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Skeleton records

November 24, 2009

MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Whitney Bernstein and her advisor, Konrad Hughen of the Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry Department, sort and measure cores of massive corals (Porites spp.) collected from the Red Sea in November 2008.  After splitting the cores,  X-ray imagery is used to visualize the annual density bands in the skeletons.  Researchers then use geochemical analyses to determine the temperature of the water at which each annual band grew.(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)