Repeated regressive cycles are characteristic of the Paleozoic shallow-water carbonates of North America; similar cycles are present, although less abundant, in Mesozoic and Cenozoic strata worldwide. Several of these cyclic carbonates contain major hydrocarbon reservoirs: Permian, Central Basin platform; Mississippian, Saskatchewan; Ordovician and Silurian, Montana. Studies of comparable recent deposits in Florida, the Bahamas, and the Persian Gulf suggest an alternative to the accepted tectonic explanation of these cycles.

The Florida Bay lagoon and the tidal flats of the Bahamas and Persian Gulf are traps for fine sediment produced on the large adjacent open platforms or shelves. The extensive source areas produce carbonate mud by precipitation and by the disintegration of organic skeletons. The carbonate mud moves shoreward by wind-driven, tidal or estuarinelike circulation, and deposition is accelerated and stabilized by marine plants and animals.

Because the open marine source areas are many times larger than the nearshore traps, seaward progradation of the wedge of sediments is inevitable. This seaward progradation gives a regressive cycle from open marine shelf or platform to supratidal flat. As the shoreline progrades seaward the size of the open marine source area decreases; eventually reduced production of mud no longer exceeds slow continuous subsidence and a new transgression begins. When the source area expands so that production again exceeds subsidence a new regressive cycle starts.

The seaward progradation suggested by this model should be observable in ancient deposits.

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