Some preliminary observations from Curaçao

In the spring of 2015, we traveled to the island of Curaçao to take part in the Association of Marine Laboratories of the Caribbean scientific meeting. When we weren’t in the conference room listening to talks or presenting our own research, we took advantage of our location to collect some small preliminary samples of fine sediments from the sheltered fringing reefs offshore of the venue on the leeward side of the island. This were done while snorkeling, which was an added challenge, as we were limited by the amount of time we could hold our breath. I scoped out the sediment further offshore near the southern tip of the island during a dive trip, but it proved to be too coarse and sorted for our purposes (meaning basically that the denticles and other small microfossils would have been washed away). We also collected some Pleistocene-age limestone from the nearby exposed cliffs to explore whether denticles and fish teeth were preserved in this older material.

Our precious cargo was transported back to Panama, where it was digested with acetic acid and sorted with a paintbrush under a microscope in the lab. While the limestone did not yield many microfossils, the sand we collected from the reefs contained well-preserved denticles. The denticles (counted in terms of the number of denticles per kilogram sediment) here also appeared to be slightly more abundant than in our original samples collected in Panama. Score!

In addition to the inlet that we collected sediment from during the conference, the leeward side of Curaçao is home to several other protected or semi-protected reefs that could potentially be suitable for sampling (i.e. they have fine enough sand trapped among the branching coral or coral heads). This is a promising start for the field work we hope to begin next year.