An up-to-date atlas of an important fossil and living group, with the Natural History Museum. Deep-sea benthic foraminifera have played a central role in biostratigraphic, paleoecological, and paleoceanographical research for over a century. These single–celled marine protists are important because of their geographic ubiquity, distinction morphologies and rapid evolutionary rates, their abundance and diversity deep–sea sediments, and because of their utility as indicators of environmental conditions both at and below the sediment–water interface. In addition, stable isotopic data obtained from deep–sea benthic foraminiferal tests provide paleoceanographers with environmental information that is proving to be of major significance in studies of global climatic change. This work collects together, for the first time, new morphological descriptions, taxonomic placements, stratigraphic occurrence data, geographical distribution summaries, and palaeoecological information, along with state-of-the-art colour photomicrographs (most taken in reflected light, just as you would see them using light microscopy), of 300 common deep-sea benthic foraminifera species spanning the interval from Jurassic - Recent. This volume is intended as a reference and research resource for post-graduate students in micropalaeontology, geological professionals (stratigraphers, paleontologists, paleoecologists, palaeoceanographers), taxonomists, and evolutionary (paleo)biologists.

A one-stop practical guide to foraminifera with numerous case studies demonstrating their applications, for graduate students, micropalaeontologists and industry professionals.

Agglutinated foraminifera are among the most widely distributed and abundant groups of marine meiofauna in some environments (e. g. marshes, deep-sea). They are tolerant of environmental extremes, tending to live where the evolutionarily more advanced calcareous foraminifera cannot survive. However, largely because of historical reasons, the amount of scientific effort invested in this group has been small in comparison to studies of other marine organisms. The NATO Advanced Studies Institute conference on the paleoecology, biostratigraphy, paleoceanography and taxonomy of agglutinated foraminifera in TUbingen September 17-29, 1989, was a direct outgrowth of two previous workshops on agglutinated foraminifers held in Amsterdam in September 1981 (IW AF I) and in Vienna in June 1986 (IW AF 11). As such, the TUbingen conference constitutes the Third International Workshop on Agglutinated Foraminifera (IW AF III) and was organised to provide a platform for synthesizing the current state of knowledge on this group of organisms, and to strengthen interactions between basic research and applied micropaleontology. One of the main underlying themes of the conferen:e was to identify topics in the paleoecology, biostratigraphy, paleoceanography and taxonomy of agglutinated foraminifera which are in urgent need of further research. About 80 scientists and students from 5 continents participated in the TUbingen conference, which is one measure of the growth in interest in agglutinated foraminifers over the past decade. During four days of technical sessions, scientific results were communicated in the form of 34 oral presentations and 15 poster displays.

Eocene elastic sediments of the central and northern North Sea comprise five stratigraphic sequences. Oldest is the sand-dominated, basin-centered Frigg sequence, which includes submarine fan and apron deposits on the Beryl Terrace and in the Central and Viking Grabens. Middle Eocene Lower and Upper Hordaland sequences are mixed mud and sand units which prograded from the East Shetland Platform and Moray Firth and include discrete slope aprons and basin-center fans. The thin, regressive sand-prone Belton sequence marks the top of the Eocene in most of the basin, except on the eastern margin of the Shetland Platform, where the foreshelf pro grading prism of Thet sequence sandstones and siltstones was deposited. Foraminiferal biofacies analysis of a well on the Beryl Terrace indicates that four or the five sequence boundaries coincide with significant changes in the benthic and planktic foraminiferal assemblages. Cluster analysis confirms the distinct biofacies characterizing each sequence, an impoverished coarsely agglutinated fauna with radiolaria in the Frigg sequence, normal abundances or coarsely agglutinated forms in the Hordaland units, and "Velasco"-type deep-water calcareous benthics in the Upper Eocene, including planktic foraminifera in the Belton. Paleoenvironmental analysis or these biofacies shows an overall Eocene shallowing from lower slope to outer shelf. Subsidence analysis using the derived water depths indicates that the Eocene was part or a major phase of subsidence which began in the Late Paleocene and abated by Oligocene time. Overall, the Eocene constitutes a tectonosequence, or stratigraphic sequence attributable to tectonic influences. Eocene circum-North Sea tectonics include Atlantic domain seafloor-spreading to the north and west and the encroaching Alpine compression from the south. The base Eocene, top Frigg, and top Eocene all correlate with changes in seafloor spreading thought to have contributed, through intraplate stresses, to the stress regime and differential topography of the source area and basin. Latest Eocene eustatic lowering, climatic cooling, and Arctic water circulation are thought to have influenced the Thet sequence.

This project was designed to build a documented chronostratigraphic and outcrop record of depositional sequences calibrated across European basins. Data on standard stages, magnetostratigraphy, and geochronology integrated with high resolution biostratigraphy calibrate the stratigraphic position of depositional sequence boundaries. Higher order eustatic sequences show a significant increase in the number identified. A good portion of the European Mesozoic and Cenozoic succession is set in the sequence stratigraphic context with a stratigraphic record of its bonding surfaces.