This is a basic set of notes on the more commonly encountered foramninfera, mostly mid-Eocene and younger, found in the Indo-Pacific realm
In the 1970's and 1980's a series of papers (including Blow 1969, 1979, Stainforth et al. 1975, Kennett & Srinivasan 1983, Bolli & Saunders 1985, Toumarkine & Luterbacher 1985) summarised the major advances in planktonic foramiiniferal biostratigraphy of the period, while Berggren et al. 1995 calibrated these concepts to a widely accepted Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale [GPTS]. The notes here can hardly improve on these major works but note a few modifications for the SE Asian area.
During the 1930's and 1940's peak of foraminiferal research in Indonesia there was great hope that smaller benthic foraminifera would be good biostratigraphic fossils. Many species were defined in the region, as well as the exploration companies such as BPM having their own internal taxonomic systems and nomenclature. Now the shear number of specific names; both locally defined, cosmopolitan forms, and names mis-applied form other parts of the world, as workers come and go, is seriously impeding the learning and application of smaller benthic foraminifera in both biostratigraphy and palaeoenvironmental work. Sorting this huge group of fossils is an immense task and the notes here are just a new opinions formed on some groups in the past few years.
Larger foraminifera. The comments above for smaller foraminifera can often be applied to larger foraminifera: a long and often very confusing history of name usage, overlapping names and naming concepts. Added to this is the fact that larger foraminifera are often viewed as random thin sections of complex three dimensional forms, and mis-identification in small sample sets is not uncommon.
Berggren, W.A., Kent, D.V., Swisher, C.C., III and Aubry, M.-P., 1995. A revised Cenozoic geochronology and chronostratigraphy. In: W.A. Berggren, D.V. Kent, M.-P. Aubry and J. Hardenbol (Editors), Geochronology Time Scales and Global Correlation. SEPM Special Publication, pp. 129-212.
Blow, W.H., 1969. Late Middle Eocene to Recent planktonic foraminiferal biostratigraphy, Proceeding First International Conference on Planktonic Microfossils, Geneva, 1967, pp. 199-422.
Kennett, J.P. and Srinivasan, M., 1983. Neogene planktonic foraminifera: a phylogenetic atlas. Hutchinson Ross, Stroudsberg, 265 pp.
Bolli, H.M. and Saunders, J.B., 1985. Oligocene to Holocene low latitude planktic foraminifera. In: H.M. Bolli, J.B. Saunders and K. Perch-Nielsen (Editors), Plankton Stratigraphy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 155-262.
Stainforth, R.M., Lamb, J.L., Luterbacher, H., Beard, J.H. and Jeffords, R.M., 1975. Cenozoic planktonic foraminifera zonation and characteristics of index forms, 62. University of Kansas Paleontological Contributions, Lawrence, 425 pp.
Toumarkine, M. and Luterbacher, H., 1985. Paleocene and Eocene planktic foraminifera. In: H.M. Bolli, J.B. Saunders and K. Perch-Nielsen (Editors), Plankton Stratigraphy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 87-154.