Numerical stratigraphic forward models as conceptual knowledge repositories and experimental tools: An example using a new enhanced version of CarboCAT

A new, enhanced version of the CarboCAT numerical stratigraphic forward model includes additional cross-platform and down-slope, event-based sediment transport, pelagic carbonate production and deposition, wave-energy calculations and facies sensitivity, and fault-controlled tectonic subsidence. Simple testing of this new version against observed and conceptual models of fault-controlled carbonate platform deposition suggests that the new model formulation is both realistic and useful for either data-constrained best-fit modelling or numerical experiments to explore how carbonate depositional systems produce strata.