THE COMMUNITY FACIES OF REEFS
生物礁的群落相

; Reefs are differentiated spatially both in petrologic composition and structure and in pa leontological composition and structure . For studying the spatial petrological differentiation of a reef the author proposed the conception of fabric-factes in a paper in 1992. In this paper, the author gives the definition of tile new conception of community factes so as to study the spatial paleontological differentiation of a reef.In this paper, the term community means a unique congregation of the organisms in a space,having a unique paleontological composition and structure. The recognition of a community or fossil community is based on the comprehensive biological and ecological or paleontological and paleoecologic sindy of all organisms or fossils in a space.The term community facies is defined as all of the features characterized a special fossil community in a reef,reflecting the chemical-physical parameters of the living environments of the reef fossil community All reefs can be divided into successive, different fabric-faciesin terms of rock fabrics. On the other hand, all reefs can be divided into successive or discrete, different community facies. The boundaries of community faciesare not necessarily coincided with those of fabric-facies.The distribution of community facies and their spatial relationships in a reef reflect the development and evolution of fossil communities in the development of the reef.Therefore, the division of community facies of reefs would been an useful approach to the environmental differentiation and development of reefs.