Calcareous nannofossils

Discoaster surculus fossil, 15 microns across. The extinction of this species officially marks the beginning of the Quaternary period

Calcareous nannofossils are a class of tiny (less than 30 microns in diameter[1]) microfossils that are similar to coccoliths deposited by the modern-day coccolithophores.[2] The nannofossils are a convenient source of geochronological data due to the abundance and rapid evolution of the single-cell organisms forming them (nannoplankton)[3] and ease of handling of the sediment samples.[4] The practical applications of calcareous nannofossils in the areas of biostratigraphy and paleoecology[5] became clear once the deepwater drilling took off in 1968 with the Deep Sea Drilling Project,[4] and they have been extensively studied ever since.[5] Nannofossils provide one of the most important paleontological records with the contiguous length of 220 million years.[6]


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