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The aragonitic skeletons of scleractinian cold-water corals can serve as valuable archives in paleoceanographic studies. The potential of δ^88/86Sr, Sr/Ca, Mg/Ca, Li/Ca and Mg/Li ratios of the cold-water coral Lophelia pertusa to record intermediate water mass properties has been investigated. Here we used samples from several locations along the European continental margin spanning a large temperature range from 6 to 14 °C. Stable strontium isotope measurements were carried out with the recently developed double spike TIMS technique and our results differ from those obtained with less precise methods. In contrast to the strong positive relationship with temperature of previous studies, our results suggest that δ^88/86Sr measured in scleractinian cold-water corals is not controlled by seawater temperature, but reflects the Sr isotopic composition of seawater with an offset of Δ^88/86Sr = − 0.196‰.

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