Abstract
Previous drilling through submerged fossil coral reefs has greatly improved our understanding of the general pattern of sea-level change since the Last Glacial Maximum, however, how reefs responded to these changes remains uncertain. Here we document the evolution of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), the world’s largest reef system, to major, abrupt environmental changes over the past 30 thousand years based on comprehensive sedimentological, biological and geochronological records from fossil reef cores. We show that reefs migrated seaward as sea level fell to its lowest level during the most recent glaciation (~20.5–20.7 thousand years ago (ka)), then landward as the shelf flooded and ocean temperatures increased during the subsequent deglacial period (~20–10 ka). Growth was interrupted by five reef-death events caused by subaerial exposure or sea-level rise outpacing reef growth. Around 10 ka, the reef drowned as the sea level continued to rise, flooding more of the shelf and causing a higher sediment flux. The GBR’s capacity for rapid lateral migration at rates of 0.2–1.5 m yr−1 (and the ability to recruit locally) suggest that, as an ecosystem, the GBR has been more resilient to past sea-level and temperature fluctuations than previously thought, but it has been highly sensitive to increased sediment input over centennial–millennial timescales.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Fairbanks, R. G. A 17,000 year glacio-eustatic sea-level record: influence of glacial melting rates on the Younger Dryas event and deep ocean circulation. Nature 342, 637–642 (1989).
Deschamps, P. et al. Ice-sheet collapse and sea-level rise at the Bølling warming 14,600 years ago. Nature 483, 559–564 (2012).
Bard, E., Hamelin, B. & Fairbanks, R. G. U–Th ages obtained by mass spectrometry in corals from Barbados: sea level during the past 130,000 years. Nature 346, 456–458 (1990).
Peltier, W. R. & Fairbanks, R. G. Global glacial ice volume and Last Glacial Maximum duration from an extended Barbados sea level record. Quat. Sci. Rev. 25, 3322–3337 (2006).
Weaver, A. J., Saenko, O. A., Clark, P. U. & Mitrovica, J. X. Meltwater pulse 1A from Antarctica as a trigger of the Bolling–Allerod warm interval. Science 299, 1709–1713 (2003).
Hoegh-Guldberg, O. et al. Coral reefs under rapid climate change and ocean acidification. Science 318, 1737–1742 (2007).
Kiessling, W., Simpson, C., Beck, B., Mewis, H. & Pandolfi, J. M. Equatorial decline of reef corals during the last Pleistocene interglacial. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 21378–21383 (2012).
Pandolfi, J. M., Connolly, S. R., Marshall, D. J. & Cohen, A. L. Projecting coral reef futures under global warming and ocean acidification. Science 333, 418–422 (2011).
Camoin, G. F. et al. Reef response to sea-level and environmental changes during the last deglaciation: integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 310, Tahiti sea level. Geology 40, 643–646 (2012).
Cabioch, G. et al. Continuous reef growth during the last 23 kyr BP in a tectonically active zone (Vanuatu, SouthWest Pacific). Quat. Sci. Rev. 22, 1771–1786 (2003).
Edwards, R. L. et al. A large drop in atmospheric 14C/12C and reduced melting in the Younger Dryas, documented with 230Th ages of corals. Science 260, 962–968 (1993).
Blanchon, P. & Shaw, J. Reef drowning during the last deglaciation: evidence for catastrophic sea-level rise and ice-sheet collapse. Geology 23, 4–8 (1995).
Roff, G. et al. Palaeoecological evidence of a historical collapse of corals at Pelorus Island, inshore Great Barrier Reef, following European settlement. Proc. R. Soc. B 280, 20122100 (2013).
Pandolfi, J. M. Limited membership in Pleistocene reef coral assemblages from the Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea: constancy during global change. Paleobiology 22, 152–176 (1996).
Humblet, M. & Webster, J. M. Coral community changes in the Great Barrier Reef in response to major environmental changes over glacial-interglacial timescales. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaecol. 472, 216–235 (2017).
Webster, J. M., Yokoyama, Y., Cotterill, C. & Expedition 325 Scientists. Proc. Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Vol. 325 (Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Management International, Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, 2011).
Felis, T. et al. Intensification of the meridional temperature gradient in the Great Barrier Reef following the Last Glacial Maximum. Nat. Commun. 5, 4102 (2014).
Page, M. C. & Dickens, G. R. Sediment fluxes to Marion Plateau (southern Great Barrier Reef province) over the last 130 ky: new constraints on ‘transgressive-shedding’ off northeastern Australia. Mar. Geol. 219, 27–45 (2005).
Hopley, D., Smithers, S. G. & Parnell, K. E. The Geomorphology of the Great Barrier Reef (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2017).
Davies, P. J. in Proc. 6th Int. Coral Reef Symp 9–17 (Townsville, 1988).
Gischler, E. et al. Microfacies and diagenesis of older Pleistocene (pre-last glacial maximum) reef deposits, Great Barrier Reef, Australia (IODP Expedition 325): a quantitative approach. Sedimentology 60, 1432–1466 (2013).
Linsley, B. K., Rosenthal, Y. & Oppo, D. W. Holocene evolution of the Indonesian throughflow and the western Pacific warm pool. Nat. Geosci. 3, 578–583 (2010).
Lambeck, K., Rouby, H., Purcell, A., Sun, Y. & Sambridge, M. Sea level and global ice volumes from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 15296–15303 (2014).
Hinestrosa, G., Webster, J. M., Beaman, R. J. & Anderson, L. M. Seismic stratigraphy and development of the shelf-edge reefs of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Mar. Geol. 353, 1–20 (2014).
Hinestrosa, G., Webster, J. M. & Beaman, R. J. Postglacial sediment deposition along a mixed carbonate-siliciclastic margin: new constraints from the drowned shelf-edge reefs of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 446, 168–185 (2016).
Perry, C. T., Smithers, S. G., Gulliver, P. & Browne, N. K. Evidence of very rapid reef accretion and reef growth under high turbidity and terrigenous sedimentation. Geology 40, 719–722 (2012).
Perry, C. T. & Smithers, S. G. Cycles of coral reef ‘turn-on’, rapid growth and ‘turn-off’ over the past 8500 years: a context for understanding modern ecological states and trajectories. Glob. Change Biol. 17, 76–86 (2011).
Blanchon, P. et al. Postglacial Fringing-Reef to Barrier-Reef conversion on Tahiti links Darwinʼs reef types. Sci. Rep. 4, 4997 (2014).
Abdul, N. A., Mortlock, R. A., Wright, J. D. & Fairbanks, R. G. Younger Dryas sea-level and meltwater pulse 1B recorded in Barbados reef-crest coral Acropora palmata. Paleoceanography 31, 330–344 (2016).
Bard, E., Hamelin, B. & Delanghe-Sabatier, D. Deglacial meltwater pulse 1B and Younger Dryas sea levels revisited with boreholes at Tahiti. Science 327, 1235–1237 (2010).
Dunbar, G. B., Dickens, G. R. & Carter, R. M. Sediment flux across the Great Barrier Reef Shelf to the Queensland Trough over the last 300 ky. Sediment. Geol. 133, 49–92 (2000).
Wooldridge, S. A. Instability and breakdown of the coral–algae symbiosis upon exceedence of the interglacial PCO2 threshold (>260 ppmv): the ‘missingʼ Earth-System feedback mechanism. Coral Reefs 36, 1025–1037 (2017).
Kojis, B. L. & Quinn, N. J. Seasonal and depth variation in fecundity of Acropora palifera at two reefs in Papua New Guinea. Coral Reefs 3, 165–172 (1984).
Montaggioni, L. F. History of Indo-Pacific coral reef systems since the last glaciation: development patterns and controlling factors. Earth-Sci. Rev. 71, 1–75 (2005).
Thomas, C. J. Connectivity between submerged and near-sea-surface coral reefs: can submerged reef populations act as refuges? Divers. Distrib. 21, 1254–1266 (2015).
De’ath, G., Fabricius, K. E., Sweatman, H. & Puotinen, M. The 27-year decline of coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef and its causes. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 17995–17999 (2012).
Hughes, T. P. et al. Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals. Nature 543, 373–377 (2017).
Abbey, E., Webster, J. M. & Beaman, R. J. Geomorphology of submerged reefs on the shelf edge of the Great Barrier Reef: the influence of oscillating Pleistocene sea levels. Mar. Geol. 288, 61–78 (2011).
Obrochta, S. P. et al. The undatables: quantifying uncertainty in a highly expanded Late Glacial–Holocene sediment sequence recovered from the deepest Baltic Sea basin—IODP Site M0063. Geochem. Geophys. Geosystems 18, 858–871 (2017).
Acknowledgements
We thank the IODP and ECORD (European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling) for drilling the GBR, and the Bremen Core Repository for organizing the onshore sampling party. Financial support was provided by the Australian Research Council (grant no. DP1094001 and no. FT140100286), ANZIC, Institut Polytechnique de Bordeaux and KAKENHI (no. 25247083).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
J.M.W. and Y.Y. were co-chief scientists of Expedition 325. J.M.W. wrote the manuscript in collaboration with J.C.B., M.H., D.C.P., Y.I., R.B., T.E., Y.Y. and H.M., and the paper was refined by contributions from the rest of the co-authors.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisherʼs note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Notes, Tables and Figures
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Webster, J.M., Braga, J.C., Humblet, M. et al. Response of the Great Barrier Reef to sea-level and environmental changes over the past 30,000 years. Nature Geosci 11, 426–432 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0127-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0127-3
This article is cited by
-
Submerged reef features in Apo and Tubbataha Reefs, Philippines, revealed paleo sea-level history during the last deglaciation
Geo-Marine Letters (2024)
-
Studying functions on coral reefs: past perspectives, current conundrums, and future potential
Coral Reefs (2024)
-
Chronological implications of changes in the accumulation rate of long marine cores from the continental shelf, southeastern Korea
Marine Geophysical Research (2023)
-
Styles and rates of mesophotic reef accretion on a Caribbean insular slope
Coral Reefs (2023)
-
Beachrocks of the last low sea level, substrate of the Great Amazon Reef system along the outer Guiana shelf
Geo-Marine Letters (2023)