Comparative Taphonomy of Modern and Pleistocene Corals, San Salvador, Bahamas

The taphonomic condition of the corals Acropora cervicornis and A. palmata, obtained from two facies of the late Pleistocene Cockburn Town fossil reef, was compared to that of modern subfossil specimens of the same taxa collected from analogous environments. The extent of coverage by potentially preservable and preserved encrusting organisms (coralline algae, worm tubes, bryozoans, and corals) and boring organisms (clionid sponges, lithophagid bivalves) was recorded. The degree to which the material had been abraded by a variety of processes was also recorded. Results revealed that the Holocene corals were significantly (a = 0.05) more degraded than those preserved in the Pleistocene facies, suggesting that the Pleistocene corals were exposed on the sea floor for less time than the Holocene material currently residing on the sea floor. The recent history of the reefs from which the Holocene corals were collected suggests this interval to be less than ten years; however, sedimentological evidence indicates that a single storm event buried and killed the Cockburn Town reef during late Pleistocene time. The taphonomic analysis presented heresupportsthis conclusion.