Focus on Sedimentary Environments

A modern carbonate beach and lagoon

Grassy Key, Florida Keys, USA


	Part of a single blade of sea grass


	Magnified view of the top image. The scale is in mm and cm.

Home, sweet home

These images illustrate one of the important roles which sea grass plays in the ecology and carbonate sedimentation of shallow marine environments. Several carbonate-secreting, encrusting organisms have made this sea grass blade their home. Upon death and decomposition of the sea grass, this carbonate material will be added to the sea floor sediment.

Can you identify the organisms encrusting this sea grass? Look at the large images before checking your answer.