Carbonate skeletons of many Recent and fossil species show morphologic characters which can be related to specific factors in their environments. Similarly, the mineralogy and chemistry of the carbonate from the skeletons are known to reflect a variety of ecologic factors.

Few attempts have been made to utilize the ecologic information from the physical and chemical properties of skeletal carbonates in the analyses of depositional environments of carbonate rocks.

Data are presented to illustrate their usefulness in recognizing certain ecologic factors in the depositional environment of carbonate rocks. In this presentation, particular emphasis is placed on comparative functional morphology of carbonate skeletons. Ecologic factors to be considered are habitat, derivation of constituent grains, rates of sedimentation, turbidity, micro-hydrography, consistency of the sediments, temperature, and depth of the accumulating sediments.

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