Mid-Pliocene Planktic Foraminifer Census Data from Ocean Drilling Program Hole 1237C

INTRODUCTION The U.S. Geological Survey is conducting a long-term study of mid-Pliocene climatic and oceanographic conditions. One of the key elements of the study involves the use of quantitative composition of planktic foraminifer assemblages in conjunction with other proxies to constrain estimates of sea-surface temperature (SST) and to identify major oceanographic boundaries and water masses. Raw census data are made available as soon as possible after analysis through a series of reports that provide the basic data for future work. In this report we present raw census data (table 1) for planktic foraminifer assemblages in 19 samples from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Hole 1237C. ODP Hole 1237C is located on the Peruvian margin at 16? 0.4216'S., 76? 22.6854'W., in 3211.9 meters of water (fig. 1). A variety of statistical methods have been developed to transform foraminiferal census data in Pliocene sequences into quantitative estimates of Pliocene SST. Details of statistical techniques, taxonomic groupings, and oceanographic interpretations are presented in more formal publications (Dowsett and Poore, 1990, 1991; Dowsett, 1991, 2007; Dowsett and Robinson, 1998, 2007; Dowsett and others, 1996, 1999).