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Phanerozoic Reef Patterns: SEPM Special Publication Series No. 72

W. Kiessling, E. Flugel, and J. Golonka, Eds., 2002, SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology), Tulsa, 790 p. (Hardcover, SEPM Members: US $110.00, Non-members: US $150.00) ISBN: 1-56576-081-6.

Reefs have long excited the curiosity of ecologists, paleontologists, and carbonate sedimentologists, but continue to present us with more than their fair share of headaches. Our understanding of the ecological and environmental dynamics of modern coral reefs has gained apace in recent years, driven both by the insight made possible with new molecular phylogenetic techniques, and by grave concern over the future of living reefs due to environmental degradation and global climate change. By contrast, the study of ancient reefs continues to be hampered by the twin straightjackets of uniformitarianism and incompatible temporal scales of enquiry. Firstly, the defining characteristics of modern reefs are often either highly problematic or impossible to detect with any certainty in the fossil record, and in any case, many may be relatively recent evolutionary innovations. Secondly, most of the key ecological and physicochemical phenomena that we now believe control the functioning and distribution of modern reef communities can only be measured directly or observed on human timescales, so we still have little understanding as to how factors such as changing carbonate supersaturation, periodic storms, nutrient-enrichment episodes, or even short-term ecological interactions, can explain the evolutionary trends and changes in global distribution seen in reefs over geological timescales. The chasm between those who study the ancient and the modern has yet to be bridged.

This massive volume swells the already healthy number of review publications that concern the evolution of reefs to have appeared in recent years, and is part of the impressive SEPM Special Publications series. It differs in approach from the others in that—as indicated by the title—the emphasis is on pattern, specifically the changing global paleogeography …