Foraminifera
pronunciation
How to pronounce Foraminifera in British English:
UK 
How to pronounce Foraminifera in American English:
US
-
- Noun:
- foraminifers
Word Origin
- Foraminifera
- 1835, Modern Latin, neuter plural of foraminifer "bearing holes," from Latin foramen "hole, opening, orifice" (see foramen) + -fer "bearing," from ferre "to bear" (see infer). So called because the shells usually are perforated by pores. Related: Foraminiferal.
Example
- 1. Foraminifera grow in the ocean and when they die , mix with coral to become the sediment that forms atolls .
- 2. Stewart fallon of the australian national university in canberra and his colleagues collected samples from drill cores of the marine crust of tiny marine fossils called foraminifera .
- 3. Carbon dioxide and ice.researchers have measured the ratios of boron and calcium in planktonic foraminifera to calculate the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 20 million years .
- 4. No surprise there -- from coral to clams to microscopic foraminifera , shelled critters make their hard parts out of calcium carbonate ( caco3 ) .
- 5. There is evidence that the amount of carbonate in the shells of foraminifera , micro-plankton that are crucial to ocean ecology , has recently dropped by as much as a third .