Environmental Micropaleontology

The Department of Environmental Micropaleontology offers consulting services for industry, government, the private sector, and academic institutions.

Our clients include oil and gas exploration companies, geological survey organizations, and environmental and archaeological agencies.

Our highly qualified and renowned scientists provide studies for geologic columns in wells and outcrops around the world.

Capabilities

• Monitoring pollution of marine basins based on micro- and meiofauna.
• Quaternary stratigraphy based on shelled micro-organisms.
• Laboratory services for the preparation of washed residues, smear slides, thin sections, and other samples for stratigraphic studies.
• Paleoenvironmental reconstruction, including changes in sea level and climate change over time.

Our specialties include the following major taxonomic groups:

• Foraminifera – benthic and planktonic calcareous, porcellaneous, and agglutinated protozoans (brackish, marine; Quaternary – present).
• Ostracoda – small crustaceans with calcareous shells (freshwater, brackish, marine; Quaternary- present).
• Palynomorphs – organic-walled fossils such as plant pollen and spores, dinoflagellates, tasmanitids, acritarchs, and chitinozoans (freshwater, brackish, marine; Quaternary – present).
• Calcareous Nanoplankton – minute calcareous plates of marine algae (Quaternary – present).
• Siliceous Microfossils – opaline algal forms, e.g., diatoms, silicoflagellates (freshwater, brackish, marine; Quaternary – present).