[Coral-List] Coral bands and tree rings - a little more

[John Ware]

Hi List,

A little more on the previous e-mail about coral banding and tree rings 
base upon comments received.  For those of  you who missed the first 
two, my simple geometric considerations showed that coral bands should 
be approximately evenly spaced with age while tree rings should get 
closer together.

First, Dick Dodge pointed out that it is not the polyps that deposit 
CaCO3 but the underlying tissue and asked if the argument still holds. 
 The answer is, of course, yes, the argument still holds as long as 
CaCO3 deposition is linearly dependent upon surface area.

Second, Bernard A. Thomassin pointed out that climatic events would 
affect banding.  I should have mentioned that, but, of course (again), 
the assumption I made was constant climatic conditions.  Or, 
alternatively, that ON THE AVERAGE band width in corals would be 
approximately independent of age or size.

John

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