Diatoms
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Description: Information on these ubiquitous organisms including their fossil record, classification, biology and life cycle with a number of images of individual species.
Diatoms are photosynthesising algae, they have a siliceous skeleton (frustule) and are found in almost every aquatic environment including fresh and marine waters, soils, in fact almost anywhere moist. They are non-motile, or capable of only limited movement along a substrate by secretion of mucilaginous material along a slit-like groove or channel called a raphe. Being autotrophic they are restricted to the photic zone (water depths down to about 200m depending on clarity). Both benthic and planktic forms exist. Diatoms are formally classified as belonging to the Division Chrysophyta, Class Bacillariophyceae. The Chrysophyta are algae which form endoplasmic cysts, store oils rather than starch, possess a bipartite cell wall and secrete silica at some stage of their life cycle. Diatoms are commonly between 20-200 microns in diameter or length, although sometimes they can be up to 2 millimeters long. The cell may be solitary or colonial (attached by mucous filaments or by bands into long chains). Diatoms may occur in such large numbers and be well preserved enough to form sediments composed almost entirely of diatom frustules (diatomites), these deposits are of economic benefit being used in filters, paints, toothpaste, and many other applications.
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WEBSITE Info
| Page title: | Diatoms |
| Keywords: | micropalaeontology, micropaleontology, micropal, microfossils, nannofossils, acritarchs, calcareous nannofossils, chitinozoa, conodonts, diatoms, dinoflagellates, dinocycsts, forams, foraminifera, ostracods, palynology, rads, radiolaria, spores, pollen |
| Description: | This teaching and learning web-site is intended as an introduction to micropalaeontology. Micropalaeontology is the study of microfossils (any fossil generally less than 1mm in size). This page covers diatoms. |
| IP-address: | 144.82.111.20 |