Abstract: Organic reefs commonly serve as the criteria for recognition of sedimentary facies and palaeoclimate. The following three types of the covers of reefs are often believed to result in the death of the organic reefs:(1)the deep-sea sediments;(2)sandstones and mudstones, and(3)evaporites.
Many sections of reefs and their covers indicate the alternation of growth and death, i.e., the alternation of normal and abnormal conditions and of stable and catastrophic periods. Therefore, vertical profiles through the reefs and their covers can only be explained in terms of catastrophism instead of gradualism.
The dramatic subsidence or rise are usually thought to be a leading factor resulting in the sudden death of the organic reefs. It is clear that the death of the organic reefs may represent regionally the beginning of event sedimentation. The development and distribution of the organic reefs on both temporal and spatial scales can be studied by the event sedimentological method.