Abstract
Coccolith is a biologically, environmentally and geologically attractive biomineral produced as a calcified scale of marine unicellular algae, coccolithophores. Each coccolith consists of several tens of calcite crystal units that are interlocked together to form a ring or disk of 1-10 m in diameter with elaborate species-specific morphology. Pleurocrysis carterae are composed of interlocked V- and R-units which represent the calcite crystals with sub-vertical and sub-radial orientations of the c-axis, respectively. In order to elucidate the formation mechanism of coccoliths, we observed morphology of immature coccoliths of Pleurocrysis carterae, using a high-resolution FE-SEM and determined the crystallographic orientations applying EBSD technique. Furthermore, we performed morphological analyses by combining EBSD with SEM stereo-photogrammetry.
