Bruno:
There have literally been hundreds of studies of the oxygen isotopic
composition of foraminifera from marine and lake sediments in the
past 20 years. A search of the table of contents of the journal
Paleoceanography for the past six months will yield at least 2-3
papers per issue.
In general, the process involves collecting the core, usually
splitting the core to archive one half of it, subsampling the other
half perhaps every millimeter or centimeter, washing the sediment
sample, sieving it to a fairly narrow size range, picking out the
forams and identifying them, and analyzing 1-10 individual tests
(depending on their mass) of each benthic and planktonic species,
preferably using an online phosphoric acid digestion prior to
dual-inlet isotopic analysis. It's a fairly time-consuming process.
You may want to contact Steffi Dannenmann, at [log in to unmask],
who just finished her Ph.D. dissertation at Albany on planktonic
foraminifera from the Sulu Sea near Borneo, in which our lab analyzed
several thousand foraminifera from four separate species.
Also take a look at Linsley, B. K., 1996, Oxygen-isotope record of
sea level and climate variations in the Sulu Sea over the past
150,000 years: Nature, v. 380, p. 234-237.
Hope this helps!
Steve
>Dear Isotopers,
>
>does anybody have experience with sampling benthic and planktonic
>foraminifera for delta 18O measurements??? Is it possible to isolate
>such material from soil and / or sediment samples and if yes, how can
>that be approached. Any comments are highly apreciated.
>
>Many thanks and kind regards
>
>Bruno
>
>
>Dr. Bruno Glaser
>Insitute of Soil Science and Soil Geography
>University of Bayreuth
>D-95440 Bayreuth
>Germany
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