1st International Congress on Stratigraphy STRATI 2013

Atlas of Paleocene shallow larger benthic foraminifera

An introductory note
Vlasta osovi1, Claudia Baumgartner-Mora2, Andrea Benedetti3, Antonino Briguglio4,
Massimo Di Carlo3, Katica Drobne5, Carles Ferrndez Caadell6, Johann Hohenegger4,
Botond Kertesz7, Gyorgy Less7, Vibor Novak8, Ercan Ozcan9, Cesare A. Papazzoni10,
Johannes Pignatti3, Nevio Pugliese11, Willem Renema8, Rula Hosseinzadeh12,
Mona Seddighi10, Elena Zakrevskaya13
1

Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Horvatovac 102 a, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
2
Institut de Gologie et Palontologie, Laboratoire Cathodoluminescence, Universit de Lausanne,
Btiment Anthropole, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
3
"La Sapienza" University of Rome, Earth Sciences Department, Pl.e A. Moro 5, I-00185 Rome, Italy.
4
Department of Palaeontology - Geocenter Althanstrasse 14 A-1090 Vienna Austria.
5
Palaeontological Institure I. Rakovec ZRC SAZU, Novi trg 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
6
Dept. Estratigrafia, Paleontologia I Geociencies Marines, Facultat de Geologia, Universitat de Barcelona,
Marti Franques s/n 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
7
University of Miskolc, Institute of Mineralogy and Geology H-3515, Miskolc-Egyetemvros, Hungary.
8
Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum Naturalis, P.O. Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands.
9
Department of Geology, Faculty of Mines, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, TR-34469 Istanbul, Turkey.
10
Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche e Geologiche, Universit di Modena e Reggio Emilia,
Largo S. Eufemia, 19, I- 41121 Modena, Italia.
11
Dipartimento di Matematica e Geoscienze, Universita di Trieste, Via Weiss 2, 34127 Trieste, Italia.
12
Islamic Republic of Iran;
13
Vernadsky State Geological Museum RAS, Mokhovaya 11, bl.2, Moscow 125009, Russia.

A wealth of data on the morphology, biostratigraphy, and paleogeography of Paleogene larger benthic
foraminifera (LBF) is available. The taxonomic and stratigraphic revision of the most diverse groups of LBFs
(nummulitids, alveolinids, orthophragmines) in the 1970-1980 produced the Tethyan SBZ (Shallow Benthics
Zonation) zonation. Recent developments in systematics, isotopic geochemistry, structural analysis of the
complex tests, biostratigraphic interpretation of shallow marine sediments, Cenozoic paleogeography and
paleoclimate in particular, need to be presented in a way that everyone may easily get up to date information
about the species of this particular group of microfossils. In order to obtain full appreciation of recent progress, a
group of micropaleontologists (the Working group on Larger Foraminifera, WOLF) working on Paleogene larger
foraminifera decided that an useful means for integrating diverse data is to produce atlases. Traditionally, atlases
are considered as the most useful tool for the field geologists, regional stratigraphers and paleontologists.
Through several meetings (Ankara 2009, Miskolc 2010, Croatia 2011, Austria and Slovenia 2012), guidelines for
the atlases, including a time-line, have been defined. The updated taxonomy, paleoecology and biostratigraphy of
the diverse Paleogene larger foraminifera (including over 1150 recorded species) will be thus presented through
atlases. It is planned to overcome discrepancies in quantity and quality of data between the Central Tethys area
(for which monographs exist since the late 19th century, and more recently from Turkey and the Northern
Peritethys) and the Middle-, Far East Tethyan and Caribbean bioprovinces, by a) a revision of museum
collections; b) inviting micropaleontologists from these regions to join in this collaborative effort.
The first stage is an Atlas of Paleocene larger benthic foraminifera, where each species-rank taxon (at least 153
known) will be described with original or emended species descriptions, synonymy, biostratigraphic range
information (the SBZ biozonation), paleoenvironmental interpretation, illustrated with original and new images,
including the holotype, and whenever possible, with SEM and CT-Scan3D images.
Keywords: Atlas, Larger benthic foraminifera, Paleogene, Paleocene.

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