Group Photo

---

Thanks to all of you!!!

You made INA 8 an extremely enjoyable and fruitful conference.
We are looking forward to seeing you all in Parma

Tania (on behalf of the Bremen people)

Welcome

The 8^th INA Conference is being prepared by the Historical Geology-Palaeontology Group of the Department of Geosciences in Bremen University. Having started as one of the most recently-founded geological departments in Germany, 14 years ago, it meanwhile employs more than 200 people, and nearly 300 students are attending the courses. For ten years I have been the head of the Historical Geology-Palaeontology Group. Our research activities focus, among several others, on the use and applicability of phytoplankton as palaeoenvironmental tools.

The fact that our studies are focused on one group of calcareous nannoplankton, which has until now been quite neglected, the so-called 'calcispheres', explains our great interest in the International Nannoplankton Association. Since the discovery of paratabulation patterns in the 1980s, a considerable proportion of calcispheres has been proved to be the calcareous cysts of dinoflagellates. While the first studies mainly covered their taxonomy, more and more attention has been given to their potential for palaeoceanographic, palaeoclimatologic, and palaeoecologic reconstructions. The Historical Geology-Palaeontology Group in Bremen is the largest, most comprehensive research group working in the field of calcareous dinoflagellates.

Our activities regarding these organisms include:

• Culturing of dinoflagellates that produce cysts with calcareous walls during their life-cycle. Experiments are carried out under different conditions of temperature, light, salinity and nutrients using two special devices, a temperature-gradient box and a light-gradient box, both developed by my group.

• Palaeoecologic aspects of dinoflagellates producing calcareous and organic-walled cysts and their use for palaeoenvironmental and palaeoceanographic reconstructions of the Late Quaternary S Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean and Arabian Sea.

• Pre-Quaternary calcareous dinoflagellates of boreal and tethyan sequences. Besides the systematic inventory, the project focuses on their evolutionary history and their biostratigraphic, palaeoecologic and palaeoclimatologic applicability.