Deterioration of symbiont bearing morozovellid habitat (planktic foraminifera) habitat recorded within the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum: evidence from the Tethys and sub-tropical Atlantic Ocean

• Published in: Rendiconti online della Società Geologica Italiana
• Main Authors: LUCIANI, Valeria, D'ONOFRIO, Roberta, Giusberti L., Fornaciari E., Rio D., Backman J.
• Other Authors: Luciani, Valeria, Giusberti, L., Fornaciari, E., Rio, D., D'Onofrio, Roberta, Backman, J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO); northeastern Italy; North Atlantic site; planktic foraminifera; Tethyan setting; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11392/2116413; https://doi.org/10.3301/ROL.2014.92

The Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO) is the crucial interval of the Cenozoic climate recording the highest global temperatures of the past 70 Ma, followed by a long-term cooling ultimately leading to the emplacement of a stable ice sheet on Antarctica. The early Paleogene section of Possagno (Venetian Prealps of northeastern Italy), deposited in a bathyal setting, provides an excellent magneto- and calcareous plankton stratigraphic record of the lower-middle Eocene transition as occurring in a marginal basin of the central-western Tethys (~55 to 46 Ma). This section therefore spans the EECO interval. Only a few studies have focused on paleoecological and evolutionary consequences of the EECO on planktic foraminifera. We show that morozovellids, a main group of early Paleogene calcifiers record a first critical step across the EECO because they record a permanent, marked decline in abundance from the Tethys (Possagno section) and North Atlantic Ocean (ODP Site 1051) realms.