Miami Geological Society Publications
MGS- Bock 1971

Of the many studies of living and dead Recent and Near-Recent Foraminifera which have been made concerning their ecology and distribution, a majority have been regionally oriented, dealing in greater or lesser degree to a single or restricted area. To date, however, no detailed regional faunal analysis has been published for the Recent Foraminifera of the South Florida region. It is the purpose of this Symposium to document the occurrences of all extant foraminiferal species, both benthonic and planktonic, from selected areas in South Florida and the Straits of Florida.

The scope of this Symposium requires that the taxonomy and systematics of many of the foraminiferal groups occurring in this region be re-evaluated and, in many cases, redefined. The initial paper of this volume is, therefore, concerned primarily with species definition and the taxonomy of the benthic Foraminifera. The systematics in the other papers in this volume have been based on that developed in this paper by Bock, in his Handbook of South Florida Benthic Foraminifera.

The remaining papers in the volume deal primarily with the distribution and ecology of Foraminifera occurring in selected marine areas of South Florida. Two of the papers (Lynts, Smith) deal with various aspects of the benthic foraminiferal population in Buttonwood Sound and Lower Florida Bay, respectively. The paper by Wright and Hay considers foraminiferal abundance and distribution in the back-reef environment, occurring between the living Florida reef and the Florida Keys; while the final paper (Jones) describes the ecology and distribution of planktonic Foraminifera occurring in the Florida Straits.

A number of individuals, institutions and granting agencies have variously contributed their time, facilities or funds to enable these studies to be completed. It is impossible within reasonable space limitations to thank all those involved, and the omission of individual thanks in no way indicates a lack of appreciation on the part of the authors.

The majority of the work here reported was initiated at the University of Wisconsin under Prof. Roger L. Batten, currently at the American Museum of Natural History. The studies by Bock, Lynts, Smith and Jones were wholly or partially sponsored by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation to whom the authors express their gratitude. In addition, the University of Miami, Lamont Geological Observatory, Duke University, The Office of Naval Research and the University of Illinois are to be thanked for their contribution to various aspects of the study.

The Atlantic-Richfield Company deserves special recognition in these acknowledgments, for providing most of the funds for the publication of this Symposium.

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