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The shapes of Paleozoic and modern reef-builders: a critical review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

Colin W. Stearn*
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2A7, Canada

Abstract

Paleoecologists studying Paleozoic reef-builders have interpreted their growth forms as responses to conditions of depth and turbulence in reef complexes. Comparison of the shapes of Paleozoic stromatoporoids and corals with the growth forms of modern scleractinians has been used to reconstruct Paleozoic conditions. A review of shape zonation on modern reefs indicates that no general pattern is applicable to all reefs and variations in shape are the result of the interaction of many environmental factors with the genetically dictated growth pattern of the coral. In most zones of a reef a wide range of shapes co-exist. The growth forms of corals on modern reefs are not a simple vegetative response to the many environmental parameters that have been shown to influence form, but are constrained by phylogenetic and developmental influences as well as functional ones.

Interpretations of the environments of western Canadian and other mid-Paleozoic reefs have been based on the growth forms of stromatoporoids. The environmental significance of the shapes has been deduced from comparison with the shapes of modern scleractinians, functional morphology, nature of the enclosing sediment, position of growth, position within the reef, and diversity gradients. The validity of these criteria is open to question and considerable doubt remains concerning the significance of the growth forms. The shapes of reef animals are not specific guides to environments of modern reefs and should not be expected to be guides for ancient ones.

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Articles
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Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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References

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