Inside a sediment-stressed Middle Devonian carpet reef: Cave exposes details of three-dimensional facies architecture and palaeoecology

Abstract

During the Middle Devonian, reef growth reached an acme, and corals and stromatoporoids colonized depositional niches commonly considered unfavourable for reefal organisms. This paper documents the detailed facies architecture and palaeoecology of a stratigraphically thin (ca 12 m, ‘carpet reef’), lower Givetian reefal body exposed along the walls and ceilings of the labyrinthine passages in the Klutert Cave in western Germany. The cave exposures (ca 26 000 m2 of rock surface) and data from short cores, neighbouring caves and outcrops document the growth and demise of an autoparabiostrome. The reef forms part of a parasequence with a lower carbonate and an upper clastic unit, bounded by flooding surfaces. Despite the comparatively small study area (ca 1 km2), the exceptional exposure quality reveals facies changes over relatively short distances both vertical and lateral. The sedimentary matrix of the reefal build-up contains between 20 to 95 wt.-% of clay and quartz of silt to sand fraction. Based on this observation, the corals and stromatoporoids thrived in murky waters and under sediment-stressed conditions. Stromatoporoids, for example, display irregular ragged flanks, a feature that is in agreement with a sediment-stressed environment. No evidence of reduced growth rates, decreased calcification rates, or lower numbers of species is found. In fact, coral diversity and density are highest within one of the two biostromal units that show peak clastic matrix values, indicating a remarkable adaptation of reef builders to sediment-stressed conditions. The initial settlement of rugose phaceloid corals took place on a mixed clastic–carbonate substrate (the basal flooding surface). Up-section, a succession of coral–stromatoporoids is present that is here described in great detail. Reef collapse occurred when much of the accommodation space was filled, and argillaceous sediments suffocated stromatoporoids and corals in a protected, low-energy environment.