CLASSIFICATION OF REEFS AND BANKS AND ITS APPLICATION IN THE DRILLING CORES

Many schemes of classification of reefs and banks have been proposed since 19 th century,some focus on descriptions of the individual cases,some on their temporal and spatial distributions.Limestones formed on reefs and banks are characterized by their complex and diverse structures that are indicative of/controlled by the original depositional environments.Ecological differentiations,thus,can be illustrated lithologically as different reef-bank subfacies.Therefore,the features of limestones can be used as proxies to the reconstruction of the types of these buildups.Drilling cores are feasible for outlining the successions of ecological units when the key fabrics that are critically related to reef-bank settings can be observed.