Abstract:
Leg 173 recovered in Holes 1067A, 1068A, 1069A, and 1070A a sequence of deep-water claystones and turbidites, that contains in its hemipelagic units unusually well-preserved "flysch-type" agglutinated foraminiferal assemblages ranging from the Turonian to the early Oligocene. The species composition of these deep water agglutinated foraminiferal assemblages shows close relations to that of Tethyan assemblages known from the Campo de Gibraltar flysch, the North African Rifian and Tellian flysch units, the Italian Northern Appennines, the Alps and the Carpathians and exhibits distinct differences to the composition of abyssal agglutinated assemblages from other North-and Central Atlantic ODP-Sites. This biogeographic distribution pattern provides evidence for a widely opened paleo-Gibraltar-Sea-way at least until the early Oligocene. The complete Late Cretaceous to Palaeogene succession of Carpathian agglutinated foraminiferal zones is observed and can be directly calibrated to the shipboard calcareous nannoplankton zonation of redeposited calcareous sediments. Due to the low sediment overburden of maximum 720 m the preservation of agglutinated foraminifers is almost pristine with little secondary cementation and allows new insight in the wall structure of diagenetically almost unaltered flysch type agglutinated foraminiferal species.