Late Visean (Early Carboniferous) reef-building rugose corals from Yashui, Guizhou Province
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Abstract:
Accompanying the Late Devonian Frasnian-Famennian Kellwasser and the Devonian–Carboniferous Hangenberg mass extinction events, the main Devonian reef builders of stromatoporoid sponges and corals disappeared and dramatically declined, respectively. The subsequent Early Carboniferous is the critical recovery period for the reef-building corals. The Visean (Lower Carboniferous) Shangsi Formation at the Yashui section, Guizhou Province has yielded abundant coral autobiostromes (biostromal reefs). Based on foraminiferal biostratigraphy, the age of these coral biostromes was proposed to be late Visean. The Shangsi coral biostromes mainly consist of colonial rugose corals with low diversity. Two species belonging to two genera are identified: Siphonodendron pauciradiale and Stylostrotion pentalaxoidea. Siphonodendron pauciradiale is widely distributed in the late Visean coral reefs in Western Europe and North Africa, while S. pentalaxoidea is limited locally in the South China Block. The occurrence of the cosmopolitan reef-building coral S. pauciradiale during the late Visean at the Yashui section indicates that the recovery and evolutionary process of the coral reefs in South China is consistent with that of the globe after the Late Devonian extinctions.
