Devonian-Carboniferous Carbonates in Guilin, South China: Depositional Records of Platform-Basin Complex and Major Biocrisises

Guilin is a well-known tourist city in China and abroad, marked by the breathtaking scenery of spectacular karstic landforms. These landforms dominantly comprise the Devonian carbonates with subordinate Lower Carboniferous carbonates deposited principally in the fault-controlled platform-basin system in which mass extinction events of Late Devonian (Frasnian-Famennian and Devonian-Carboniferous transitions), also known as Kellwasser and Hangenberg events, were well recorded as well. Besides, fault-controlled hydrothermal dolostones were also developed in some carbonate successions such as the basal successions of Devonian carbonates (Givetian) and the lower part of Carboniferous (Visean). This excursion will show you the diversified depositional facies (restricted carbonate platform interior, open platform-platform margin, and marginal slope-basinal facies), time- and facies-specific faunal assemblages (i.e., stromatoporoids, tentaculitids), and the stratigraphic-geochemical records of Late Devonian biocrisises, as well as the hydrothermal dolostones in the Givetian and Visean carbonates in Guilin area. As a bonus, this trip will also show you how the primary (intraplatform) facies had largely controlled the development and distribution of the most spectacular karstic landforms including the cave (speleothem) systems in Guilin.