Abstract
AbstractAccretion rates of Holocene tropical coral reefs in three areas in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans have been quantified in 79 dated core sections in 34 reef cores from Belize, the Maldives and French Polynesia. Holocene vertical reef accretion rate averages 5.05 m/kyr and has decreased during the past 10 kyr. Accretion rates in branched and massive coral facies are statistically similar. Reef accretion rate is positively correlated with the rate of sea‐level rise, that is the degree of creation of accommodation space, and with climate as expressed in a Holocene sea surface temperature anomaly. Accommodation space is also created by subsidence, but at a rate one to two orders of magnitude lower than that created by glacio‐eustasy (0.04 to 0.16 m/kyr). Lagoonal background sedimentation in adjacent reef lagoons averages 0.89 m/kyr as measured in 72 dated core sections in 28 cores. Lagoonal carbonate sedimentation on top of underlying mangrove peat usually starts after a considerable hiatus of ca 3 kyr on average. The lagoonal background sedimentation rate increased during the Holocene, probably due to deepening. The differences between vertical reef accretion and lagoonal background sedimentation rates are a major factor in the production of the widely known saucer shapes typical of tropical reefs and carbonate platforms, that is the creation of unfilled accommodation space. Reef core recovery, used as a proxy for reef consolidation, and core depth exhibit a statistically negative correlation based on data from 326 core barrels. Recovery and marine cement abundance (average volume 8.6%) also decrease from windward to leeward core positions. These observations are presumably a result of both a decrease in the rate of sea‐level rise that is the increase in time available for submarine cementation during the Holocene and the amount of flushing of reef interstices by marine waters.
Highlights
Reef accretion rate has been a geoscience focus, especially in sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy, since the classic paper by Schlager (1981) on reef and carbonate platform drowning, a common phenomenon observed throughout Earth history with the potential to produce sequence boundaries
Reefs with an abundance of branched corals, usually characteristic of keep-up and the late stages of catch-u p types, were supposed to accrete faster than those dominated by massive corals, which may be typical of give-up or early catch-u p type reefs (Davies & Marshall, 1980; Neumann & Macintyre, 1985)
Accretion rates in core sections with predominantly branched corals are statistically similar to those in reef sections dominated by massive corals (Figure 8; Table 1)
Summary
Reef accretion rate has been a geoscience focus, especially in sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy, since the classic paper by Schlager (1981) on reef and carbonate platform drowning, a common phenomenon observed throughout Earth history with the potential to produce sequence boundaries. Data on reef accretion from 34 cores extracted with a wireline rotary drill system and 1.5-m long core barrels have been compiled and quantitatively analysed in three regions during this study (Figure 1; Table S1). These include the Belize barrier and atoll reefs (western Atlantic), Rasdhoo Atoll in FIGURE 1 Map indicating the locations of the three regions studied. When the linear error propagation, which is a conservative measure of variability, exceeded calculated accretion and sedimentation rates, values were excluded from further analysis This was the case when sampling points were close together, typically less than 1 or 2 m apart. Statistical analyses during this work were made using the software past (Hammer, Harper, & Ryan, 2001)
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