Paleocene coralgal reefs of the western Pyrenean basin, northern Spain: New evidence supporting an earliest Paleogene recovery of reefal ecosystems
Abstract The rate of recovery of photic reefal ecosystems after the Cretaceous–Tertiary crisis is controversial. Most reports from earlier authors concluded that Paleogene reef systems did not completely recover from that crisis at least until Oligocene–Miocene times. Several other authors, however, have pointed out that such conclusion was biased by poor preservation and/or inaccessibility of many early Paleogene successions and that the recovery of reefs might have been a faster process. The latter possibility is here strongly supported with data from the Pyrenean basin, where Paleocene shallow-water carbonate deposits are thickly developed and outcrop widely. Five growth phases of reef development have been recognized and age dated with calcareous nannofossils, which together define a complete sequence of expansion-reduction of reef ecosystems during the Paleocene epoch. Reef growth phase 1 (early Danian, lower–middle NP3 calcareous nannofossil Zone), the initial step of that sequence, demonstrates that coral-dominated reef systems came back into existence less than 2 Ma after the K/T boundary, a comparatively short time considering the magnitude of the end-Cretaceous biological crisis. The climax of the sequence is recorded by growth phase 3 (late Danian, NP4 Zone), when a thick barrier-reef complex was developed, which was at least 200 km in length (but probably much larger) and made up by a well diversified coralgal assemblage. Reef growth phases 4 and 5 (early and middle Thanetian, NP6 to NP8 Zones) were characterized by low-relief reef banks dominated by encrusting calcareous algae and had less well-diversified coral assemblages, features that point to a deterioration of environmental conditions, tentatively interpreted in terms of a climatic cooling. Reef bioconstruction almost disappeared in the Pyrenean basin during late Thanetian times, although in all likelihood this is a regional effect of no evolutionary relevance. The new data suggest that the Cenozoic recovery of reefs was rapid but punctuated, with a phase of important reef expansion already in the late Danian.