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Coral growth and reef growth: a brief review

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Abstract

The growth potential of modern zooxanthellate corals from the major reef provinces is reviewed with respect to Holocene reef growth. Both coral growth and reef growth is enhanced globally at the beginning of the Holocene and is maintained regionally in the Caribbean Sea up to the present in contrast to reefs of the Indo-Pacific Ocean. This regional difference is mainly caused by the siphoning effect of the tropical Atlantic, which is characterised still by a rising sea level in contrast to global ocean. Hence, Indo-Pacific reefs exhibit a well-cemented reef crest and reef roof barren of living corals. The evaluation of reef growth rates throughout the Phanerozoic shows reduced growth rates of more than one order of magnitude in comparison to their modern counterparts. This is a result of compaction and diagenesis but also strongly biased by uncertainties in absolute dating. Point counting of individual framebuilders with known growth rate may result in more comparative figures for growth rates of fossil reefs with respect to modern ones.

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Acknowledgements

The IFM-GEOMAR carbonate research group provided substantial input to this paper. With John Reijmer, Georg Heiss, Moshira Hassan, Dierk Blomeier, Jens Zinke as well as the friends and colleagues from Marseille, Bernard Thomassin, Gilbert Camoin, Lucien Motaggioni and from Glasgow, Colin Braithwaite, I shared many field trips and ideas. I greatly acknowledge their support and their stimulating discussions. Many thanks to Wolfgang Kiessling, who provided a critical review and valuable comments to improve the manuscript. Financial support was provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Du 129/9 and the Leibniz award)

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  1. Wolf-Christian Dullo, Leibniz Institut für Meereswissenschaften IFM-GEOMAR, Wischhofstr. 1-3, D-24148, Kiel, Germany

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Dullo, WC. Coral growth and reef growth: a brief review. Facies 51, 33–48 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10347-005-0060-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10347-005-0060-y

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