Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene Silicoflagellates and Ebridians from DSDP Site 378 in the Aegean Basin, North of Crete

Abstract

Five samples of late Pliocene and two of early Pleistocene age recovered at Site 378 north of the island of Crete were examined for their contents of siliceous remains of marine flagellates. Twelve species are illustrated and described. The siliceous assemblages consist mainly of diatoms, radiolarians, and silicoflag-ellates of the family Dictyochidae with rare ebridians and some endoskeletal dinoflagellates. One new species is introduced: Dictyo-cha aegea. The species distribution in each of the seven samples is expressed in percentages based on counts of 400 specimens per sample. Paleotemperatures are reconstructed by means of the Dictyocha/ Distephanus-xaúo as described by Mandra and Mandra (1972). The assemblages of Core 5 can be assigned to the Distephanus octogonus Zone of Perch-Nielsen (1975a, b) and the assemblages of Core 8 to the Distephanus boliviensis Zone of Bukry (1976).