Foraminifera: Aspects of Classification, Stratigraphy, Ecology & Evolution

This book consists of a collection of ten articles covering a variety of modern research topics in foraminiferal classification, stratigraphic distribution, ecology, paleoceanography and evolution. Significant contributions include road-opening studies in the evolutionary occurrence of the group in the Early Jurassic and evolutionary classification of the Cretaceous heterohelicid, planomalinid and globotruncanid planktics. Two general descriptions of the benthic foraminiferal assemblages from the Late Jurassic of Canada and modern sediments of the central Mediterranean Sea further add to the conceptual high density of the volume. A distinct advance in the biostratigraphy of the benthic foraminifera is the definition of the concept of biosequence, which is crucial for a better integration of the foraminiferal changes in time and space with the sequence stratigraphy concepts. Ecology and oceanography studies in both modern and ancient settings focus, among others, on the changes at the Cretaceous/Cenozoic boundary in the Tethyan Region and modern anoxia influences on the foraminiferal communities of the Black Sea. The variety of new and well-documented ideas, data and interpretations complement and at the same time challenge the already existing ones. Overall, the volume is of potential high interest for the foraminiferologists involved in both fundamental and applied inland and offshore studies. See more