Cenozoic Planktonic Foraminifera: A Paleobiogeographic Summary

Extract

The Study of Cenozoic planktonic foraminifera has benefited in the last 1–1/2 decades by Deep Sea Drilling retrieval of many cored sections from the major ocean basins of the world. The stratigraphy of planktonic foraminiferal species in these ocean basins has provided important data on evolutionary lineages of species and biostratigraphic utility of species. The geographic coverage of the oceans has given a clearer picture of the biogeography of species and of past oceanographic conditions. It has become clear that the evolution of planktonic foraminifera was controlled by oceanographic and climatic events related to the redistribution of land and sea. The purpose of this presentation is to summarize the major patterns of the paleobiogeography of planktonic foraminifera during the Cenozoic.