CSDMS 2011 annual meeting poster Donald Potts
A Knowledge Base Supporting Biologically-Based Carbonate Modeling
Chris Jenkins, INSTAAR Boulder Colorado, USA. chris.jenkins@colorado.edu
Peter Burgess, Royal Holloway, University of London London NO STATE, UK. burgess@hotmail.com
Rachel Fabian, University of California, Santa Cruz Santa Cruz California, USA. rfabian@ucsc.edu
Helen O'Brien, University of California, Santa Cruz Santa Cruz California, USA. obrien@biology.ucsc.edu
Abstract:
Marine carbonates are created by the metabolism, growth, death and skeletal accumulations of a diverse array of benthic organisms (e.g. corals, bryozoa, molluscs, foraminifera, calcareous algae, and micro-organisms), but carbonate accretion requires a positive net balance among biological growth processes, processes of biological erosion (mainly by fishes, urchins, polychaetes, molluscs, sponges, algae and micro-organisms), and physical processes of destruction, suspension, transport, deposition and cementation. We are creating a knowledge base (KB) containing empirical quantitative data about individual, population and community properties of major calcifying and bio-eroding species to capture the ecological variation inherent in all biological processes, both spatial (e.g. latitude, longitude, habitat, climate, oceanography, depth) and temporal (e.g. diurnal, seasonal, interannual). The KB will provide realistic values for input to a “virtual aquarium” of characteristic organisms at the center of biologically-based carbonate models describing the initiation, growth and maturation through ecological to geological timescales of such formations as shallow and deep-sea coral reefs, Halimeda beds, bryozoan reefs, and maerl deposits.
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