Variations in the number of species of benthonic foraminifera in the Barremian of northwestern Germany
Michael Erhard
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 4(4): 287-303
1968
ISSN/ISBN: 0031-0182 DOI: 10.1016/0031-0182(68)90096-5
Accession: 020580531
Diagrams of the variations in number of species of benthonic foraminifera show characteristic main maxima and minima in the single substages of the northwestern German Barremian [lower Cretaceous]. They are distributed on twenty faunal sections, and they permit biostratigraphic as well as ecologic correlations between the different Barremian sections of the lower Saxonian basin. The number of species increases away from the shorelines and so sections near the shoreline and inner basin sections show varying assemblages of species. A hiatus between upper Hauterivian and middle Barremian characterizes most shoreline sections. As an essential result of the investigations, a striking conformity in the diagrams of the number of species between the different sections of the lower Saxonian basin could be observed relative to several prominent maxima of calcareous foraminifera. Thus, correlations by these methods are of great value within individual basins (like the lower Saxonian basin) but not in inter-basin correlations.