Spatiotemporal Distributions and Controlling Factors of Devonian Reefs in South China

摘要

INTRODUCTION Reefs have a long evolution history in the earth, from microbial reefs in Archaean to coral reefs in the present days, resulting in many publications in the past 200 years. However, widelyaccepted definition and classification of reefs are not established (Riding, 2002). Herein the reef is defined as a carbonate buildup, where the direct or indirect aggregation of sessile epibenthic marine organisms led to the promotion of a higher rate of in-situ carbonate production than in surrounding sediments (Wood, 1999).