Thwaites Glacier's retreat is driven by warm ocean water melting its ice shelf. Seafloor-dwelling marine protists, benthic foraminifera, reflect their environment. Here, ice margins, oceanography, and sea ice cover control live foraminiferal populations. Including dead foraminifera in the analyses shows the calcareous test preservation's role in the assemblage make-up. Understanding these modern communities helps interpret past glacial retreat controls through foraminifera in sediment records.

Deep Sea Drilling Project Site 407, near Iceland, offers a valuable 25-million-year record of planktonic foraminifera evolution from the Late Cenozoic. Species counts and ranges, assemblage changes, and biostratigraphic zones were identified. Key findings include the shifts in species dominance and diversity. Challenges include sediment gaps and missing biozone markers. We aim to enhance the Neogene–Quaternary Middle Atlas and improve the North Atlantic palaeoceanography and biostratigraphy.