radiolaria - Marum

Radiolaria 14 News
we have our pets that we know well and determine easily,
whereas we tend to doubt about other species which we do
not know so well. A logical consequence of this human
preference is the incoherence of our datasets. Correlation
by BIOGRAPH is entirely based on species association or
exclusion and on superpositional relationships between
species and species associations. Incomplete data, in our
case simply caused by the specialization of each worker,
result in huge numbers of undetermined relationships, and
hence poor superpositional control and poor lateral
reproducibility of Unitary Associations.
The new biozonation presented in our Atlas represents
a synthesis of a number of local biozonations based on
What is going on in the Cenozoic?
Material from recent ODP legs in the Antarctic has
resulted in a number of biostratigraphic and taxonomic
studies in the high Southern latitudes. Other studies of
importance are: description of Paleocene faunas from the
Indian Ocean and New Zealand, biogeographical and
paleoecological studies in the equatorial Pacific, flux
pattern studies in the Southern Ocean, a detailed
morphological study of the Pyloniacea and a report on the
Tripyleans in the Subantarctic. Marine pollen and
siliceous microfauna have been reported to record
concurrent late glacial variations in the regional terrestrial
and marine environments around the Okhotsk basin.
Comparisons of Late Miocene to Recent radiolarians from
the Oman margin with the fauna recovered from the Peru
margin upwelling area suggests that the assemblage may
be globally diagnostic of upwelling conditions;
strengthening and weakening of upwelling pulses is
indicated by marked faunal changes. A study of the origin
and the evolution of the Pterocorythidae through the
Cenozoic reveals that there are only two persistent stocks
from which developed fourteen branches treated as genera
and subgenera; interesting trends in abundance and
geographic distribution have been documented in this
family. Comparison of assemblages from plankton and
sediments in the Norwegian fjords and from stations in
the Norwegian Sea, using multivariate analysis, shows
that the largest source of variability is between sediment
and plankton, differences due to season, region and depth
are secondary.
The Cenozoic working group has not had a joint
project, but several of its members have had close
working relationships resulting in valuable scientific
publications which can be seen in the above list of
publications and from the following summary:
News items:
1) Simon K. Haslett (University OF East Anglia) visited
Annika Sanfilippo at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
on a Fulbright Scholarship (October 19, 1992 - Jan 4,
1993). Mr Haslett works on modern distributional
Cenozoic Working Group News
Catherine Nigrini and Annika Sanfilippo
- 9 -
BIOGRAPH calculations. We realized, that sacrifices of
local stratigraphic resolution are unavoidable to achieve a
worldwide correlation. However, the large number of
included taxa results in a good temporal resolution (about
80 U.A. for the Middle to Upper Jurassic and 35 U.A. for
the Lower Cretaceous). We create about 20 zones for the
Aalenian - Barremian interval. Chronostratigraphic
calibration was obtained by correlation to ammonites,
calpionellids, nannofossils etc., and magnetic polarity
zones.
Peter O. Baumgartner
patterns of radiolarians in the East tropical Pacific. During
his visit Mr. Haslett sampled a number of coretops from
the Scripps core collection to compliment his own
samples from ODP Site 677A and 846 in the
Olduvai/Gauss time interval.
2) Donna Hull and Annika Sanfilippo participated in
fieldwork conducted in Cuba from January 11-16, 1993 in
conjunction with the International Geological
Correlations Project #308 (Paleocene-Eocene boundary).
The purpose was to review stratigraphic work in Cuba on
three potential boundary stratotypes and to resample the
sections in detail. Five geologists from the U.S
participated and were hosted by nine Cuban colleagues
from the IGCP committee. The Cuban sections are of
special interest as they contain both siliceous and
calcareous microfossils. Biostratigraphic work on the
sections by Gena Fernandez (planktonic foraminifera) and
Emilio Florez (Radiolaria) has provided the basic
stratigraphic framework. Joint efforts are now underway
between the US and the Cuban team to produce results by
the fall of 1994.
3) During the months of May, 1993 and February, 1994
Dr. Jean-Pierre Caulet (Laboratoire de Geologie, Museum
National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France) visited
Annika Sanfilippo at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
to work on radiolarian evolution in the Antarctic.
4) Annika Sanfilippo and Amy Weinheimer finished the
preparation of the radiolarian samples from DSDP Legs 1-
96 (3000 samples) for the eight DSDP/ODP
Micropaleontological Reference Centers (MRC) around
the world. The material is available at a MRC near you to
compare prepared material with the reports and
illustrations published in the DSDP Initial Reports. This
will help stabilize taxonomy, enable researchers to view
material for biostratigraphic and paleoenvironmental
purposes and prior to a cruise, to better plan subsequent
sample requests from the DSDP/ODP repository.
5) During the months of October and November, 1993
Catherine Nigrini (510 Papyrus Drive, La Habra Heights,
CA 90631) held the position of professor at the Museum
National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris where she worked