Corals are unique in the suite of proposed Anthropocene Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) archives, as living organisms that produce aragonite exoskeletons preserved in the geological record that contain highly accurate and precise (<±1 year) internal chronologies. The GSSP candidate site North Flinders Reef in the Coral Sea (Australia) is an offshore oceanic reef, and therefore less vulnerable to local human influences than those closer to the coast. Here, we present geochemical records from two Porites sp. corals sampled at an annual to pluri-annual (i.e. 3–5 years) resolution that shows clear global and regional human impacts. Atmospheric nuclear bomb testing by-products (14C,239+240Pu) show a clear increase in the Flinders Reef corals coincident with well-dated nuclear testing operations. By contrast, the radionuclides 241Am and 137Cs are present at low or undetectable levels, as are spheroidal carbonaceous fly-ash particles. Coral δ13C shows centennial variability likely influenced by growth effects in the 18th century and with a progression to lower values starting in 1880 and accelerating post-1970. The latter may be related to the Suess Effect resulting from 13C-depleted fossil fuel burning. Coral δ15N decreased between 1710 and 1954 with a reversal post-1954. Coral temperature proxies indicate prominent centennial variability with equally warm conditions in the 18th and end of 20th century. However, the exact mechanisms responsible for the mid-20th century changes in these parameters need to be scrutinised in further detail. Plain Language summary: This work proposes a candidate natural archive for the official marker of the Anthropocene that geologists will use to mark this important interval in time. Our candidate is a live coral from North Flinders Reef in the Coral Sea (Australia), located 150 km east of the Great Barrier Reef, a location that is remote from direct local human influences. Corals are a unique archive of tropical ocean change because they incorporate the geochemical signature from seawater into their limestone skeleton during their long life-spans. Here we investigated a number of geochemical markers in yearly growth layers of the corals to define several markers for the Anthropocene based on changes in temperature, water chemistry, chemicals from pollution and fertilisers, radioactive products from nuclear bomb testing, and by-products from burning fossil fuels. We have detected clear human influences in several of these markers.

A discussion of the significance of the letters AOI in the Chanson de Roland should properly begin perhaps with a description of the appearance of these letters in the Bodleian manuscript, Digby 23, of Oxford, the only manuscript in which they occur. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way of determining with certainty whether these mysterious letters were invariably written by the hand (or hands) responsible for copying the text of the poem. Sometimes no differences of transcription can be perceived between a line of the poem and the AOI that accompanies it. Occasionally, however, slight variations in the forms of the letters, in the alignment, in the color of the ink, or in the thickness of the strokes would seem to indicate that the AOI was written some time after the verse beside which it stands had been penned. In the latter case, it may be that the scribe waited only until he had copied a whole page—or several pages—of text before adding the letters; it may be, on the contrary, that he waited longer, or that some other person interested in the interpretation of the poem put them there. Certain it is, at any event, that the letters occur at variable intervals: some pages are without them, some present but a single instance, others contain a relatively large number of examples.

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