Calcareous nannofossils are the fossilized remains of coccolithophores or calcareous nannoplankton, which are marine haptophytes. Their calcareous skeletons, entire coccospheres which envelope the living individual, is often found disaggregated as coccoliths or nannoliths when they become part of the sediments or rocks as fossils. These calcareous fossils are abundant in marine rocks of all the world's oceans, in the geologic past and in modern sedimentary basins. Their abundance, fast evolution creating varied distinguishable forms, short geologic ranges, and wide geographic occurrence as marine plankton make them ideal fossils for determining the ages of rocks. Age determination of rocks is a fundamental need for all geologic studies, used in reconstructing the geologic history of land areas and ocean basins.
The Nannoworks Laboratory specializes in the use of calcareous nannofossils for age dating and for interpretations of past climate change and paleoceanographic variations. In order to identify these microfossils, researchers and students often rely on reference slides aside from published literature and online databases for teaching and identification. This project aims to be able to systematically consolidate all the Philippine sedimentary material that have so far been studied by members of the Laboratory and create a reference slide collection for horizons containing calcareous nannofossils. Additional material from current fieldworks will also be included. The gathering of all nannofossil abundance and occurrence data for the Philippine samples from existing published and unpublished studies will be part of the study. This reference slide collection and occurrence database of calcareous nannofossils will also be a lasting record of the occurrence of these unique and useful calcareous remains of our past and present Philippine seas.
This research addresses UN Sustainable Development Goals for Quality Education (SDG 4).
Cover photo from http://theorangejellyfish.blogspot.com/2016/02/lakbay-aral-para-sa-science-at-ap.html
