Ancient Carbonate Tidalites

Carbonate tidalites are sediments deposited in supratidal, intertidal and the adjacent shallow subtidal environments by tidal, biogenic, chemical and diagenetic processes and are among the most common deposits in ancient carbonate platform successions. This chapter illustrates sedimentary facies, environments of deposition, and stratigraphy of carbonate tidalites and describes a few analogs from ancient deposits that commonly are encountered in the geological record. Ancient carbonate tidalites consist of a variety of constituents and diagnostic features formed during deposition and early diagenesis in different environments of a tidal system. Peritidal facies are arranged into meter-scale, commonly shallowing-upward succession of subtidal- to tidal flat facies known as parasequence, and may constitute the bulk of the transgressive and highstand packages of a depositional sequence. The geological record of ancient carbonate tidalites indicates deposition in the proximal areas of a tropical sea, particularly during global relative sea level highstands, in carbonate platforms and environments that have recurred many times since the Paleoproterozoic.