Monday, June 29, 2020

Infographic: Reefs Through Geologic History

Academia.edu is always sending me links to papers that I can download. It is a lure to get me to upgrade my membership. I am grateful for the riches that I have discovered on their site.

Last week they sent me a gem-  Palaeoecology: Past, Present and Future by David J. Bottjer. It is a full length book on the field of paleoecology summarizing its scope, its methods, and giving an overview of different ecological domains such as the shallow marine, the pelagic (deep marine), and the terrestrial environments and how they have changed through time. Dr. Bottjer is Professor of Earth Sciences, Biological Sciences and Environmental Studies with the University of Southern California Dornsife, Los Angeles.

One striking aspect of this book is the really informative diagrams that Prof. Bottjer has collated from various papers and books. They really add a lot of value, especially if you want to avoid reading every line of the text!

Here is one which shows the changing composition of reefs through time.


Source: James, N.P. and Wood, R. 2010. Reefs. In James, N.P.,  Dalrymple, R.W., Facies Models 4. Geological Association of Canada, pp. 421–447

They were not always built by corals.

I am going to learn a lot from this book.

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