The origin of Bahamian Whitings revisited

Abstract

Two schools of thought exist regarding the origin of the aragonite needles which make up the milky patches of water prominent on the Bahama Banks. One school views these so‐called whitings as spontaneous precipitates [ Cloud , 1962; Shinn et al., 1989; Robbins et al., 1997] and the other views them as stirred up bottom sediment [ Broecker and Takahashi , 1966; Morse et al., 1984]. In the paragraphs which follow we summarize what we consider to be iron‐clad radiocarbon and chemical evidence that whitings are dominated by re‐suspended sediment. We offer a new and highly speculative mechanism for this re‐suspension. Black‐tipped sharks which inhabit whitings purposefully stir up the sediment in order to create a trap for fish, much as spiders construct webs as traps for insect prey.