Earth Science Institute of the SAS
Topic
Late Cretaceous-Paleogene bioevents in the evolution of planktonic foraminifera and their relation to paleoenvironmental changes
PhD. program
Paleontology
Name of the supervisor
doc. RNDr. Ján Soták, DrSc.
Contact:
Receiving school
Prírodovedecká fakulta UK
Annotation
Planktonic foraminifera are an important component of marine zooplankton, which sensitively responds of changes in temperature, amount of nutrients, stratification of the water column, oxygen deficit, and other environmental factors. Their phenotypic plasticity is especially apparent during the Late Cretaceous and Paleogene, i.e. During the period of global changes related to impacts, syngenetic volcanism, hyperthermal periods, activity of upwelling currents, expansion of oxygen minimum zones (OMZ), etc. The main evolutionary changes and innovations of the foraminiferal fauna appear in periods of instability of the Earth's climate systems after the K/Pg boundary. This instability is manifested by hyperthermal events in the Upper Danian (LDE - 62.16 million years) and at the Paleocene/Eocene boundary (PETM - 55.5 million years), the climatic optimum in the Lutetian (MECO - 41.2 million years), climatic cooling at the end Eocene (TEE - 33.3 million years) and the improvement of climatic conditions from the base of the Chattian to the warming in the early Miocene (22.0 million years). These changes of paleoenvironments are recorded in the microfauna of planktonic foraminifera, by the presence of stressfull and malformed species, bioevents of extinction and recovery, morphogenesis and radiation of new taxa, the development of new life strategies, symbiotic habitats, changes in the functional morphology of tests, thermophilic and cool-water preferences, trophic modes, etc. The task of the dissertation will be to analyze the planktonic foraminiferal microfauna of the Upper Cretaceous and Paleogene formations of the Western Carpathians in terms of biochronology, taxonomy, systematics, diversity, test structure and calcification, isotopic composition and other age data and paleoenvironmental proxies. Its result will be the interpretation of bioproductivity, paleotemperature, humidity, oxygen concentration, acidification, circulation and hydrological regime of the Western Carpathian basins at the end of the Cretaceous and during the Paleogene.