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The Great Barrier Reef is a unique environmental resource threatened by future climate change. However, it has always been unclear how this ecosystem developed in the Mid to Late Pleistocene. Work has shown that the reef developed between~ 600-500 ka during MIS 15-13, although some records suggest a start at MIS 11 at 400 ka. There is a lack of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) records for this time for the area around the Great Barrier Reef. Furthermore, the few existing SST records do not show temperature changes during these key periods, leading researchers to suggest that factors other than temperature, such as sea-level change or sediment transport, explain the start of the reef. We used the TEX86 proxy to produce a new SST record starting at 900 ka from ODP Site 820. This core is located next to the northern Great Barrier Reef. In this new record, there are SST changes that seem to match both …