During the Frasnian (385.3–374.5 my), stromatoporoid sponge and coral reefs were restricted to about 5,000 km2of Banks Island (Thorsteinsson and Tozer, 1962). The more than 2,000 km long preceding Middle Devonian barrier reef platform, extending westward from Greenland, lay buried in thick sands, silts, and muds. Banks Island reefs are remarkable for several reasons: (a) they were built up on the margins of an equatorial super delta, fringed by one of the oldest coastal lowland forests, whose margins harbored primitive-jawed placoderm fishes, and some of the first amphibians; (b) they flourished in the early and mid-Frasnian, prior to the Frasnian–Famennian global mass extinction events; (c) the reefs grew in four cycles, reflecting global eustatic sea level changes, probably related to glaciations in Brazil; and (d) the reefs reflected back-stepping events to the east during sea level highstands, and westward retreat at lowstands. The Frasnian is generally characterized by a lower...
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Bibliography
Copper, P., 2002. Reef development at the Frasnian-Famennian (Late Devonian) mass extinction boundary. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 157, 1–20.
Copper, P., and Edinger, E., 2009. Distribution, geometry and palaeogeography of the Frasnian (Late Devonian) reef complexes of Banks Island, NWT, western arctic, Canada. In Königshof, P. (ed.), Devonian Change: Case Studies in Palaeogeography and Palaeoecology. London: The Geological Society, Special Publications, Vol. 314, pp. 107–122.
Thorsteinsson, R., and Tozer, T. E., 1962. Banks, Victoria and Stefansson islands, arctic archipelago. Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir, 22, 1–85.
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Copper, P. (2011). Banks Island: Frasnian (Late Devonian) Reefs In Northwestern Arctic Canada. In: Hopley, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2639-2_218
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