Cold-water scleractinian corals represent a promising new development for reconstructing the properties of past intermediate oceans. Compared to other marine proxy archives, they have the advantage that they are widespread in almost all oceans. They live at great depths, incorporate the isotopic and elemental composition of the surrounding seawater as a function of various physicochemical parameters and can live for decades to millennia.  Finally, their skeletons can be accurately dated using radioactive isotope decay methods.

My talk will summarize the benefits of this archive. I will give an overview on state of the art in cutting edge knowledge on paleoceanographic reconstructions derived by cold-water corals.