New high-resolution microfossil record from a clay succession in the US Gulf Coastal Plain reveal more accurate age estimates for the critical Eocene–Oligocene transition (EOT), a global climate event marked by the rapid expansion of the first permanent Antarctic ice sheet 34 million years ago. These data suggest a coeval major increase in sedimentation rate. Future isotopic and palaeoecological work on this core can be more precisely integrated with other global records of the EOT.

The study assessed the population dynamics of living planktic foraminifers on a weekly, seasonal, and interannual timescale off the coast of Puerto Rico to improve our understanding of short- and long-term variations. The results indicate a seasonal change of the faunal composition, and over the last decades. Lower standing stocks and lower stable carbon isotope values of foraminifers in shallow waters can be linked to the hurricane Sandy, which passed the Greater Antilles during autumn 2012.

This paper records the spatial and temporal distribution of deep-sea benthic microfossils (Foraminifera, single-celled organisms) from the latest Oligocene to earliest Pliocene (about 28 to 4 million years ago) from Ocean Drilling Program cores in the southern Indian Ocean. Key taxa are illustrated and their stratigraphic distribution is presented as they respond to a period of marked global climatic changes, with a pronounced warm period in the mid-Miocene followed by subsequent cooling.

The Mid-Brunhes Transition saw an enigmatic shift towards increased glacial temperature variations about 400 kyr ago. High-latitude Southern Ocean stratification may have been a causal factor, but little is known of the changes to the high-latitude Bering Sea. We generated benthic foraminiferal assemblage data and are the first to document a glacial decrease in episodic primary productivity since the Mid-Brunhes Transition, signifying possible reductions in sea ice summer stratification.