An 800-year record of benthic foraminifer images and 2D morphometrics from the Santa Barbara Basin

Sara S Kahanamoku-Meyer; Maya Samuels-Fair; Sarah M Kamel; Da'shaun Stewart; Bryan Wu; Leah X Kahn; Max Titcomb; Yingyan Alyssa Mei; R Cheyenne Bridge; Yuerong Sophie Li; Carolina Sinco; Julissa Moreno; Josef T Epino; Gerson Gonzalez-Marin; Chloe Latt; Heather Fergus; Ivo A P Duijnstee; Seth Finnegan

doi:10.1038/s41597-024-02934-9

An 800-year record of benthic foraminifer images and 2D morphometrics from the Santa Barbara Basin

Sci Data. 2024 Jan 30;11(1):144. doi: 10.1038/s41597-024-02934-9.

Authors

Sara S Kahanamoku-Meyer^{1

2}, Maya Samuels-Fair^{3

4}, Sarah M Kamel^{5

6}, Da'shaun Stewart⁷, Bryan Wu⁸, Leah X Kahn^{3

9

4}, Max Titcomb¹⁰, Yingyan Alyssa Mei^{3

4}, R Cheyenne Bridge^{9

11}, Yuerong Sophie Li⁷, Carolina Sinco⁶, Julissa Moreno⁷, Josef T Epino¹², Gerson Gonzalez-Marin^{7

9}, Chloe Latt⁷, Heather Fergus⁷, Ivo A P Duijnstee^{3

4}, Seth Finnegan^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Paleontology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA. sara.kahanamoku@hawaii.edu.
² School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA. sara.kahanamoku@hawaii.edu.
³ Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Paleontology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁴ School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA.
⁵ Department of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁶ Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁷ Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁸ Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁹ Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
¹⁰ Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.
¹¹ College of Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
¹² Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.

Abstract

The Santa Barbara Basin is an extraordinary archive of environmental and ecological change, where varved sediments preserve microfossils that provide an annual to decadal record of the dynamics of surrounding ecosystems. Of the microfossils preserved in these sediments, benthic foraminifera are the most abundant seafloor-dwelling organisms. While they have been extensively utilized for geochemical and paleoceanographic work, studies of their morphology are lacking. Here we use a high-throughput imaging method (AutoMorph) designed to extract 2D data from photographic images of fossils to produce a large image and 2D shape dataset of recent benthic foraminifera from two core records sampled from the center of the Santa Barbara Basin that span an ~800-year-long interval during the Common Era (1249-2008 CE). Information on more than 36,000 objects is included, of which more than 22,000 are complete or partially-damaged benthic foraminifera. The dataset also includes other biogenic microfossils including ostracods, pteropods, diatoms, radiolarians, fish teeth, and shark dermal denticles. We describe our sample preparation, imaging, and identification techniques, and outline potential data uses.

Publication types

Dataset

MeSH terms

Animals
Diatoms*
Ecosystem
Environmental Monitoring
Fishes
Foraminifera*
Fossils
Geologic Sediments

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

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