Observations on the fossil resting spore morphogenus Peripteropsis gen. nov. of the marine diatom genus Chaetoceros (Bacillariophyceae) in the Norwegian Sea

Abstract

I. Suto. 2005. Observations on the fossil resting spore morphogenus Peripteropsis gen. nov. of the marine diatom genus Chaetoceros (Bacillariophyceae) in the Norwegian Sea. Phycologia 44: 294–304.

The morphology and taxonomy of the fossil diatom resting spore morphogenus Peripteropsis gen. nov. from the lower Oligocene through middle Miocene sediments of Deep Sea Drilling Project Site 338 in the Norwegian Sea were examined. The new genus Peripteropsis is characterized by elongated processes on the shoulder or centre of its valves and contains four species including one new species and three new combinations: P. tetracladia sp. nov., P. trinodis comb. nov., P. norwegica comb. nov. and P. tetracornusa comb. nov. Peripteropsis tetracladia, the oldest species of the genus, arose in the early Oligocene in the stratigraphic records of the Norwegian Sea, and all Peripteropsis species including the last species, P. tetracornusa, became extinct by the earliest late Miocene. Some species are biostratigraphically useful in the Norwegian Sea and the North Pacific. Moreover, two similar species which may belong to Peripteropsis, ‘Periptera’ schraderi and ‘Periptera’ petiolata, are also described.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am especially grateful to Yukio Yanagisawa (Geological Survey of Japan/AIST), who provided numerous helpful suggestions and reviewed the manuscript carefully. I wish to thank Fumio Akiba (Diatom Minilab Akiba Ltd.) for invaluable discussions and his careful review of the manuscript. I am grateful to Richard W. Jordan (Yamagata University) who has reviewed and edited the manuscript. I am grateful to two reviewers and an associate editor, Dr Takeo Horiguchi, who have reviewed and edited my manuscript. I am also grateful to Shigeki Mayama (Tokyo Gakugei University) who gave helpful suggestions and allowed me to copy some classic papers. I wish also to thank Kenshiro Ogasawara (University of Tsukuba) and my colleagues for their helpful advice and encouragement. This research used samples provided by the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP). ODP is sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and participating countries under the management of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI), Inc.