Morphometric data of the late middle Eocene to early Oligocene (~40 - 31 Ma) Coccolithophore Reticulofenestra (Order Isochrysidales) ...

• Main Authors: Ma, Ruigang, Aubry, Marie-Pierre, Bord, David, Jin, Xiaobo, Liu, Chuanlian
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2023
• Subjects: Coccolith; Isochrysidales; Adaptive morphology; Eocene-Oligocene; mixotrophy; South Atlantic Ocean
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7988282; https://zenodo.org/record/7988282

The first size reduction (FSR) in the Reticulofenestra-Gephyrocapsa-Emiliania (RGE) lineage (Order Isochrysidales) which occurred in the early Oligocene (~ 32 Ma), is of great significance for understanding the lilliput effect that has affected the coccolithophore communities from late Eocene to this day. We conducted a morphologic analysis on the coccoliths of Reticulofenestra species that lived during the late middle Eocene to early Oligocene (~40-31 Ma), using marine sediments from the South Atlantic Ocean. Our data show increasing size and decreasing abundance of the large species during the late Eocene, leading to their disappearance at the FSR, and a concurrent decrease in the size variability of the small-medium-sized coccoliths whose diameter of the central opening had become very reduced. Although the cosmopolitan late Paleogene through Neogene size decrease in coccolithophores has been linked to the concomitant long-term decline in global p CO2, we suggest here that the FSR was the result of ... : This file includes the raw data and supplementary descriptions that required in the research. The supplementary material includes 1. coccolith assemblage, 2. data reproducibility evaluation, 3 estimated cell and coccosphere sizes that were mentioned in the manuscript and 4. our biostratigraphic interpretation. In the data file, we delineate coccolith morphology by two major structures, the distal shield and the central opening. Then the length and width of both are given in microns. One hundred specimens are measured in each sample, in which the sample IDs are present in the first specimens. The ages are estimated based on our biostratigraphic interpretation, which is introduced in the supplementary text.Funding provided by: National Natural Science Foundation of China Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001809 Award Number: 41876046Funding provided by: National Natural Science Foundation of China Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001809 Award Number: ...