Foraminifers isotopic composition

The Mg/Ca and of benthic foraminifers are both influenced by the temperature of calcification. This link is the reason that a discussion of Mg/Ca is included in this review. As outlined above, the oxygen isotope composition of biogenic calcite is a function of the temperature and the oxygen isotope composition of the water in which the organism calcified. For benthic foraminiferal records it is widely assumed that mainly the ice volume changes drive the temporal variations in the of... 

Honisch, B., Bickert, T. Hemming, N. G. 2008. Modern and pleistocene boron isotope composition of the benthic foraminifer Cibicidoides Wuellerstrorfi, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, in press. 

Stott, L. D., Kennett, J. P., Shackleton, N. J. CORFIELD, R. M. 1990. The evolution of Antarctic surface waters during the Paleogene inferences from the stable isotopic composition of planktonic foraminifers, ODP Leg 113. In BARKER, P. F., Kennett, J. P. ET AL. Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientific Results, 113, 849—864. 

Last glacial boron isotope composition of planktonic foraminifers has been shown to be 2%o higher compared to the modern value of 23%o. What is the result for surface ocean pH during the last glacial What happened to the carbonate ion concentration and consequently to atmospheric pCO assuming the ECO to be the same as today (see chapter 9) ... 

Planktonic foraminifer tests are widely used to investigate palaeoenvironmental signals from the surface oceans by the analysis of their isotope ratios and trace element composition. Obviously if a past environmental signal is to be reliably reconstructed it is necessary either that the tests have survived with little or no diagenetic alteration or, if diagenetic alteration has occurred, that it has not greatly affected the test chemistry. If systematic diagenetic biases operate on foraminifer tests then they may lead to misinterpretation of past conditions. 

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