Palaeokarst development in a lower Frasnian (Devonian) platform succession,Canning Basin,northwestern Australia

Recognition of palaeokarst in the oldest exposed Devonian (Givetian ‐ lower Frasnian) platform successions of the Canning Basin reef complexes has eluded investigators for over forty years. The first evidence for palaeokarst, developed on microbial mud‐mounds in a single stratigraphic horizon, is documented and records an episode of exposure during early carbonate platform development. Surface palaeokarst features are scalloped surfaces, solution pits and a pipe, underlain by fenestral limestone with sediment‐filled fossil moulds and vugs. The platform succession has variably developed metre‐scale cycles which are composed predominantly of shallowing‐upward subtidal facies, with some cycles having fenestral peloidal mudstone caps. Changes in facies type and stratigraphic arrangement up the succession define two deepening‐upward units (～70 and 180 m thick), with the palaeokarst surface representing emergence following rapid shallowing at the top of the lower unit. The stratigraphic position of the palaeokarst between these two units suggests it may represent a sequence boundary. This may have been caused by a low‐magnitude eustatic fall or footwall‐uplift event superimposed on a rapidly subsiding basin margin.