Carbonate mud-mounds with zebra and stromatactis structures are present in every Paleozoic system and series, but are more common in Devonian and Carboniferous deposits, reaching their acme in Mississippian System (lower Carboniferous) rocks. Global distributions illustrate that mud-mounds spanned the planet ranging from tropical to polar circles. Such a wide latitudinal span signifies that they not only grew in and occupied warm depositional environments, but also in settings where oceanic waters were cold and seasonally light limited. Moreover, their proliferation during the Devonian and Carboniferous was at a time when planet-wide climatic ice-house conditions are thought to have prevailed. Mud-mounds, therefore, may also be products of cool and cold-water carbonate sedimentation.

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