Fortescue William Millett (1833 -1915) was one of the leading micropaleontologists of the late nineteenth century. His work concentrated on modern and living foraminifera, some of which were collected from the marine sediments around Cornwall and Devon. He also studied the marine clays of the St Erth Formation, which contain a distinctive and diverse assemblage of foraminifera and ostracods together with some enigmatic, spiny micro fossils. The presence of these Pliocene sands and clays, perched on the Paleozoic basement, provides evidence of sea levels significantly higher than the present day. Following Millett's death in 1915, Edward Heron-Allen purchased his samples, slides and notes, placing them in the collections of the Natural History Museum in London where they remain available for study. The diversity of the microfossil assemblages has been further investigated since the 1970s, and remains of significant interest.

A zonation for the London Clay Formation, based on foraminifera, is presented for the first time, and the assemblage is used to determine the palaeoecological changes recorded in the succession. Within the lower Eocene there is evidence of a sea level rise and fall within the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO), indicating that this might potentially be a glacio-eustatic response to the EECO warming. The occurrence of larger foraminifera in the Lutetian-Bartonian interval of the Whitecliff Bay, Selsey Bill, offshore Jersey, and Cotentin Peninsula (France) successions also indicates a warming event (Late Lutetian Thermal Event and Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum, MECO) that may also have generated a glacio-eustatic response.

The Eocene sediments of the London and Hampshire basins, which include the Isle of Wight, have long been a challenge for those interested in foraminifera and biostratigraphy. Despite many attempts at creating a viable zonation, this has proven impossible with Bowen (1954) stating that: “it is evident that no zonal scheme can be advanced for the [London Clay] formation base upon foraminifera”. Here we present a zonation for the London Clay Formation based on smaller benthic foraminifera (SBF) and, in addition, indicate that the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO) event may have generated a glacio-eustatic signal. In the same way, using SBF and larger benthic foraminifera (LBF), the Late Lutetian Thermal Event (LLTE) and the Middle Eocene Climatic optimum (MECO) can also be identified, confirming the suggestion of Dawber et al. (2011). The LLTE and MECO events record the most northerly occurrence of numulitids in the UK, with the LLTE event particularly characterised by the northward limit of alveolinids and other LBF. Offshore Selsey Bill, which is east of the Isle of Wight, there is a distinctive carbonate-rich rock that is almost entirely formed of alveolinids and other bioclastic debris. Known since the 19th century it was, at one time, quarried as a building stone for local use. In the marine area around the Channel Islands, and on the Cotentin Peninsula, there are further occurrences of alveolinids, probably generated by a distinct glacio-eustatic event at this level in the succession. These Early and mid-Eocene glacio-eustatic events clearly pre-date the first, significant, glacio-eustatic event (Oi1) at the Eocene/Oligocene boundary (Westerhold et al., 2020).Bowen, R.N.C. 1954. Foraminifera from the London Clay. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 65(2), 125–174. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7878(54)80004-6Dawber, C.F., Tripati, A.K., Gale, A.S., MacNiocaill, C., Hesselbo, S.P., 2011. Glacioeustacy during the Middle Eocene? Insights from the stratigraphy of the Hampshire Basin, UK. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 300, 84–100.Westerhold, T., and 23 others, 2020. An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years. Science, 369(6509), doi: 10.1126/science.aba6853.

Species assemblage composition of marine microfossils offers the possibility to investigate ecological and climatological change on time scales inaccessible using conventional observations. Planktonic foraminifera - calcareous zooplankton - have an excellent fossil record and are used extensively in palaeoecology and palaeoceanography. During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; 19,000 - 23,000 years ago), the climate was in a radically different state. This period is therefore a key target to investigate climate and biodiversity under different conditions than today. Studying LGM climate and ecosystems indeed has a long history, yet the most recent global synthesis of planktonic foraminifera assemblage composition is now nearly two decades old. Here we present the ForCenS-LGM dataset with 2,365 species assemblage samples collected using standardised methods and with harmonised taxonomy. The data originate from marine sediments from 664 sites and present a more than 50% increase in coverage compared to previous work. The taxonomy is compatible with the most recent global core top dataset, enabling direct investigation of temporal changes in foraminifera biogeography and facilitating seawater temperature reconstructions.

AimTo test if temperature significantly influences the global biogeographic distribution of marine epifaunal bivalves via their skeletal mineralogy.LocationGlobal.TaxaMarine, epifaunal bivalves.MethodsThe skeletal mineralogy of 45,789 epifaunal bivalve occurrences from 669 species from the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) was related to sea surface temperatures from Bio-ORACLE. Binomial regression was used to assess the influence of temperature and seasonality on the distribution of aragonitic and calcite-secreting bivalve occurrences, aggregated in equal-area grid cells.ResultsThe proportion of aragonitic bivalve occurrences significantly increases with mean annual temperature in our global analysis and most marine biogeographic realms. A greater prevalence of calcite-secreting bivalves in seasonal climates could be shown at low mean annual temperatures at the global scale but not within biogeographic realms.Main ConclusionsThe global biogeographic distribution of epifaunal bivalves is significantly influenced by water temperature via their skeletal mineralogy. The mechanism driving this pattern is best explained by the temperature modulation of the effect of Mg2+ on calcite growth. Although this Mg2+ effect predicts an advantage for aragonite secretion at higher temperatures, poleward migration in response to higher temperature extremes will expose tropical taxa to cooler temperatures in the cold season, which may impede aragonite secretion in taxa not adapted to these climates.SignificanceOur results suggest that skeletal mineralogy is likely to influence ocean warming-induced migration patterns.

In the 1960s and 1970s Werner Fuchs of the Austrian Geological Survey (Vienna) described a significant number of new foraminiferal taxa that he considered ancestral to the planktonic foraminifera. All these taxa are well-curated in the collections of the Austrian Geological Survey and have been studied by one of us (Malcolm B. Hart). Some of these taxa, from the Triassic and lowermost Jurassic strata of Austria and northern Italy, are poorly preserved, possibly the result of having an original aragonitic wall structure. None of these taxa possess characters which give the appearance of a planktonic mode of life, although some of them (e.g. Oberhauserella, Praegubkinella) may well have been ancestral to the holoplanktonic foraminifera that appeared in the Toarcian and younger strata. Other taxa in the collections of the Austrian Geological Survey (part of GeoSphere Austria), from the Jurassic of Poland, are preserved as glauconitic steinkerns and are either unidentifiable as foraminifera or suspect in terms of their stratigraphical and evolutionary significance.

The Western Channel Observatory (Smyth et al., 2015) was established by the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC), with Plymouth Marine Laboratory managing the two autonomous buoys that are located to the south of Plymouth in the English Channel (Stations L4 and E1). These two locations are now monitored continually and there is regular sampling of the water column and the sea floor at Station L4. At this location, despite it being located in water with a depth of 50 m, benthic foraminifera are regularly found in the surface water plankton samples. Some of these benthic foraminifera appear to contain algal symbionts, indicating that they may have been living at the time of capture. If benthic foraminifera can be entrained in the water column, while still living, then this provides a mechanism for dispersal or migration that is much more rapid and efficient than the rate at which protists could migrate within, or on, the sediment surface. Re-colonization by foraminifera, following disturbance, could well be facilitated by this mechanism which has only rarely been reported in the literature (Murray, 1965). It is clearly limited to depths impacted by fair weather (~30 m) or storm wave base (80–100 m).Observations of vertical plankton tow (20 μm mesh) samples collected at Station L4 during the three winters (2015–2018) have shown that, following significant storms, the numbers of benthic foraminifera in the plankton tows are increased (Hart et al., 2017). Some of the specimens contain sediment, indicating that they have been picked up from the sediment surface and are in the process of being re-deposited. Such assemblage mixing has significant implications for the interpretation of both modern, and ancient, environments. Analysis of sea floor samples in the area has shown that the recorded species are from the area of Station L4 or Hillmars (in 50 m water depth) although some may have been transported from shallower-water settings by increased run-off during the storm events.Clearly, re-distribution of foraminifera in the environment might make subsequent interpretations of ecology less accurate if the ‘living’ assemblage is not identified (by staining), but in the fossil record such changes could go completely un-detected and lead to inaccuracy in interpretations of palaeoecology. Hart, M.B., Molina, G.S., Smart, C.W. and Widdicombe, C.E. 2017. The Western Channel Observatory: benthic foraminifera in the plankton following storms. Geoscience in South-West England, 14(1), 39–45. [for 2016]Murray, J.W. 1965. Significance of benthic foraminiferids in plankton samples. Journal of Paleontology, 39, 156–157.Smyth, T., Atkinson, A., Widdicombe, S., Frost, M., Allen, I., Fishwick, J., Queiros, A., Sims, D. and Barange, M. 2015. The Western Channel Observatory. Progress in Oceanography, 137, 335–341.

During the early to middle Miocene of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans there were variations in species diversity of the lower bathyal to abyssal plain (3-4.4 km) benthic foraminifcral assemblages allhough, overall, diversity remained high and comparable with that of the modern environment. The early Miocene was a period of palaeoceanographic change and this has previously been documented both through studies of stable isotopes and the rate of appearances or disappearances of taxa (whether evolutionary or ecological). The diversity oscillations appear to represent shorter period change. The lowest diversities are associated with the peak abundance of bolivinids. Other variations cannot be correlated from one site to another and are thought to represent local environmental changes. During the early-middle Miocene, the diversity of the Atlantic abyssal plain was lower than that of the Indian and Pacific Oceans possibly indicating significant diversity differences between ocean basins. On the basis of limited data, it is possible to speculate that the species diversity of the Miocene was perhaps higher than that of today.

With rising atmospheric pCO2, ocean acidification is an increasing threat to carbonate-secreting biota. As the diffusion of CO2 from the atmosphere into the oceans is relatively slow, it is the surface water plankton and the shallow water benthos that are most at risk. In some quite restricted environments, naturally sourced CO2 and NH4 are bubbling to the sediment surface, creating reduced pH environments. Near the Italian island of Ischia (Dias et al., 2010), locally derived CO2 is emerging into sea grass meadows, and reducing pH from 8.17 to 7.5 and this is causing a progressive loss of calcareous taxa and reducing the foraminiferal assemblage to only agglutinated taxa, with a distinct reduction in species richness. In the Gulf of California (Petit et al., 2013) the pH in surface sediments is being reduced from normal values to 7.5 and while the assemblage of living benthic foraminifera seems to be little affected, once dead the tests of calcareous taxa begin to be dissolved (as witnessed by enlarged pores and holes in the carbonate test material). In the plankton, especially the pteropods and heteropods, there is increasing evidence of shell dissolution and fragility with reducing pH and – in the Late Pleistocene of the Caribbean Sea – one can see a reduction in shell quality during interglacial conditions and concentrations of well-preserved shells in the glacial intervals. These records demonstrate that ocean acidification is not a new process and that variations in pH and shell mineralisation extend through the fossil record. In areas such as SW England, maerl (rhodophyte algae) accumulations are potentially at risk and may be overtaken by increases in sea grass meadows. Evidence of short-duration, surface-water acidification events are known from the earliest Jurassic (Hettangian) and the earliest Paleocene (following the K/Pg boundary; see Hart et al., 2019) based on the interpretation of calcareous nannofossil distributions and benthic foraminifera. DIAS, B.B., HART, M.B., SMART, C.W. & HALL-SPENCER, J.M. 2010. Modern seawater acidification: the response of foraminifera to high CO2 conditions in the Mediterranean Sea. Journal of the Geological Society, London, 167, 843–846. PETTIT, L., HART, M.B., MEDINA-SANCHEZ, A.N., SMART, C.W., RODOLFO-METALPA, R., HALL-SPENCER, J.M. & PROL-LEDESMA, R.M. 2013. Benthic foraminifera show some resilience to ocean acidification in the northern Gulf of California. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 73, 452–462. Hart, M.B., Leighton, A.D., Hampton, M. & Smart, C.W. 2019.Global bioevents and the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary in Texas and Alabama: stratigraphy, correlation and ocean acidification. Global and Planetary Change, 175, 129–143.

The Soufrière Hills Volcano, on the island of Montserrat, has an eruption history spanning over 2 million years. During this time the volcano has undergone multiple eruptions with intervening periods of low activity or dormancy. The most recent activity began in 1995 and has seen a series of major eruptive events. One of the most recent of these, and the focus of this study, occurred on the 20th May 2006. This major dome collapse produced 90 million m3 of volcanic material in only 3 hours, propelling ash clouds through the air and pyroclastic flows down the side of the volcano and into the sea. In this study of benthic foraminifera, cores from four sites off-shore Montserrat are analysed, including those collected from a location within the path of the 2006 ash cloud, around 10 km west of the Montserrat coast. In this area, one core contained 6-7 cm of ash overlying hemipelagic sediments. Volcanic ash is present in two distinct layers, one 3 cm layer produced by the 2006 eruption and the other, 3-4 cm layer, from an earlier eruption in 2003. Other cores were collected from areas unaffected by recent ash fall deposits and provide a base line for comparisons within the affected areas. To the east and south-east of Montserrat there is a different situation as this is the direction of travel of massive pyroclastic flows down the Tar Valley and the impact on the sea floor is more dramatic. There are also two extinct volcanic centres that allow the investigation of sea floor re-colonization on different time scales. The sites to the west of Montserrat record rapid colonization by benthic foraminifera of opportunistic taxa, comparable to that seen near Mt Pinatubo in the South China Sea while the sites to the east record a slower pattern of re-colonization by a wider spectrum of taxa, similar to that recorded at Deception Island in the Southern Ocean, with different benthic taxa performing the pioneering role.

The coral-rich limestones of the English Riviera UNESCO Global Geopark were an important component of the original definition of the Devonian System, introduced by Sedgwick and Murchison in 1840. They are, therefore, both a local highlight of the geological succession but have an important position within the history of geology. Formed in the tropical seas of the Middle Devonian, 10°S of the Equator, they also demonstrate the history of Devon in terms of Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics. Caves in these limestones provide an important record of both marine and terrestrial Pleistocene history, including some important hominin remains.

The Permian breccias, conglomerates and sandstones of the English Riviera UNESCO Global Geopark were deposited in quite harsh, desert environments just north of the Permian Equator. Body fossil evidence is completely lacking but rare trace fossils provide evidence of a land-based community. There is a variety of traces present, probably indicative of the presence of a range of unknown animals. Though these animals cannot be identified, their occurrence is important in the understanding of the biodiversity of these Permian environments.

Logging data are measurements of physical properties of the formation surrounding a borehole, acquired in situ after completion of coring (wireline logging) or during drilling (Logging-While-Drilling, LWD). The range of data (resistivity, gamma radiation, velocity, density, borehole images,…) in any hole depends on the scientific objectives and operational constraints.

The southern coastline of SW England is characterized by a number of drowned river valleys (known locally as rias) that contain a range of important estuarine environments including saltmarsh, mud flats, sea grass meadows and open marine sands. All of these 'rias' drain catchments with Devonian and Carboniferous rocks that were intruded by granite during the Variscan Orogeny and which were mineralized at that time. The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Heritage UNESCO World Heritage Site records the exploitation of these minerals since Roman times, though mining ceased in the twentieth century. All these mineralized rocks, mining waste and the occasional 'flood' of old mine workings have contaminated the estuaries with Cu, Zn, Sn, As, Cr, Hg, Ag, etc., which, in many places, may have left a record of foraminifera with test abnormalities. Since 1973, in a series of student-led projects, the estuaries of the region have been studied for their foraminiferal assemblages, sometimes including sampling strategies that meant monthly, or 3-monthly, suites of samples being collected. The Fal Estuary is one of the largest and most complex of the 'rias' and, while draining mineralized areas, also suffered a major release of acidic mine waste during a flood in January 1992. Recovery from that 'event' showed that the total absence of foraminifera began to recover within 2 years and assemblages have now returned to pre-incident levels, though still recording malformed individuals. This re-colonization is probably the result of propagule dispersion from more open waters of the Fal Estuary.

The foraminifera of the Gault Clay Formation (Middle and Upper Albian) are reviewed and their biostratigraphy compared to that of the standard ammonite-based zonation and the original bed numbers that are used by most workers on the formation. The change from an aragonitic assemblage in the Lower Gault to an assemblage dominated by agglutinated foraminifera in the Upper Gault is discussed in terms of changing palaeogeography and sea-level.

The pteropods (sea butterflies) and heteropods (sea elephants) are two groups of holoplanktonic gastropods that are important components of the modern, open ocean, plankton. The geological record of the pteropods (Pteropoda) and heteropods (Pterotracheoidea) extends to at least the earliest Eocene (55 million years ago), although there are records of taxa in the earliest Jurassic and mid-Late Cretaceous that may be planktonic gastropods. The more complete fossil record of pteropods and heteropods begins in the early Paleogene, coinciding with the transition from a calcitic ocean to an aragonitic ocean and it is possible that these aragonitic gastropods either appeared at that time or certainly commenced their wider diversification. While known diversity or species richness are subject to taxonomic ‘distortion’, especially when comparing biological data with palaeobiological data, pteropod and heteropod diversity appears to have been affected by changes in global climate. The heteropods may have been the product of our modern, thermohaline-driven ocean, while the pteropods diversified during the hyperthermal events of the early to mid-Eocene but also survived the transition to the modern, thermohaline-driven ocean and the onset of the present ‘icehouse world’.

The Late Quaternary marine sediments from the Niger Delta lacks an age model using conventional radiocarbon dating due to the rarity of calcareous macrofossils. The proprietary nature of material drilled by companies prospecting for hydrocarbons in the Niger Delta basin, and in the rare cases when samples are available for study as well as freshwater dilution from continental runoff have contributed to this dearth of knowledge. The availability of three shallow marine (∼3 m) gravity cores obtained from the eastern, central, and western parts of the Niger Delta provides the opportunity for biostratigraphy utilising well-preserved marker species of planktonic foraminifera and calcareous nannofossils in the sediments. The last occurrence (LO) of planktonic foraminiferal species Globorotalia truncatulinoides (late Pleistocene) (MIS 2) and the first occurrence (FO) of Globorotalia tumida (Holocene) (MIS 1) are used to identify two interval zones in the gravity cores. The presence of the calcareous nannofossil Gephyrocapsa oceanica (all <3 μm in size) supports a late Pleistocene age (NN19 Zone) for the lower interval. In addition, an increase in the abundance of Emiliania huxleyi up-section is an indication of early Holocene age (NN20-NN21) for the upper interval.

The Christian Malford lagerstätte in the Oxford Clay Formation of Wiltshire contains exceptionally well-preserved squid-like cephalopods, including Belemnotheutis antiquus (Pearce). Some of these fossils preserve muscle tissue, contents of ink sacks and other soft parts of the squid, including arms with hooks in situ and the head area with statoliths (ear bones) present in life position. The preservation of soft-tissue material is usually taken as an indication of anoxic or dysaerobic conditions on the sea floor and within the enclosing sediments. Interestingly, in the prepared residues of all these sediments there are both statoliths and arm hooks as well as abundant, species-rich, assemblages of both foraminifera and ostracods. Such occurrences appear to be incompatible with an interpretation of potential sea floor anoxia. The mudstones of the Oxford Clay Formation may have been compacted by 70 %–80 % during de-watering and burial, and in such a fine-grained lithology samples collected for microfossil examination probably represent several thousand years and, therefore, a significant number of foraminiferal life cycles. Such samples (even if only 1–2 cm thick) could, potentially, include several oxic–anoxic cycles and, if coupled with compaction, generate the apparent coincidence of well-preserved, soft-bodied, cephalopods and diverse assemblages of benthic foraminifera.

The foraminifera of the Gault Clay Formation, exposed in the Munday's Hill Quarry (Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, UK), are described. This quarry, which is worked for the underlying Woburn Sands, is periodically 'refreshed' and the Gault Clay overburden removed. This cleaning of the quarry was undertaken in 2018 and provided access to a fresh clay succession. An 11.4 m section of the Gault Clay Formation was logged and samples collected for micropaleontological analysis, ranging from the Hoplites spathi Subzone to the Hysteroceras varicosum Subzone. A total of 58 specieswere identified from a total of 11,345 foraminifera examined in 20 samples. Two distinctive assemblages are evident; the Lower Gault Clay contains abundant aragonitic foraminifera, while the Upper Gault Clay is dominated by agglutinated foraminifera. This distribution is repeatedly recorded across South-Eastern England and is likely due to ecological constraints such aswater depth, but taphonomic processes cannot be dismissed. The succession at Munday's Hill Quarry is compared to comparable successions in East Anglia, Sussex (Glyndebourne Borehole) and Kent (Copt Point, Folkestone).