The fossil record of coastal coccolithophores.

Modern coastal environments support low diversity communities of eurytopic coccolithophore species but also non-oceanic, coastal taxa, which are often small and weakly calcified. Our understanding of palaeo-coastal coccolithophores is limited by the infrequent study of shallowwater sediments, first, because they provide only stratigraphically-incomplete records and second, because they typically contain poorly-preserved fossils, sometimes reworked fossils, or none at all.