Diatom oxygen isotopes and biogenic silica concentrations : an examination of their potential for reconstructing palaeoenvironmental change

Diatoms represent between 25% and 45% of all marine primary productivity. As yet, however, the potential of using diatom isotopes, in particular oxygen (518Odiatom), in palaeoceanographic reconstructions has yet to be fully assessed. Work here within this thesis demonstrates a method for extracting pure, mono or near mono species specific, diatom samples from marine sediments. Over two time interv…