Biozonation and biochronology of Paleogene calcareous nannofossils from low and middle latitudes

Calcareous nannofossils have provided a powerful biostratigraphic tool since the 1950’s and 1960’s, when several milestone papers began to highlight their potential use in dating Cenozoic sediments and rocks. Here, we present a new calcareous nannofossil biozonation for the Paleogene Period, which is based on biostratigraphic data collected during the past 30 years. Semi-quantitative counting methods applied on DSDP/ODP drill sites and marine on-land sections have been used to demonstrate the details of the abundance patterns of each biostratigraphically useful calcareous nannofossil taxon. This new biozonation still partly relies on older biozonations and thus represents an integration between those classical biohorizons that proved reliable and new biohorizons proposed as substitutes for bioevents considered problematic. Thirtyeight new Paleogene biozones are proposed using a new code system: 11 Paleocene biozones (CNP1–CNP11), 21 Eocene biozones (CNE1–CNE21) and 6 Oligocene biozones (CNO1-CNO6). The new scheme uses a limited number of biohorizons, one for each biozone boundary, which guarantees more stability although with a coarser resolution. A series of additional biohorizons are included in almost every biozone. This new Paleogene biozonation has an average duration of 1.1 Myr per biozone, ranging from 0.9 Myr in the Paleocene, to 1.0 Myr in the Eocene, and 1.8 Myr in the Oligocene. Age estimates provided for calcareous nannofossil biohorizons are calculated using both magnetostratigraphic and astronomically tuned cyclo stratigraphic data.