Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Comparing the “reef mounds” at Solnhofen with modern seagrass bed mounds

This post is one in a series of posts which compares the depositional environment of the late Jurassic lithographic limestones at Solnhofen in Germany based on extracts from Solnhofen: A Study in Mesozoic Palaeontology with observations made at a modern inter-tidal mudflat at Ha Pak Nai, Deep Bay, New Territories, Hong Kong and proposes an inter-tidal mudflat origin for the examples cited.

This post compares comments made on the presence of “reef-mounds” with photographs of seagrass bed mounds (Halophila beccari) exposed at low tide on the inter-tidal mudflat at Ha Pak Nai, Deep Bay, Hong Kong.

Extract from: Solnhofen: A Study in Mesozoic Palaeontology

“Mounds, made from sponges and cyanobacteria (now dead) and their trapped sediment, protruded from the lagoon floor, leaving depressions where the plattenkalk sediments accumulated. The irregular topography formed by the dead sponge – algal and coral – encrusted mounds would have helped to limit the strength of water currents” (Barthel et al - Page 73).

Photographs of seagrass mounds exposed at low tide at Ha Pak Nai


April 2011


April 2011


April 2011


April 2011 


May 2012


June 2010


June 2010


June 2012


June 2012


August 2011


November 2011


November 2011


November 2011

References

Barthel, K.W., Swinburne, N.H.M., and Conway Morris, S. 1994. Solnhofen: A Study in Mesozoic Palaeontology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

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