Environmental Signatures Preserved in Extremely Shallow-Water Benthic Foraminiferal Assemblages From Oman, Arabian Sea

Abstract

Abstract The composition and preservation state of testate foraminiferal assemblages is of highest importance for paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic reconstructions. Nearshore coastal areas, however, are often subject to harsh conditions, being shaped by continuous wave action and exposed to turbulence, erosion, and dynamic processes of sediment reworking. Situated at the interface between land and water, the environmental signatures preserved in assemblages of benthic foraminifera from coastal environments are therefore prone to taphonomic alterations, which potentially bias the fossil record and compromise accurate reconstructions. In this study, we have analysed the composition and preservation of benthic foraminifera from a suite of extremely shallow-water habitats along the Dhofar coastline (Oman) to document the structure of assemblages and illustrate their species richness. Our analyses show that extremely shallow foraminiferal assemblages from the southern coast of Oman retain the environmental signatures of their habitats despite intense environmental processes, making them useful for paleoenvironmental studies. Features of these signatures are recorded in the structural composition, species richness, dominance, and diversity indices of foraminiferal communities, in addition to numerical abundances of shell preservation groups.