Foraminifers in late Pleistocene-Holocene sediments of the Deryugin Basin of the Sea of Okhotsk

The study of foraminifers from sediments accumulated during the last 30 ky revealed their similar distribution in the central and marginal parts of the Deryugin Basin, which implies similar environmental changes throughout this morphological structure. The lack or extreme taxonomical impoverishment of the benthic foraminiferal assemblages during the Last Glacial Maximum indicates a combination of several factors: the significant deterioration of the parameters controlling their bioproductivity in response to the general cooling; the development of anoxic bottom conditions; and, probably, the unfavorable influence of cold barite-methane seeps on the geochemical parameters of the bottom waters. The weaker activity of these seeps in the central part of the basin during the Holocene is evident from some deviations in the structure of the benthic foraminiferal assemblages against the background of their general taxonomic similarity.