North Atlantic Foraminifers and Climate: Expedition 395

This research will contribute to an expedition of the International Ocean Discovery Program to the mid-Atlantic Reykjanes Ridge south of Iceland which will take a series of sediment cores up to about 1 km into the sea bed.

Foraminifers are small sub-millimetric organisms that occur in the ocean plankton and secrete microscopic shells that build up in vast numbers in sea floor sediment. The foraminifera will be studied in this project to establish what species are present in the sediment cores and determine the age of the sediment layers. Variations in the type of foraminifers will be used to establish the history of climate variation in the North Atlantic and the contribution of various cold and warm deep sea currents that flow in the area.

Detailed studies will also determine the evolutionary history of several of the modern plankton groups which are currently not well known and in particular establish whether their origin was related to climatic change.