Document Type
Article
Abstract
Soft rubber tumbling barrels, some with screen windows, were used to simulate natural abrasion of coral branches. Tumbled for equal times, sealed barrels produced more sediment from coral branches than barrels with windows, and dead coral produced more sediment than live coral. Tumbled dead coral produced a gravel mode (2-4 mm) of fragmented barnacles and a sand mode (0.2 mm) of coral. Tumbled live coral produced similar results but lacked barnacles. Time series tests of 1-1000 minutes showed that closed barrels produced increasingly greater percentages of carbonate mud and increasingly finer sand grain-size modes. Tumbling barrels with screen windows yielded particles of unchanging size through the same intervals. Natural sediment with broken coral branches contained coral sand most abundantly between 0.125-0.250 mm, which is the same as produced by tumbling dead coral in barrels with screen windows. Strong grain-size modes at 0.2 mm produced by sonification and tumbling of live and dead coral in sealed and screen-window barrels support the Sorby Principle of skeletal breakdown.
DOI
10.1306/212F82BA-2B24-11D7-8648000102C1865D (doi)
Publication Date
1983
Recommended Citation
This manuscript is an author version with the final publication available and may be cited as: Hoskin, C. M., Geier, J. C., & Reed, J. K. (1983). Sediment produced from abrasion of the branching stony coral Oculina Varicosa. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 53(3), 779-786.
Comments
Florida Atlantic University. Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute contribution 323.