Current and sea level control the demise of shallow carbonate production on a tropical bank (Saya de Malha Bank, Indian Ocean) Betzler, Christian Braga Alarcón, Juan Carlos Reolid Pérez, Jesús The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding the project MASCARA (grants 03G0270A and 03G0270B). We are grateful to Captain Mallon, the officers, and crew of R/V SONNE for their excellent support. Many thanks to the technicians of the cruise SO270 scientific party. The Joint Commission of the Extended Continental Shelf, Mascarene Plateau Region, is thanked for allowing work in the Joint Management Area between Mauritius and Seychelles; and the Department for Continental Shelf, Maritime Zones Administration and Exploration (Mauritius) allowed work in the Republic of Mauritius Exclusive Economic Zone. Schlumberger is thanked for the grant to use Petrel software. We thank Sam Purkis, an anonymous reviewer, and editor Kathleen Benison for insightful and constructive comments. Carbonate platforms are built mainly by corals living in shallow light-saturated tropical waters. The Saya de Malha Bank (Indian Ocean), one of the world’s largest carbonate platforms, lies in the path of the South Equatorial Current. Its reefs do not reach sea level, and all carbonate production is mesophotic to oligophotic. New geological and oceanographic data unravel the evolution and environment of the bank, elucidating the factors determining this exceptional state. There are no nutrient-related limitations for coral growth. A switch from a rimmed atoll to a current-exposed system with only mesophotic coral growth is proposed to have followed the South Equatorial Current development during the late Neogene. Combined current activity and sea-level fluctuations are likely controlling factors of modern platform configuration. 2022-01-07T08:59:41Z 2022-01-07T08:59:41Z 2021-07-30 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Betzler, C... [et al.], 2021, Current and sea level control the demise of shallow carbonate production on a tropical bank (Saya de Malha Bank, Indian Ocean): Geology, v. 49, p. 1431–1435, [https://doi.org/10.1130/G49090.1] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/72223 10.1130/G49090.1 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España The Geological Society of America