Abstract
Cold-seep Carbonate Hardgrounds as the Initial Substrata of Coral Reef Development in a Siliciclastic Paleoenvironment of Southwestern Taiwan
Highlights
Modern coral reefs generally develop in clear, warm, well-lit tropical shallow marine environments
We focused on vertical facies changes from the underlying siliciclastic mudstones upward into the basal parts of the Takangshan Reef limestone
Various occurrences of cold-seep carbonates were recognized at 6 outcrops and in 11 cores at the Takangshan, including massive cold-seep carbonates, carbonate pipes, and dolomitic cobbles/pebbles
Summary
Modern coral reefs generally develop in clear, warm, well-lit tropical shallow marine environments. Modern coral reefs have developed in muddy environments on the Queensland Shelf of northeastern Australia (Hopley et al 1983; Johnson and Risk 1987), southeast of Phuket in Thailand (Tudhope and Scoffin 1994; Scoffin and Le Tissier 1998), and off the western coast of Hammond Island in the Torres Strait, Australia (Woodroffe et al 2000) These reefs did not initially grow on muddy substrates, but on rocky bottoms, shoreline gravel and boulders, muddy coral rubble banks, and coarsegrained sediments. It seems that coral reefs develop in a variety of shallow marine environments if hardground or coarse-grained siliciclastic substrate is available
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