Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
The White Cliffs of Dover are an iconic formation often seen on television or films that can be over 100 m high. The white colour is chalk "biomicrite" formed by the compacted deposits from dense blooms of Coccolithophore phytoplankton covered with distinct plates of calcite (coccoliths) in a shallow sea during the Late Cretaceous. The dark bands of flint within the chalk are formed from silica skeletons of sponges and radiolarian zooplankton.
#CarbonSink #geology