This book presents both state-of-the art knowledge from Recent (1.8 million to a few millennia-old) coral reefs gained since the eighties, and introduces geologists, oceanographers and environmentalists to sedimentological and paleoecological studies of an ecosystem encompassing some of the world's richest biodiversity. Scleractinian reefs first appeared about 240 million years ago, coral reef systems provide some of the most sensitive gauges of environmental change, expressing the complex interplay of chemical, physical, geological and biological factors. The topics covered include the paleobiogeographical evolution of the main reef builders since the Cenozoic, the effects of environmental forces on the distribution of reef organisms and on reef community dynamics through time, changes in the geometry and anatomy of reef bodies and systems in relation to changes in sea level, tectonics and hydrodynamics, the distribution patterns of sedimentary (framework or detrital) facies in relation to those of biological communities, the modes and rates of reef accretion (progradation, aggradation versus backstepping; coral growth versus reef growth), the hydrodynamic forces controlling water circulation through reef structures and their relationship to early diagenetic processes, the relationship between later diagenesis and rapid changes in sea level, and reef system responses to climate change (with special reference to coral reef records of Quaternary climate). * state of art knowledge from Recent corals reefs* introduction to sedimentological and paleoecological studies of an ecosystems encompassing some of the world's richest biodiversity.* authors are internationally regarded authorities on the subject* trustworthy information
