Pliocene planktic foraminifer census data from the North Atlantic region

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The U.S. Geological Survey is conducting a long-term study of the climatic and oceanographic conditions of the Pliocene known as PRISM (Pliocene Research, Interpretation, and Synoptic Mapping). One of the major elements of the study involves the use of quantitative composition of planktic foraminifer assemblages to estimate seasurface temperatures and identify major oceanographic boundaries and water masses (Dowsett, 1991; Dowsett and Poore, 1991; Dowsett et al., 1992; Dowsett et al., 1994). We have analyzed more than 900 samples from 19 core sites in the North Atlantic Basin (Fig. 1) resulting in a large volume of raw census data. These data are presented here together to facilitate comparison of North Atlantic faunal assemblages. Latitude, longitude, water depth, source of faunal data and source of data used to construct age model (or publication from which age model was taken) are provided for each locality in Table 1. All ages refer to the geomagnetic polarity time scale of Berggren et al. (1985). Counts of species tabulated in each sample are given in Tables 2-20. DSDP and ODP sample designations are abbreviated in Tables 2-20 as core-section, depth within section in centimeters (eg. 10-5, 34 = core 10, section 5, 34 cm below top of section 5).