Influence of Late Quaternary depositional environments on the structure of nannofossil assemblages in the Titanic area (northwestern Atlantic)

The nannofosssil assemblages have been analyzed in five cores taken from the Titanic area of the northwestern Atlantic (∼41°–42° N, ∼47°–50° W, water depths >3500 m) during cruises 41 and 43 of the R/V Akademik Mstislav Keldysh in 1998 and 2000. They correlate the host sediments with the upper Pleistocene-Holocene Emiliania huxleyi zone. The changes in the structure of the nannofossil assemblages and the lithological characteristics such as the content of biogenic CaCO₃, the abundance of ice-rafted debris, and the grain-size composition were used for the high-resolution stratigraphy of sections with defining marine isotopic stages 1–3 of the last 24 kyr. A characteristic feature of the nannofossil assemblages from this area is their enrichment with the cold-resistant species Coccolthus pelagicus during the warm climatic stages and the lack of allochthonous coccolitophorid remains.