Report Abstracts and Programme (pdf 2.9 MB) The foram group of TMS has developed a very successful tradition of organising early summer meetings and last year they were joined by the nanno group in Copenhagen. This was a splendid event and for an encore this year about 70 of us went to the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton for two days of talks followed by a weekend field trip to the Isle of Wight. The meeting was genuinely international with over half the attendants and contributors coming from 13 nations, including large contingents from Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium, others from across Europe and even Japan and Australia. There was also was a very healthy diversity of contributors from famous professors to students giving their first talks. Since we were in Southampton the theme of the meeting was "foraminifera and nannofossils in palaeoceanography" with an encouragement given for presentations dealing with palaeobiological insights from palaeoceanographic studies and proxy calibration. The first day saw sessions on Mesozoic and Cenozoic oceans and on Pleistocene Palaeoceanography. There was also a long poster session, which was a good idea as there were numerous posters. The second day saw sessions on Proxies, Ecology and New Approaches. Last year's meeting focused on plankton and this year the benthic foram community responded by dominating the meeting, with rather fewer planktonic foraminifers and coccolithophore talks (but more posters). For me this was a very interesting balance, as it is a while since I have been to a meeting focused on benthic foraminifers, and it was impressive to see the health of the subject and the range of studies being undertaken. I was not taking careful enough notes to be able to review all the talks but I must mention a few of the highlights. Daniela Schmidt got us all thinking with her clear exposition that the late Neogene has seen both a major size increase in planktonic foraminifers and an increase in their abundance to dominate modern deep sea sediments (globigerina ooze as it used to be called). She suggested increased continental weathering input of nutrients as a key driving factor behind this. Derek Vance explained the mysteries of Neodymium isotope work, and described very elegant new work using them to fingerprint the Nile as the source of freshwater input to the Mediterranean during sapropel formation. Yunyan Ni took us even further into the problems of getting reliable data from some geochemical proxies by comparing Boron isotope measurements from different laboratories. Clémentine Griveaud showed us how important it is to combine ecology and isotopes in benthic foraminifers to understand the so called "vital effects" and to determined the most reliable proxy recorders. For the biotic proxies Michal Kucera used Venn diagrams and trickier mathematics to show that our calibration data is adequate for the task of reconstructing past conditions, at least back to the LGM. Ralf Schiebel later tried to persuade us that we would be able to generate this kind of data relatively painlessly in the future with automated counting systems and robotic foram pickers. Alex Altenbach told about the strange foram Virgulinella which was once abundant in Miocene seas but now is restricted to hostile environments where sadly it often gets confused producing weirdly deformed individuals. More strange environments of benthic foraminifera were explored by Joachim Schönfeld and Elena Perez who took us respectively to deep water coral mounds and methane seeps. For submarine canyon forams Mike Rogerson used spectacular outcrops in SE Spain to show how foram assemblages could be used to determine the position of samples within the sedimentary system. This "bio-microfacies" approach is getting rather popular in industry studies as explained by Nick Hogg in a case study from the North Sea. Hiroshi Kitazato managed to include in one 20 minute talk a review of work of his group on benthic foram breeding experiments, molecular genetics, and morphological taxonomy and present compelling evidence for fine scale pseudo-cryptic speciation. Several other talks included molecular genetic research and it is clear that this having a very healthy effect of stimulating taxonomic and phylogenetic research across micropalaeontology. As the meeting finished with the usual speeches of thanks, and exhortations to join the TMS numerous people commented that this had been one of the most interesting and successful meetings they had gone to for years. Who should we thank? Joachim Schönfeld and Daniela Schmidt did a superb job of making it happen and organising the program. Ralf Schiebel was an excellent host with a unusual ability to add panache to the most mundane of announcements. Emma Sheldon worked wonders in arranging sponsorship. Andy Henderson swiftly converted our copy into web pages. This only left me to make encouraging comments and help with the fieldtrip. Most importantly, all the participants shared their science, talked, made new friends and went home browner and happier than they arrived. For next year Frans Jorrissen has invited us to Angers/France. We know it will be another fine meeting and invite even more of you to join us. Field Trip The Isle of Wight with 97km of coastline provides a wonderful microcosm of the fabled riches of southern England's stratigraphy riches, it is only an hours ferry ride from the NOC, and has some of the most beautiful countryside in England. So it was not very hard to decide where to go for our fieldtrip. Moreover Andy Gale who must count as an honorary micropalaeontologist, since he has probably collaborated with more of us than virtually any other living geoscientist, has been carrying out a range of research on the island over the last few years, and he responded with customary enthusiasm to the invitation to guide us. Nearly half the participants recognised that this was a great opportunity and signed up for the fieldtrip. So after the conference 31 of us headed across to Cowes, found a fleet of minibuses assembled by one of Andy's non-micropalaeontological friends and were driven across the island to Sandown for a fine meal in another of his friends' hotels and late night discussion of microfossils and other stuff. Ralf Schiebel had assured us repeatedly during the meeting that the weather forecasts were good and we woke up to solid blue skies. After a substantial breakfast Andy guided us down to the beach and along it to the Culver Cliffs. Here he talked us through 50Ma or so of Cretaceous history as we worked through non-marine Wealden, shallow marine Lower Greensand and into the pelagic chalk, in one compact almost continuous succession. He then lead us up a very hairy cliff path, over a tricky fence, up to top of the monocline, and down to the Crab and Lobster pub for fine beer and crab sandwiches. Then came the highlight of the field trip as Andy guided us over the Palaeogene succession of Whitecliff Bay with more sequence boundaries, shallowing upward sequences, nummulite beds and charophytes than anyone could hope for in such a small place. Vertical bedding certainly helps. We then meandered happily back to the hotel admiring the extraordinary sight of 1700 yachts competing in the Round the Island race. After a bit of rest and recuperation, and for braver souls swimming, we reconvened for a barbecue and tasting of Isle of Wight wines. Sunday was another outrageously sunny day and we visited outcrops at Gore Cliff (Cenomanian ammonites), Hanover Point (Early Cretaceous dinosaur footprints), and Alum Bay (technicolor Palaeogene - although the cliff base was roped off on health and safety grounds). Then we had another pub lunch before getting the ferry back to the mainland - which had also had the heatwave but did not seem to have enjoyed it as much. Abstracts and Programme (pdf 2.9 MB)