The Carbonate Factory

The carbonate factory is defined as the shallow illuminted seafloor, where sediment particles are ‘born' through crystalization of skeletons or precipitation out of sea water. Many consider the carbonate factory to be the core of carbonate deposition throughout the world.

The carbonate factory is governed by the Goldilocks theory, where the environmental conditions have to be just right. The water can't be to warm nor to cold to deep nor to shallow, salinitiy is keyalong with the amount of terriginous clastic sediment. Because of this we have picked six main controlls to talk about.

1. Evolution

2. Biological Factor

3. Climatic Zone

4. Temperature-Salinity

5. Clastic Sediment Input

6. Water Depth-Turbidity

The actual factory dimensions of a carbonate factory are controlled by the size of the platform and the extent of siliciclastic sedimentation while the vertical extent is controlled by the depth of the photic zone.

Index to carbonate shelf sediments

                                          Proceed on to the carbonate platform question set.