Isotopic composition of Conomurex fasciatus shells as an environmental proxy for the Red Sea

摘要

The marine gastropod Conomurex fasciatus Born 1778) is the main component of thousands of shell middens on the Farasan Islands in the southern Red Sea. The middens date from 6500 to 4500 cal BP and cover the period of increased aridification over the region. No general research on C. fasciatus has been carried out before and basic information about the species is mostly speculative. To test if C. fasciatus shells can be used as a recorder of climate variability, we collected living specimens from the Farasan Islands, in Saudi Arabia, over a 1.5 year period. This area receives almost no precipitation and sea surface salinity is extremely high (38-39 psu), and sea surface temperature (SST) ranges from +26.5 degrees C to +34.9 degrees C.