Rivers Influence Reef Pass Formation in the Society Islands
Name
Geophysical Research Letters - 2025 - Gillen - Rivers Influence Reef Pass Formation in the Society Islands.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
8.3 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f4114ab371a1ca146eb91a46461f0c8b
Author(s)
Gillen, Megan N
Ashton, Andrew D
Perron, J Taylor
Date Issued
June 14, 2025
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
Gillen, M. N., Ashton, A. D., & Perron, J. T. (2025). Rivers influence reef pass formation in the Society Islands. Geophysical Research Letters, 52, e2025GL114881.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Reef passes are deep, navigable channels dissecting coral reefs around volcanic islands. Many reef passes are located offshore of large island river basins, suggesting a potential causal relationship. To clarify the mechanisms that form and maintain reef passes, we quantify the relationships between reef pass location and drainage basin size in the Society Islands. River basins draining toward reef passes are larger than those draining toward unbroken reef flats, suggesting that rivers help create and sustain reef passes. The correlation between reef passes and large rivers weakens for older islands, suggesting that oceanographic processes increasingly maintain passes as islands age and subside. We propose two river-driven reef pass formation mechanisms: reef incision, in which rivers erode into reefs during sea-level lowstands, and reef encroachment, in which corals growing in lower-elevation submerged river valleys preferentially drown during periods of rapid sea-level rise, leaving gaps in the accreting reef.
MIT Department
Joint Program in Oceanography
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL114881
