Benthic foraminiferal abundances from eight sites of the Northwest Australian shelf ...

• Main Authors: Gallagher, Stephen John, Wallace, Malcolm W, Li, Chung Leong, Kinna, Belinda, Bye, John A T, Akimoto, Kazumi, Torii, Masayuki
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Publishing Network for Geoscientific and Environmental Data 2009
• Subjects: Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.15468/cuf5t2; https://www.gbif.org/dataset/81f08bd8-f762-11e1-a439-00145eb45e9a

Foraminiferal analysis of Miocene to recent strata of the Northwest Shelf of Australia is used to chart West Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) influence. The assemblage is typified by "larger" foraminifera with ingressions of the Indo-Pacific "smaller" taxa Asterorotalia and Pseudorotalia at around 4 Ma and from 1.6 to 0.8 Ma. A review of recent and fossil biogeography of these taxa suggests their stratigraphic distribution can be used to document WPWP evolution. From 10 to 4.4 Ma a lack of biogeographic connectivity between the Pacific and Indian Ocean suggests Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) restriction. During this period, the collision of Australia and Asia trapped warmer waters in the Pacific, creating a central WPWP biogeographic province from the equator to 26°N. By 3 Ma Indo-Pacific species migrated to Japan with the initiation of the "modern" Kuroshio Current coinciding with the intensification of the North Pacific Gyre and Northern Hemisphere ice sheet expansion. Indo-Pacific taxa migrated to the northwest ...