This data release compiles descriptive information (location, water depth, etc.) and radiometric ages from corals collected through the Southeast Florida Continental Reef Tract (SFCRT; Figure 1). The database includes data from studies published between 1977 and 2015 as well as previously unpublished data. The samples were originally collected using coral-reef coring or other geologic sampling methods. Many of the samples are presently stored in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Core Archive at the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center in St. Petersburg, Florida (https://doi.org/10.5066/F7319TR3). This research is a part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coral Reef Ecosystem Studies Project (https://coastal.er.usgs.gov/crest/).

This data release compiles descriptive information (location, water depth, etc.) and radiometric ages from corals collected through the Southeast Florida Continental Reef Tract (SFCRT; Figure 1). The database includes data from studies published between 1977 and 2015 as well as previously unpublished data. The samples were originally collected using coral-reef coring or other geologic sampling methods. Many of the samples are presently stored in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Core Archive at the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center in St. Petersburg, Florida (https://doi.org/10.5066/F7319TR3). This research is a part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coral Reef Ecosystem Studies Project (https://coastal.er.usgs.gov/crest/).

This data release provides a summary of the absolute percent composition of all recovered material and relative percent composition of coral taxa in the Holocene-aged intervals of 61 coral-reef cores collected throughout the Florida Keys reef tract (FKRT) housed in the USGS Core Archive in St. Petersburg, FL (Estimated ages for distinct depths within each core are also provided; those ages were either measured by radiometric dating of coral samples at those depths or estimated by linear interpolation between measured ages. A complete dataset of all measured ages in the cores is available at https://doi.org/10.5066/F7NV9HJX (Toth and others, 2018).Estimated paleodepths of the equivalent depths observed in the coral cores acquired from 1976 to 2017 were determined by extracting the relative sea level (RSL) for each age in the cores from the model of Holocene RSL in south Florida developed by Khan and others (2017). For further information regarding data collection and analysis methods refer to the associated journal article (Toth and others, 2019). This research is a part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coral Reef Ecosystem Studies Project (https://coastal.er.usgs.gov/crest/).

This data release provides a summary of the absolute percent composition of all recovered material and relative percent composition of coral taxa in the Holocene-aged intervals of 61 coral-reef cores collected throughout the Florida Keys reef tract (FKRT) housed in the USGS Core Archive in St. Petersburg, FL (Estimated ages for distinct depths within each core are also provided; those ages were either measured by radiometric dating of coral samples at those depths or estimated by linear interpolation between measured ages. A complete dataset of all measured ages in the cores is available at https://doi.org/10.5066/F7NV9HJX (Toth and others, 2018).Estimated paleodepths of the equivalent depths observed in the coral cores acquired from 1976 to 2017 were determined by extracting the relative sea level (RSL) for each age in the cores from the model of Holocene RSL in south Florida developed by Khan and others (2017). For further information regarding data collection and analysis methods refer to the associated journal article (Toth and others, 2019). This research is a part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coral Reef Ecosystem Studies Project (https://coastal.er.usgs.gov/crest/).

This data release compiles Uranium-series (U-series) data and descriptive collection information (such as sample/core identifier, location, elevation, etc.) for late Pleistocene coral subsamples from coral reef cores previously collected throughout the Florida Keys (Florida) by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) researchers. The samples were collected under scientific research permits from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) and U.S. National Park Service (NPS) and all samples are currently recorded in the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center’s (SPCMSC) Geologic Core and Sample Database (Williams and others, 2013) and archived at the center’'s Core Laboratory Archive.

This data release compiles Uranium-series (U-series) data and descriptive collection information (such as sample/core identifier, location, elevation, etc.) for late Pleistocene coral subsamples from coral reef cores previously collected throughout the Florida Keys (Florida) by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) researchers. The samples were collected under scientific research permits from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) and U.S. National Park Service (NPS) and all samples are currently recorded in the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center’s (SPCMSC) Geologic Core and Sample Database (Williams and others, 2013) and archived at the center’'s Core Laboratory Archive.

This data release compiles radiometric data, photographs, and descriptive collection information (location, elevation, etc.) for late Holocene sub-fossil Acropora palmata and A. cervicornis coral samples collected from the coral reefs of Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida (DRTO) from 2015 to 2023. The samples were collected under scientific research permits from the U.S. National Park Service and all samples are currently recorded in the U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center’s (USGS SPCMSC) Geologic Core and Sample Database (Williams and others, 2013) and archived at the center’s Core Archive.

This data release compiles radiometric data, photographs, and descriptive collection information (location, elevation, etc.) for late Holocene sub-fossil Acropora palmata and A. cervicornis coral samples collected from the coral reefs of Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida (DRTO) from 2015 to 2023. The samples were collected under scientific research permits from the U.S. National Park Service and all samples are currently recorded in the U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center’s (USGS SPCMSC) Geologic Core and Sample Database (Williams and others, 2013) and archived at the center’s Core Archive.

The U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center’s (USGS SPCMSC) Core Archive in St. Petersburg, FL contains a collection of coral-reef cores collected from throughout the Florida Keys reef tract (FKRT). In a previous study (Toth and Stathakopoulos, 2019), USGS researchers analyzed the upper, Holocene (~11,700 years ago to present) sections of those cores to evaluate how the coral composition of the FKRT changed over millennial timescales. Using the same methods, USGS researchers quantified the relative composition of late Pleistocene (~116 to 74 thousand years before present; Marine Isotope Stages [MIS] 5d, 5c, 5b, and 5a) sections of the coral reef cores dated by Hsia and others (2024a,b). This data release provides metadata about the location of the cores and summarizes the relative composition of coral taxa and other carbonates and the water depths (relative to modern mean sea level) of the analyzed core intervals. The data release also provides a summary of previously unpublished data (collected by David Weinstein) on the relative composition of an older Late Pleistocene reef (growing ~130–116 thousand years before present; MIS5e) from the subaerially exposed fossil reef at Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological Park. These data are compared with Holocene and modern coral-reef assemblages on the FKRT in Toth and others (2025).

The files in this this U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data release (Kellogg and others, 2021) are the raw 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) gene amplicon deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequence files from 90 samples of tropical and cold-water corals, as well as sequence files from a mock community and extraction blanks for the kits used for DNA extraction. The mock community was sequenced in order to assess any biases in the sequencing technology, while extraction blanks were sequenced in order to identify any contaminants in the DNA extraction kits. The tropical coral samples (three species) were collected by permit (#FKNMS-2017-064) in March 2018 from a nursery in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The cold-water coral samples (two species) were collected in August 2018 from two locations in the Atlantic Ocean.