Smoke signals from corals: isotopic signature of the 1997 Indonesian ‘haze’ event

From September to November 1997, most of Indonesia was covered by a dense blanket of haze, originating from fires on Sumatra and Borneo. Specimens of Porites lobata were collected from two locations, i.e. the Riau Archipelago, south of Singapore, where the haze was most dense, and the Karimunjawa Islands, north of Central Java, where the effects were less severe. All corals exhibited strong Kinetic Isotope Effects (KIE). On plots of δ18O vs. …