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The 14 km wide Valdorria outcrop (Pennsylvanian, northern Spain) is one of the few examples of entirely exposed flat-topped and high-relief carbonate platforms reported in the fossil rock record. Laterally and vertically traceable stratal patterns expose three phases of growth. Phase I is a 430 m thick platform to slope succession that prograded over 6 km, and is dated as Early Bashkirian (Akavasian-Askynbashian). Phase II aggraded and prograded, exhibiting 180 m thickness of cyclical platform top deposits, dated as Late Bashkirian (Asatauian). Phase III is a mound-shape structure that developed over the platform top of Phase II as a new phase of platform nucleation. It is 535 m thick and 2 km wide, and dated as Late Bashkirian (Asatauian-Transition interval). The observed changes of growth styles during platform evolution, from a prograding to an aggrading-prograding system, and a rapid aggradational phase, are inferred to be controlled by flexural subsidence in the active Cantabrian foreland basin, at the Variscan orogenic front. The metre-scale shallowing-upward cycles of the platform top are most probably due to glacioeustasy, as evidenced by well-recorded subaerial exposure surfaces superimposed on subtidal deposits, and by a stratal pattern recurrent in a short interval of about 160 kyr. Observations of outcropping Bashkirian cyclothems in an isolated carbonate system, devoid of siliciclastic input, are relevant for a better understanding of the impact of high-frequency sea-level fluctuations on the carbonate factory. Moreover, progradation of the platform margin during Phase I reaches a rate of 2500 m/Myr, and 1810 m/Myr during Phase II; rates that are high when compared to other Pennsylvanian examples. The aggradation rate of 447 m/Myr calculated for the Late Bashkirian-Transition interval (Phases II and III; uncorrected for compaction, missing beats and erosion) is uncommonly high in comparison to coeval Pennsylvanian examples. The platform exhibits a self-nourishing prograding microbial boundstone-dominated slope. Thus, the slope-shedding model applies well to Valdorria. However, Phase II recorded eustatic variations able to inhibit the slope microbial boundstone factory during low sea-level stands; this is marked by common slope red-stained breccias synchronous to platform top subaerial exposure phases. Contrarily, periods of relative high sea-level and rapid subsidence in Phase III registered a greater development of cemented microbial boundstone. These observed, partly opposing relationships of sea-level stands, shedding modes and slope architecture provide an improvement of the currently used slope-shedding model. The overall architecture of the Valdorria outcrop compares well with that of other contemporaneous platforms, such as Sierra del Cuera and Bolshoi Karatau. Valdorria shares the high-relief and flat-topped, steep slopes, cyclothemic patterns and occurrence of karst features with the Pricaspian Basin platforms (Tengiz, Karachaganak and Kashagan), with minor variations in facies distribution of the internal platform. Furthermore, the continuous seismic-scale outcrop of Valdorria, together with its isolated setting and asymmetrical growth, makes it a very good candidate for potential subsurface analogues of hydrocarbon-bearing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most phylloid algal mounds are currently interpreted as no more than accumulations of leaf-like thalli supported by mud. We report here phylloid algae from the Upper Pennsylvanian (Late Carboniferous) Frisbie Limestone Member in Kansas, USA, which built small mounds with recognizable primary topographic relief. Cup-shaped algal thalli, growing closely packed and juxtaposed near and above one another, produced a framework in the shapes of topographically conspicuous mounds from smaller, centimeter-scale to meter-scale features. Meter-scale mounds are composites of smaller, juxtaposed, centimeter-scale mounds and intramound areas contain crinoid debris, sponges, bryozoans, brachiopods, and skeletal grains. The intercup voids enclosed in the framework fabrics of individual thalli are filled with a variety of matrix and cements: (1) peloidal grains, both in clotted wackestone and grainstone; (2) early marine cement; (3) microbial encrustations, often oriented against gravity; and (4) mudstone. Bedded limestones equivalent to and overlying the mounds are bioclastic wackestone and differ fundamentally from the mound limestone in facies, biotic components, absence of both frameworks and of peloidal clotted grains. Topographic relief above the sea floor, the growth fabrics with a framework including primary intramound and intercup voids and their complex infillings, and the lithic and biotic differences between mound and off-mound intervals fulfil the stratigraphic and biological criteria characterizing reefs. The model proposed here interprets these mounds as the result of active constructional algal growth, in contrast to published hypotheses that most phylloid algal mounds were passive accumulations of algal thalli within a mud matrix and/or early diagenetic marine cements. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Widespread calcite and quartz pseudomorphs, interpreted as originally gypsum crystals, occur within hemipelagic calci-mudstone accumulated in subtidal offshore environments in the broad marine foreland basin developed on the southern flank of the Ouachita–Alleghanian–Variscan Orogen during mid-Carboniferous times, which acted as a marine corridor connecting the Panthalassa and Palaeo-Tethys Oceans during the Mississippian, and progressively narrowed during the assembly of Pangea. In this study, 67 outcrops of radiolaria-bearing calci-mudstone deposits that contain calcite and quartz pseudomorphs located in northern Spain and southern France were studied to constrain the gypsum spatial distribution and sedimentological features. The recognised microfacies indicate intrasediment gypsum precipitation, accompanied by less abundant bottom-grown precipitates and gypsum cumulates, in extensive offshore, probably several ten to a few hundred metres deep, basinal environments. Gypsum precipitation took place during a short-lived temporal episode during the early Bashkirian time (Voznesenkian), which can be correlated, on the basis of benthic foraminifera, with the coastal (inter- to supratidal) gypsum evaporites identified in NW Africa (Tindouf and Reggan successions in Morocco and Algeria) that would represent the shallow-water counterparts. The occurrence of gypsum precipitates both in offshore hemipelagic calci-mudstones of the Variscan foreland basin and in inter- to supratidal environments of the epeiric Sahara Platform indicates that hypersaline conditions affected vast marine areas, roughly coinciding with the estimated age of closure of the Panthalassa and Palaeo-Tethys marine connection. Therefore, the studied succession represents the trace of a basin-wide evaporitic episode extending for hundreds of kilometres driven by foreland basin restriction, mid-Carboniferous sea-level fall and arid climate. This study provides new insights for the interpretation of gypsum precipitates in offshore marine environments encountered in the Phanerozoic and whose genesis is poorly understood. [Display omitted] • Gypsum precipitation occurs in mid-Carboniferous offshore of a Variscan foreland basin. • These evaporites are broadly distributed marine deposits indicating a regional evaporitic event. • The proposed model provides new light into Carboniferous marine evaporite deposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metazoan reef building receded globally during the Carboniferous after the Late Devonian extinction events. Shallow-water bioconstructions were generally small and scarce, and corals played a minor role in their construction. However, in southern China, one large (50 m high) and three small (6–16 m high) coral reefs, dating from the Late Viséan–Serpukhovian, have recently been discovered in two localities in Guangxi. To understand the occurrence of these coral reefs and to constrain the factors that controlled their growth, three sections around Langping (Guangxi) were measured, and selected samples were analysed using petrography, biostratigraphy, and chemostratigraphy. The depositional environment of these exceptional Mississippian reefs was interpreted as a low angle platform (1–2.5°), recording oligotrophic conditions and normal salinity. The three small reefs have grown around the fair-weather wave-base, whereas the large coral reef has grown in a deeper environment, between the fair-weather and storm wave-base. During Carboniferous, the global temporal reef distribution can be partly ascribed to paleoclimate changes. However, in southern China, the growth of extended Mississippian coral reefs is restricted to a short time window, the Late Viséan-Serpukhovian, which coincides with high amplitude and high frequency sea-level fluctuations most likely related to glacial pulses. Recent studies revealed that several rugose coral species survived the mid Carboniferous glaciation event thanks to the persistence of warm water ocean currents maintaining tropical conditions on the platform. Due to the scarcity of extended coral reefs elsewhere, it cannot be excluded that Tianlin provided an ecological refuge for corals, related to oceanic currents. Another potential favorable factor could be the mid ramp depositional setting. The deep-water platform areas could potentially provide more stable conditions, less affected by global stress events. However, the 'deep reef refugia' hypothesis remains debatable as only very few studies have explored its validity at the community level. Even if the causes of the occurrence of an extended coral reef in southern China cannot be fully constrained, the existence of this large coral framework in the Late Viséan-Serpukhovian provides additional evidence that coral communities did build reefs after the Late Devonian extinction events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]