• Main Authors: Michael A. Kaminski, Wolfgang Kuhnt
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.556.8952; http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/18879/1/18879.pdf

The dimensions of tubular agglutinated foraminifera such as Rhizammina and Rhabdammina respond in a predictable manner to changes in the flux of organic carbon to the sea floor. In both the modern western North Atlantic and in an ancient example (the K/T boundary in Gubbio), the slender, finely-grained tubes (<100 µm diameter) dominate in oligotrophic regimes, whereas in eutrophic regimes the abundance of tubes is higher, and the mean and standard deviation of the tube diameter increases. Large tubes (> 500 µm) are present only when organic flux is comparatively high. Although our observations are at present not directly calibrated to primary productivity levels, we maintain that the potential for using tubular agglutinated foraminifera does exist.