ACCELERATE

Following the recent advances of limpet research using LIBS in the Mediterranean, Amy Prendergast will present the results of the ACCELERATE project at the International Sclerochronology conference in the form of a poster. With the title “Mediterranean limpets and Mg/Ca ratios Using LIBS to screen for SST changes and physiological effects” the poster summarises the method and outcomes of our limpet research and points towards improved sampling methods to increase sample numbers in seasonality research.

In our study in Scientific Reports, we tested LIBS on modern limpet shells that were previously analysed by Amy Prendergast and Bernd Schöne using δ18O values and a high resolution sampling approach. With their large isotopic dataset and good knowledge of the shells’ growth structure, we had a great starting point to compare Mg/Ca ratios with changes in sea surface temperature (SST).