the windward margin apparently grew to within 2.5 m of present day sea level by approximately 2.7 ± 0.2 cal kyr BP. The leeward margin approached modern day sea level more recently between 1.3 ± 0.2 cal kyr BP and 2.4 ± 0.3 cal kyr BP. Rates of vertical accretion for the top 4 m of the cores range from 0.46 - 1.96 m / kyr.

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Field Value
Title Holocene evolution and accumulation rates for Rodrigues Fringing Reef in the Southwest Indian Ocean
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/aa35a64f-6660-4e10-9785-80031a1a9f6b
Contact Point
Australian Ocean Data Network
Bradley.Opdyke@anu.edu.au
Reference Period 01/01/2001 - 01/01/2001
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
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    [
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        20.0,
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      ],
      [
        127.0,
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      ],
      [
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      ],
      [
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      ],
      [
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  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Australian Oceans Data Network

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Australian Oceans Data Network "Holocene evolution and accumulation rates for Rodrigues Fringing Reef in the Southwest Indian Ocean". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://catalogue.aodn.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/holocene-evolution-and-accumulation-rates-for-rodrigues-fringing-reef-in-the-southwest-indian-o1