Definition
Antecedent Platforms are the surfaces, usually older reefs which have been exposed to the atmosphere, and which form the foundation for later reef growth.
Introduction
In the study of coral reefs, the term “antecedent platform” has a special place for three reasons, First, in various guises, it stood as a challenge to Darwin’s championing of subsidence as the principle factor in coral reef growth; second, it stood against the need for glacial eustacy as a factor in reef growth; and third, as a special case (limestone platforms), and at a later time, it co-defined a new paradigm for the evolution of the foundations of modern reefs. The thinking on antecedent platforms moved therefore from the broad to the specific, from ”the alternative ” to “center-stage,” albeit coupled with other processes. This contribution traces these views accenting more the later process-related views but placed within the context of the earlier history.
In the beginning
In the middle and early nineteenth century, ideas on reef evolution and growth were dominated by Darwin’s theory that subsidence played a critical role in the evolution of coral reefs from fringing to barrier to atolls (1842) (Figure 1). However, not all agreed on either the occurrence or primacy of subsidence in reef growth. A succession of contributors proposed that reefs accumulated on pre-existing reef platforms (Rein, 1870, 1881), volcanic foundations in the deep sea (Murray, 1880, 1887, 1889), or surfaces of submarine planation (Wharton, 1890, 1897; Gradiner, 1898, 1903, 1904; Agassiz, 1898, 1899). Indeed, Andrews (1900, 1902), for example, proposed that the Great Barrier Reef itself rested on a surface of submarine planation. All attempted to counter the need for subsidence in the evolution of coral reefs, and this continued even after the results of the Funafuti borehole were published, which showed that subsidence at any rate was a crucial factor operating in the evolution of at least that reef (Cullis, 1904),