Terrestrial Sediment Accumulation in La Parguera Reef and Mangrove Environment

Terrestrial sediment accumulation is one of many stresses to coral reef communities around the world. The primary objective of this contract is to evaluate how the accumulation of terrestrial sediment has changed in coral reef and mangrove environments of La Parguera, Puerto Rico over the past 100 years. This work is part of a large NOAA-funded project in the Coral Reef Environmental Study program being coordinated by the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez. Cores will be collected and analyzed to evaluate sediment accumulation in these settings. This contract includes the following: 1) Collection of cores (~20 vibracores, push cores, and gravity cores combined). 2) Core descriptions, photography, and xradiography 3) Laboratory work: Gamma analyses of core samples for information on Pb-210, Ra-226, Cs-137, Th-234, Be-7 Alpha analyses for detailed Pb-210 data Grain-size analyses Measurement of inorganic and organic carbon percentages Metal analyses (Cu, Pb, Al, Zn, possibly others) 4) GIS integration of core information and available remote sensing and geospatial data. 5) Interpretation of results.

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