Atlas of Benthic Foraminifera (PDF)

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.