Annual Report 2008 of the Paleogene Deep-Water Benthic Foraminifera Working Group.

The Working Group on deep-water benthic foraminifera was created in 2008 in order to gain insight into the knowledge of Paleogene deep-sea benthic foraminifera, their palaeoecology, and potential for stratigraphic correlation. Michael A. Kaminski (University College London) was elected Chair and Laia Alegret (University of Zaragoza) as Secretary. Silvia Ortiz is currently working on the biostratigraphical aspects of the project at UCL as part of her post-doc. The group is investigating the benthic foraminiferal turnover and distribution across the Paleogene, and we are working actively in the study of the following boundaries: the Maastrichtian/Danian (Cretaceous/Paleogene), Danian/Selandian, Selandian/Thanetian, Thanetian/Ypresian (Paleocene/Eocene), Ypresian/Lutetian, Eocene/Oligocene and Rupelian/Chattian boundaries. These analyses include detailed studies on taxonomy, paleoecology, faunal turnover, paleoenvironmental inferences and stratigraphic distributions of deep-water benthic foraminifera. The group met in Romania in September 2008, during the International Workshop on Agglutinated Foraminifera. The group will meet next at the TMS Foraminiferal Group Spring meeting in Switzerland in May, 2009.
The following papers have been recently published or are in press:
Alegret L., Cruz L. E., Fenero R., Molina E. and Ortiz S. (2008). Effects of the Oligocene climatic events on the foraminiferal record from Fuente Caldera section (Spain, western Pyrenees). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 269: 94-102.
Alegret L. and Thomas E. (2008). Adercotryma kuhnti sp. nov., a Maastrichtian deep-water species from the Pacific Ocean, and evolution of the genus Adercotryma. Micropaleontology, in press.
Filipescu, S. & Kaminski, M.A. 2008. Paleocene deep-water agglutinated foraminifera in the Transylvanian Basin. In: Kaminski, M.A. & Coccioni, R. (eds), Proceedings of the Seventh International Workshop on Agglutinated Foraminifera. Grzybowski Foundation Special Publication, 13, 25-30.
Kaminski, M.A., Armitage, D.A., Jones, A.P. & Coccioni, R. 2008. Shocked diamonds in agglutinated foraminifera from the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary, Italy – a preliminary report. In: Kaminski, M.A. & Coccioni, R. (eds), Proceedings of the Seventh International Workshop on Agglutinated Foraminifera. Grzybowski Foundation Special Publication, 13, 57-61.
Kender, S., Kaminski, M.A. & Jones, R.W. 2008. Oligocene deep-water agglutinated foraminifera from the Congo Fan, Offshore Angola: Palaeoenvironments and assemblage distributions. In: Kaminski, M.A. & Coccioni, R. (eds), Proceedings of the Seventh International Workshop on Agglutinated Foraminifera. Grzybowski Foundation Special Publication, 13, 107-156.
Ortiz S., Gonzalvo C., Molina E., Rodríguez-Tovar F.J., Uchman A., Vandemberghe N., Zeelmaekers E. (2008). Palaeoenvironmental turnover across the Ypresian-Lutetian transition at the Agost section, Southeastern Spain: In search of a marker event to define the Stratotype for the base of the Lutetian Stage. Marine Micropaleontology, doi_10.1016_j.marmicro.2008.09.001.

Report by Secretary: Laia Alegret, Spain.