5.

CARBONATES DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENTS

WHERE DO DISTINCT CARBONATE FACIES ACCUMULATE?

What is an ENVIRONMENT? What is a Facies?

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5. Carbonates Depositional Environments

Large-scale carbonate platforms are subdivided into distinct depositional subenvironments, based on the dominant depositional processes and the sediment types deposited: 1- Platform interiors (low energy), 2- Platform interiors (high energy) &

platform margin sand shoals, 3- Reefs, 4- Slope & base of slope, 5- Offshore systems, 6- Deep seas.
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5.1. Platform Interior (LOW ENERGY)

Platform interiors include embayments, subtidal lagoons, beaches, and tidal flats. Salinities in such settings are predomninatly normal marine, hypersaline, periodically brackish or they may vary seasonally between these states.

Lagoons are shallow-water depositional environments, <10m deep, protected from strong wave action. They occur in the broad interiors of rimmed shelves or behind inner ramp shoal belts. Where circulation is restricted, water temperatures & salinities may become highly elevated. * Carbonate production is typically dominated by phototrophs (i.e. organisms dependent on high light intensity) since Cenozic, sea-grasses. - Patch reefs: common in deep open lagoons; Reef mounds: low relief banks

Lagoonal sediments are typically peloidal, comprising feacal pellets generated by mud ingestors and grains micritized by endolithic micro-organisms. Platform carbonate sand is commonly redistributed into the lagoons by storm. Ooids transported into the lagoons may be cemented into small clusters in the quiet platform interior to form grapestones.
Bioturbation is very important. Mudstone burrows are filled with coarser material.
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The innermost platform areas are commonly restricted hypersaline and support a lower diversity biota. Some foraminifera, ostracods, algae, oncoids, calcispheres, gatsropods and molluscs are common grain types. ** Where highly restricted, platform interiors in arid areas may become hypersaline due to high evaporation and poor water circulation. Gastropods dominate the biota in the subtidal zone, while microbial mats (stromatolites) occur in the shallow subtidal and intertidal zones. Shoreline carbonates are referred to as peritidal (term meaning around the tides; Folk, 1973): nearshore, very shallow subtidal zones, tidal flats & supratidal zones, and coastal marshes.

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Peritidal rocks can reflect the following subenvironments: Subtidal zone: permanently submerged, very shallow-water area, strongly influenced by wave action and tidal currents {high energy env-t; coarse sediments} Intertidal zone: between normal- and high-tide levels, alternately flooded by seawater and exposed, influenced by climate {low energy env-t; dessication/fenestare, evaporite minerals, soils} Supratidal zone: above high-tide level, flooded only during high spring tides & storms, largely controlled by climate {in semi-arid /arid settings evaporite & wind deflation; in humid settings marshes}

5.2. Platform Interior (HIGH ENERGY) & Platform Margin

These are mainly carbonate sandbodies, prominent features of high-energy subtidal to intertidal environments in many platform settings.

Platform interior sandbodies may develop along shorelines, in platform interiors or, less commonly, from shallow offshore banks. * Shoreline carbonate sandbodies possess similar characteristics to siliciclastic sand accumulations in comparable settings, including barrier complexes (shoreface-backshore, tidal inlets, deltas, strandplains, etc Platform margin sandbodies made up of bioclastic and oolitic sands occur extensively at the margins of carbonate platforms, reflecting the dissipation of most wave and tidal energy at such margins. * Key factors: topography, orientation with respect to dominant winds & waves, and tidal range.

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5.3. Reefs and Carbonate Slope Deposystems

The term reef means any biological influenced carbonate accumulation, which was large enough to have developed topographic relief above the sea floor. Here biological carbonate sediment production and environmental modification are realized to maximum extent.

Reefs are usually classified into frame-built reefs (those that possess calcareous framework) and reef mounds (those that lack a rigid structure).

Since frame-building organisms have not always been present, reef mounds have been and remain much more dominant today, this is true except where corals can grow.

Reefs can be also characterized on the nature of organisms which constructed them (e.g. algae, stromatoporoids, rudists, corals); or on their morphologies (e.g. atoll, faro, barrier and fringing reefs).
Reef growth may produce large wave-resistant reliefs creating different subenvironments (e.g. fore reef, reef front, crest, back reef) and inducing subsequently several processes.

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REEFS

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Reef settings

Three main forms of reef have been recognised in modern oceans.

Fringing reefs are built out directly from the shoreline and lack an extensive back-reef lagoonal area.

fringing reefs build at the coastline

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Reef settings

Barrier reefs, of which the Great Barrier Reef of eastern Australia is a distinctive example, are linear reef forms that parallel the shoreline, but lie at a distance of kilometres to tens of kilometres offshore: they create a back-reef lagoon area which is a large area of shallow, low-energy sea, which is itself an important ecosystem and depositional setting.

barrier reefs form offshore on the shelf and protect a lagoon behind them
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Reef settings

Patch reefs: In open ocean areas coral atolls develop on localised areas of shallow water, such as seamounts, which are the submerged remains of volcanic islands. In addition to these settings of reef formation, evidence from the stratigraphic record indicates that there are many examples of patch reefs, localised build-ups in shallow water areas such as epicontinental seas, carbonate platforms and lagoons.

patch reefs or atolls are found isolated offshore, for instance on a seamount
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REEFS

REEF PROCESSES: Constructive processes Destructuve processes Sedimentation Cementation

Cements constitute up to 80% of the volume of some reefs cementstone reefs!!!

CONTROLS ON REEF GROWTH: Modern corals grow best at depths less than 100m in waters of near normal salinities which vary little in temperature outside the range 2529C. Reefal communities were not constant throughout the geological time-scale (e.g. Early Jurassic such organisms were absent carbonate platforms are ramp-like). Many reefs exhibit prominent biotic and sedimentological zonation which is controlled by changes in wave energy, light intensity, degree of exposure and sedimentation rate.

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REEF FACIES AND ENVIRONMENTS:

Reef Complexes (Fig. 9.50): These are large reef tracts 100s to 1000s of km long; e.g. those developed at rimmed shelf margins.

Reef Complexes Reef Patches Reef Mounds

- Reef crest & reef front are the main productive zones, extending from the highest point on the reef (the crest) to a point where frame construction ceases (downward to 70-100m below sea-level) Breakage is maximum at the crest by wave action and periodical subaerial erosion. - Forereef slope extends from the reef front to the basin floor and is fed by sediment derived from the reef through collapse, gravity flows, storms, etc - Reef flat is located behind the reef crest and can be broadly divided into a pavement (narrow zone lying immediately behind the crest with a water depth at most of a few meters) and a sand apron (extending into the platform interior; water depth about 10m). - Backreef lagoons include sediments varying with water depth & degree of shelter provided by reefal rim.

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REEFS
Patch Reefs (Fig. 9.52): These are isolated reefs which develop in shallow-water environments (e.g. platform interiors, inner ramps) from a few 10s of m to 10 km across.

- Regional variation in the style of patch reef development reflect differences in water depth and environmental energy. - Availability of suitable substrates appears to be a principle control on the distribution of patch reef complexes.
Reef Mounds (and mud mounds): These are by far the most abundant reefal structures in the geological record. They are typically matrix-rich, frame-deficient, lensoid (biohermal) or tabular (biostromal) structures. - They can be largely composed of bioclastic accumulations or carbonate mud or peloidal. - They are also subject to the same environmental controls that govern all reef growth.

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CARBONATE SLOPE DEPOSYSTEMS

On high-relief, steep-sided carbonate platforms, there is an abrupt transition at the shallow-water platform margin to a transitional slope facies in which the bulk of sediment has been re-sedimented.

Carbonate slope heights range from 10s to 1000s m with the slope angles from ~1 to 90. Slope profiles are mostly concave upwards, but highly variable. Grainy, non-cohesive mud-free sediments (e.g. carbonate sands, conglomerates) are able to construct steeper slopes than muddy sediments. Early lithification of carbonate mud and early cementation of granular sediments grant carbonates the possibility to build steeper slopes relatively to silicilcastics. 3 types of carbonate slopes have been identified from modern platforms:
a- Erosional slopes [steep; >25] represent exposed submarine rockwalls or slopes truncated by collapse of large sections of the platform margin, b- Bypass slopes [relatively steep; >10-12] accumulate drapes of pelagic sediment, yet they also host material from shallow-water platform edges, c- Accretionary slopes [low angle; <10] are built of sediment gravity flow deposits. The major site of deposition is the lower slope apron {mud-supported debris flows & coarse turbidites}

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5.4. Offshore Carbonate Deposystems

Similarly to siliciclastics settings, criteria used to characterize offshore carbonate deposits are bed thickness, grain size, sedimentary structures, and faunas. Usually sediments are finely laminated muddy (finely grained) carbonates.

Storms produce a wide range of stratification types in offshore siliciclastic regimes and have a major effect in carbonate and mixed siliciclastic-carbonate sediments, particularly in ramp settings. In fact, below fairweather wave base, storms are the dominant control on sediment movement. * Cyclicity based on the packaging of storm beds is often recognized. Since burrowing is inhibited in deep waters, high preservation potential is achieved towards distal parts of ramps, while bioturbation dominates shallower zones..

Hummocky cross-stratification (HSC): a form of medium- to large-scale cross-stratification, in which the undulating and gently dipping laminae preserve a 3-D bedform comprising large amplitude (1-5m), low relief (0.10.5m) mounds and troughs.

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5.6. Deep Seas

Originally, deep sea sediments were thought of consisting mostly of pelagic clays and biogenic oozes deposited in quiet undisturbed floors. Later sands were also demonstrated to occur in deep seas as a result of turbidity currents (density currents). Such deposits are graded, they were called greywacke and their formation flysch. Now we use turbidite for deposits that are produced by turbidity currents.

Deep-water sands and gravels are interpreted in terms of their transporting, depostional and postdepositional processes (after Bouma, 1962). Deep-water sediments are distributed in 3 principles environments of deposition (Fig. 10.1): - basin floor, - submarine fan, - slope apron
Bouma Sequence: medium grained sand/mud turbidites (graded beds) with a preferential sequence of sedimentary structure.

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