Abstract
Reef-related carbonate sediments are well known for their extreme diagenetic susceptibility in meteoric environments. The rate at which mineralogically unstable aragonite and compositionally unstable magnesium calcites dissolve in meteoric reservoirs is regulated partly by the amount of sediment surface area that is available for reaction with the bulk aquifer. Most common reef allochems are composed of submicron crystals (Sorby 1879) which have disproportionately large surface areas (Fig. 1, Chave and Schmalz 1966). The total surface area of common polycrystalline, carbonate skeletal allochems, is often orders of magnitude higher than monocrystalline carbonate grains of equivalent dimensions (Walter and Morse 1984). Reef-related carbonate allochems thus have very high diagenetic rates that result from the high surface area of their biogenic, polycrystalline constituents.
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Constantz, B.R. (1986). The Primary Surface Area of Corals and Variations in Their Susceptibility to Diagenesis. In: Schroeder, J.H., Purser, B.H. (eds) Reef Diagenesis. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-82812-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-82812-6_4
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