Carbonate Sedimentology’s Next Generation: New Perspectives on Shoal Geomorphology

Reeder, Stacy Lynn¹, Eugene Rankey² (1) University of Miami, RSMAS, Miami, FL (2) University of Miami, Miami, FL

A lasting paradigm in carbonate sedimentology is “carbonates are born, not made,” and that biological processes exert an influence greater than physical mechanisms in carbonate depositional systems. What do we really know about physical oceanographic forces and how they impact carbonate geomorphic systems? To address this question, it is necessary to understand these processes in Modern carbonate systems.

Since the initial phase of innovative research in the 1960s and 1970s, the study of Modern carbonate systems is experiencing a renaissance. Recent technological advances allow oceanographic processes and their sedimentologic products to be quantified and understood in a common framework. Synoptic and ‘instantaneous' measurements of physical oceanographic parameters such as waves, currents, and tides can be related to geomorphic setting and granulometry through GIS integration with ultra-high resolution remote sensing images. The results of such studies are illustrating clear linkages between quotidian physical processes and their geomorphic and sedimentologic products in many Modern carbonate systems. In this context, carbonates appear to share many geomorphic similarities with siliciclastics.

The results represent an important step away from qualitative facies interpretations and towards quantitative, specified environmental and sedimentologic characterizations. After understanding linkages between processes and products, the major challenge shifts to comprehending how these together create the sedimentary bodies preserved in the stratigraphic record. Comparisons of Modern and ancient systems, coupled with modeling experiments, hold the potential for significant advances in understanding the complexity of carbonate sedimentary systems.