Recollecting and Drilling Emerged Coral Reefs on the Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea

巴布亚新几内亚休恩半岛的珊瑚礁梯田是20世纪70年代初开始的一系列研究的基础，这些研究推动了利用珊瑚礁来确定冰河时代的年代。休恩半岛的构造抬升速度如此之快（1 - 4毫米/年），以至于在最后一个冰河期，许多较小的海平面波动都被部分重叠的小珊瑚礁记录下来。这个项目代表了与澳大利亚科学家和国际专家小组合作的重大回忆努力，因为现在从休恩梯田获得的样本很少。此外，通过最年轻的、全新世的珊瑚礁和一组选定的较老的珊瑚礁钻取岩芯，将确定最后一个冰河期海平面变化和气候波动的速度和幅度。新开发的质谱铀系定年和电子自旋共振（ESR）定年分析技术为热带海岸隆起的珊瑚礁定年提供了前所未有的精度和更长的时间范围。未风化的新鲜珊瑚样本对这两种技术都至关重要。珊瑚礁的生长受海平面波动的密切控制，而海平面波动又受大陆冰盖的扩张和收缩的控制。因此，休恩半岛珊瑚的精确年代，可以与最近发表的巴巴多斯珊瑚的质谱仪铀系列年龄（125,700 + 1200年）相媲美，将开启一个精确测定冰河时代及其伴随的海平面变化的新时代。新的方法将允许对米兰科维奇冰期理论进行严格的测试，并与深海同位素记录进行更精确的比较。

Reef terraces on the Huon Peninsula of Papua New Guinea were the basis of a series of studies beginning in the early 1970's that gave impetus to the use of coral reefs to date ice ages. The tectonic uplift rate on the Huon Peninsula is so rapid (1 to 4 mm/yr) that many of the lesser fluctuations of sea level within the last ice age are recorded by small, partly overlapping reefs. This project represents major recollecting effort in collaboration with Australian scientists and a group of international experts, because few samples are now available from the Huon terraces. Also, drill cores through the youngest, Holocene, reef and a selected set of older reefs will define the rate and amplitude of sea-level changes and climatic fluctuations during the last ice age. Newly developed analytical techniques of mass-spectrometric Uranium-series dating and electron spin resonance (ESR) dating offer unprecedented precision and a longer time range for dating emerged coral reefs on uplifting tropical coasts. Unweathered, fresh coral samples are essential to both techniques. Coral-reef growth is closely controlled by sea-level fluctuations, which in turn are governed by the expansion and shrinkage of continental ice sheets. Thus, precise dates on corals from the Huon Peninsula, comparable to recently published mass-spectrometer Uranium-series ages in the range of 125,700 + 1200 years for corals from Barbados, will open a new era of precision for dating ice ages and their concomitant changes in sea levels. The new methods will permit a rigorous test of the Milankovitch theory of ice ages and more accurate comparison with the deep-sea isotope record.