Synonyms
Biodetrital mound; Carbonate mounds; Carbonate mud mound; Lime mud mound; Microbial mound; Mudbank; Reef mound; Stromatactis mounds
Definition
Mud mounds are biosedimentary buildups, part of the reef system and are dominated by fine-grained carbonates (up and more than 50% of rock volume), which form heterogeneous polygenetic matrix-supported fabrics (stromatolitic, thrombolitic, leiolitic, fenestral, laminar, reticulate, stromatactoid, etc.). These fabrics are composed of both allomicrites and automicrites (abiogenetic, biogenetically induced, and biogenetically controlled). Production and accretion mechanisms in mud mounds are varied and not always clear, but are associated with the activity of microbial benthic communities (in different degrees of participation). Metazoans, being important colonizers, can or cannot occur but never produce a primary skeletal framework. Mud mounds colonized the oceans from the Proterozoic times, and they grow up from deep aphotic basinal...
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Rodríguez-Martínez, M. (2011). Mud Mounds. In: Reitner, J., Thiel, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geobiology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9212-1_153
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