Determination of absolute coccolith abundances in deep-sea sediments by spiking with microbeads and spraying - SMS-method (Table 1)

• Main Authors: Bollmann, Jörg, Brabec, Bernhard, Cortés, Mara Y, Geisen, Markus
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 1999
• Subjects: -; 94-607; Atlantic; Blagnac; Coccolithophoridae; other; Coccoliths; total; Counting <38 µm fraction; Deep Sea Drilling Project; DRILL; Drilling/drill rig; DSDP; DSDP/ODP/IODP sample designation; Emiliania huxleyi; Error; relative; Event label; Florisphaera profunda; Gephyrocapsa spp.; Glomar Challenger; Leg94; Method comment; North Atlantic/FLANK; Sample code/label; Sample code/label 2; Sample comment; Sample mass; Total counts; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.691005; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.691005

A quick new method is described for the quantification of absolute nannofossil proportions in deep-sea sediments. This method (SMS) is the combination of Spiking a sample with Microbeads and Spraying it on a cover slide. It is suitable for scanning electron microscope (SEM) analyses and for light microscope (LM) analyses. Repeated preparation and counting of the same sample (30 times) revealed a standard deviation of 10.5%. The application of tracer microbeads with different diameters and densities revealed no statistically significant differences between counts. The SMS-method yielded coccolith numbers that are statistically not significantly different from values obtained from the filtration-method. However, coccolith counts obtained by the random settling method are three times higher than the values obtained by the SMS- and the filtration-method.