Branwen Williams

Posted inNews New research has revealed that significant amounts of excess nitrogen in coastal waters are buried as oyster reefs grow and that some reefs trap more nitrogen than others. Posted inEditors' Highlights Mussel shell periostracum and carbonate bound organic matter document seasonal variability in the isotopic composition of riverine suspended particulate organic matter.

Geochemical measurements of the mollusk Tridacna (giant clam) provides climate data of past environments. Assigning time to these data requires age chronologies, often determined from regular optical shell banding patterns. However, these growth bands are often difficult to visualize in fossil specimens. Arndt et al. [2023] present a new approach using a script in Python to retrieve paleoenvironmental information from fossilized Tridacna clams on daily timescales.

Documenting past riverine nutrient conditions, which in turn may reflect excess nitrogen from farms or cities, is difficult because of the limited water chemistry monitoring. Kukolich and Dettman [2021] find that the isotopic composition of shell organic matter in three species of freshwater mussel recorded seasonal variability in chemistry of riverine suspended particulate organic matter.