Spatial self-organization of marine agglutinated microbial carbonate build-ups: Insights from stratigraphic forward modelling using Stromatobyte3D

Abstract

Microbialites span a substantial fraction of Earth history, and have important meanings for understanding long-term history of life and environment. Key controls on microbialite morphology and distribution include substrate topography, hydrodynamic conditions, water depth, salinity, light intensity, and sedimentation rates. This leads to potentially complex combinations of control by internal spatial feedbacks and also external factors. This complexity is explored here using Stromatobyte3D, a new numerical stratigraphic forward model that calculates microbialite accumulation due to in-situ precipitation, sediment trapping and binding, and sedimentation from suspension, controlled by evolving topography and water flow due to waves, tides or other currents. Results show that with increasingly strong spatial interactions of microbialite growth with water and suspended sediment, particularly the influence of hydrodynamics on in-situ microbialite growth and suspended sediment deposition patterns, three distinct microbialite morphologies are produced, from isolated columns, through elongated mounds, to ridges elongated in the dominant flow direction. Quantitative analysis demonstrates a dominant antecedent substrate topographic control on microbialite nucleation and growth in the absence of water flow, declining as hydrodynamic processes and strong spatial interactions are introduced causing mounds to accrete and coalesce laterally in the flow direction. Formation of coherent morphological patterns, produced by spatial interactions between topography, hydrodynamics, microbialite growth, and sedimentation from suspension, and independent of initial condition, is evidence of spatial self-organization. Modelled morphologies are strikingly similar to observations from modern marine agglutinated microbialite strata, suggesting modelled processes and their behaviours are realistic, and can therefore be useful to assist field interpretations of observed microbialite morphologies where similar processes were operating together.