Page 186 - Carbonate Facies in Geologic History

Tubular Foraminifera, Komia, Tubiphytes 173

2. They also form low-lying plumose, hemispherical masses interstratified with blue-
green algal stromatolites or codiaceans. The algae are generally coarse, neomorphically
crystallized, and most internal structure is lost. Such structure of "forams" resemble modern
Nubicularia and also Renalcis from the older Paleozoic. Although the growth form is low and
encrusting, as much as 8 m of such rock has been measured topping algal plate mud mounds.
It forms a true boundstone. Dunham (1969b) has demonstrated that it and Tubiphytes are
responsible for growth constructed cavities in the Townsend-Kemnitz reservoir in Lea Coun-
ty, New Mexico. When weathered, the coarser crystallized algae take on a clear, white, or
yellow (iron-stained) color and the foraminifera are black. The foraminifera have micropo-
rous tests and, when in unweathered rock, are white. This characteristic rock caps bioherms
on the seaward or west side of the Sacramento Virgilian complex. It also forms small down-
slope bioherms, "satellites," on slopes within flank beds of larger mounds. Recent opthalmids
are known in Florida waters but are not abundant (Moore, 1957). They flourish only 7-10 m
deep in the relatively quiet shelf water of the Florida Reef Tract, behind the reefs and down
the foreslope of the reef to 40 m depth. They occur in water of normal marine salinity and
circulation. Bioherms in the outcropping Paradox Formation of Utah are composed chiefly
of such forms intergrown with plumose algae (codiaceans?) and contain abundant scattered
Chaetetes and Caninia.

Tubiphytes Maslov, 1956 (Nigriporella of Rigby, 1958; and Hydrocorallines of
Newell et aI., 1953) (Plates IV A, XXIV B)

The form is defined as tiny laminated growths which are, like the tubular foraminifera,
epiphytic, encrusting and of low relief. Their biological affinity is not known. They were
originally described in Russia (Shamovella, Rauser-Chernoussova, 1951 n.nudem and as Tubi-
phytes Maslov, 1956) and later termed Nigriporella by Rigby who believed them to be
perhaps calcified tunicates. A good review of the genus was published by Toomey and
Croneis, 1965, who consider them algae. They commonly contain clear calcite areas about
which faint laminae are concentric. These areas may be openings within the structure of the
organism (conceptacles?) or merely holes, representing vanished elements of the encrusted
biota. Several holes may be seen within a single laminar mass. Like the tubular foraminifera,
Tubiphytes was microporous (porcellaneous). It is dead white in reflected light and dark in
transmitted light. Silicified material from the Big Hatchet Mountains, New Mexico, indicates
that the organism may occur in small irregular balls a centimeter or less in diameter and
arranged in chains or baskets.
On a world-wide basis, Tubiphytes occurs first in the early Carboniferous and is common
into Late Jurassic reefoid strata. The type is of Kungurian (Permian) age. In the southwestern
U.SA it appears in the Late Pennsylvanian, but becomes an important rock builder only in
the Wolfcampian where it may dominate the biota of bioherms, growing intertwined with
tubular foraminifera and existing in flank beds whose sediments derived from organisms
growing on top of the mounds. The exact ecological position of Tubiphytes within such reefs is
not certain; it is believed to form a boundstone with tubular foraminifera on exposed crests
and seaward flanks of many carbonate buildups.

Komia Korde, 1951, a Tiny Dendroid Stromatoporoid (Plate XXIII B)

Wilson et aI., (1963) gives a description and proper taxonomy. Komia was assigned to the red
algae by Johnson (1961). Toomey and Johnson erroneously assigned certain branched forms
of Komia to Ungdarella (Wilson, 1969). It apparently has a branched and flabellate form.
Mostly it exists as tiny broken twigs much like the larger Devonian Stachyoides and Amphi-
pora which it greatly resembles in internal structure. Komia is generally present in bedded
limestones in the Middle Pennsylvanian (Derryan and Des Moinesian) in the southwest. In