SMAST Seminar - DFO - "Ocean storytelling with fossil foraminifera" by Raquel Bryant

Wednesday, April 02, 2025 at 3:00pm to 4:00pm

Department of Fisheries Oceanography

"Ocean storytelling with fossil foraminifera"
Raquel Bryant
Assistant Professor, Wesleyan University

Wednesday, April 2, 2025
3pm-4pm
SMAST E 101-102 and via Zoom

Abstract:

Foraminifera are unicellular, marine organisms that boast one of the most complete and extensive fossil records of any organism – living or extinct. Their pervasiveness in marine sediments and rocks from throughout the Phanerozoic make them excellent storytellers about Earth’s past oceans. Among foraminifera, or forams for short, there are varieties that live at the top of the water column amid primary producers and at the seafloor within or above the sediment. Through the life of a foram, they grow their tests (shells) by adding chambers and take on distinct shapes, sometimes depending on the ambient environmental conditions. Thus, their assemblage structure and morphology through geologic time can be used to reconstruct paleoenvironments and interpret paleoceanographic change. In this talk, I present examples of the storytelling power of forams from the Late Cretaceous (~100 – 66 million years ago) Western Interior Seaway and from a new project studying the glaciation of Greenland through the Neogene (~23 – 2.5 million years ago) based on sediments recovered during International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 400.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://umassd.zoom.us/j/93758230260?pwd=OHJ5UDloQkZZaCtXcTlBNlR6Qm0rQT09
Note: Meeting passcode required, email contact below to receive

To request the Zoom passcode, or for any other questions, please email Callie Rumbut

SMAST East 101-102 : 836 S. Rodney French Blvd, New Bedford MA 02744
Callie Rumbut
c.rumbut@umassd.edu
https://umassd.zoom.us/j/93758230260?pwd=OHJ5UDloQkZZaCtXcTlBNlR6Qm0rQT09