I got that article in today. Are you using a seminal paper on carbonate
debris flows as evidence that all carbonate is rapidly deposited? The
article gave lots of criteria how to recognize a debris flow from a in situ
bioherm. The fact is that there is a region where skeletal frameworks are
common and the stromatoporoids are encrusted by algae and a light-coloured
matrix. This is along a line (like at a shelf edge) and is not the breccia
that you are citing. In this region the corals and stromatoporoids are
developed locally
"The skeletal margin facies forms a narrow zone usually 200-500 metres
wide at the outer margin of the complexes. Well defined parallel (horizontal)
bedding characterizes most of it. This facies contains abundant large massive
and bulbous stromatoporoids and corals, set in a predominant matrix of
light-colored wackestones and boundstones that show variable amounts of
dolomitization. Most stromatoporoids and coral material formed locally. In
places small, mound-shaped bioherms a few metres high occur. More rarely,
bioherms occur up to about 20 m thick, as on the southeast margin of the
Ancient Wall complex. The skeletal margin facies is not always recognizable
and its position shifts laterally about 500 to 1000 m or more at different
stratigraphic levels. Similar abrupt lateral shifts of
subspherical-stromatoporoid facies occur in the Swan Hills buildups. The
narrow width and the abrupt lateral shifts make this facies difficult to detect
except where outcrops are both well exposed and accessible.
"The term 'skeltal margin facies' is deliberately chosen to avoid
connotations as to the genetic function which it had in the creation of hte
buildup. Skeletal margin facies as used here includes the organic-reef facies
of Klovan and the reef of Fischbuch. We believe most stromatoporoids
functioned primarily in the role of a massive baffle, and loose skeletal armour
on the sea floor. Some of the best of the limited evidence of organic binding
of any field exposures are exposed at southeast Mount Haultain in the Ancient
Wall carbonate complex. Here a few of the allochthonous blocks and in-place
masses show that massive stromatoporoids are coated with the calcareous algae?
Renalcis or with an unidentified laminated coating suggestive of organic
encrustations. Renalcis also forms distinct mounds with 1 to 3 m of relief on
the top of stromatoporoid and coral rubble at the top of the debris bed
sequence at southeast Mount Haultain."~H. E. Cook et al, "Allochthonous
Carbonate Debris Flows at Devonian Bank ('Reef') Margins, Alberta, Canada,"
Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, 20(1972):3:439-497, p. 448
But the basinal area that Cook is talking about has many rock property
differences. The shallow water clasts are surrounded by a dark matrix. They
give lots of other differences such as the clasts float in the dark matrix,
the clasts are unsorted etc.
Thus this is not a useful article for trying to have bioherms explained via
a rapid sedimentation or catastrophic event.
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm