ARCHITECTURE AND GROWTH PATTERNS OF CORAL REEFS FROM TAHITI (FRENCH POLYNESIA) DURING THE LAST DEGLACIAL SEA-LEVEL RISE
The study of coral reef systems that developed during the last deglacial sea-level rise is of major interest for the evaluation of the impact of sea-level and environmental changes on reef growth and architecture. Drill cores obtained on the Tahiti fore-reef slopes, during the IODP Expedition 310, include accurate records of reef growth during the 16-8 ka time window. The objectives of this study were to reconstruct the evolution of the biological composition, growth and architecture of last deglacial reefs from Tahiti and to model their development by coupling sedimentological and mineralogical analyses with dating, imaging and stratigraphic modelling methods. The results obtained provide the opportunity, on one hand, to better constrain the effect of the controlling environmental factors (e.g. sea level, wave energy, sediment fluxes) on reef development and, on the other hand, to reconstruct the development patterns of microbialites (microbial crusts) that locally correspond to the major volumetric component of the reef frameworks.