Reef-building red algae from an uppermost Permian reef complex as a fossil analogue of modern coralline algal ridges
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Reef‑building red algae from an uppermost Permian reef complex as a fossil analogue of modern coralline algal ridges Weihan Chen1,2 · Yongbiao Wang1,2 · Yafei Huang1 · Tan Wang1 · Zhixing Yi1 · Wolfgang Kiessling3 Received: 7 April 2020 / Accepted: 29 July 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Calcareous red algae have been important components in reefal facies since the Mesozoic but their volumetric contribution to Palaeozoic reefs was usually low. Here, we report a reef-building community dominated by Parachaetetes, a genus of solenoporacean red algae, overgrowing uppermost Permian sponge reefs in Cili (Hunan Province, South China). The fossil assemblage in the community consists of about 88% Parachaetetes, 7% rugose corals, and 5% reef-dwelling organisms, including gastropods, brachiopods, foraminifera and Tubiphytes. Although the biodiversity of this community is far lower than that in modern reefs, the association of red algae and rugose corals shares several attributes with the coral–coralline algal communities of modern tropical reefs. Analysis of sedimentary facies indicates that the reef-building Parachaetetes grew in a turbulent setting near the margin of a carbonate platform, perhaps in a reef-crest environment known from modern coralgal reefs. Although calcifying red algae have been recorded from the Cambrian onwards, this is the oldest site where crustose red algae played a dominant role in reef construction. Keywords Reef · Solenoporacean · Rugose coral · Palaeoecology · Late Permian · South china
Introduction The Phanerozoic history of reef building was very volatile with regards to the production of calcium carbonate, biodiversity and the main reef-building biota (Kiessling 2005). Scleractinian corals are the dominant reef builders in the modern oceans although corals were not the main reef-building organisms during most of the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic (Stanley 2003; Hallock 2005; Kiessling 2009). Algae and microbes have always been important contributors to reef construction, but with different temporal trajectories. For example, microbial crusts of cyanobacteria account for large amounts of reefal rock during the Proterozoic and early * Yongbiao Wang [email protected] 1
School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
2
State Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
3
Section Paleobiology, GeoZentrum Nordbayern, Friedrich-A lexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Loewenichstr. 28, 91054 Erlangen, Germany
Palaeozoic (Newell et al. 1953; Grotzinger and Knoll 1995; Webb 1996; Flügel 2010), but their contribution declined in an exponential fashion during the Phanerozoic (Kiessling 2002), whereas calcareous algae show more of a boom-andbust pattern (Kiessling 2009). Besides the strong contribution of coralline algae to Cenozoic reef construction, the late Carboniferous to early Permian was a time when algal reef mounds were wides
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