A half century
ago, Matthews bemoaned that fine-grained carbonate sediment had been neglected,
except in the Bahamas. To rectify this situation, he examined mineralogy of
carbonate mud offshore of present-day Belize, and found aragonite (as in the
Bahamas), but with an “unusual abundance of” high-Mg calcite, in many cases
between 30–70%. Matthews interpreted the mud to have two general sources:
production on shoals followed by transport, and in situ production. He concluded, “If this investigation has served
no other purpose, it has demonstrated that lime mud may have multiple
origins.”
Genesis of Recent lime mud in southern British Honduras by R.K. Matthews
