Benthic foraminifera are important environmental and paleoenvironmental indicators. In 1978, we commenced a project to produce a syntheses of the depth and geographic distributions of all species of recent benthic foraminifera recorded on the continental margins of North America using all published data (800 papers published over the past 150 years). To date, this project has resulted in computerized compilations for the Atlantic continental margin, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean region. Data manipulation has produced maps dealing with individual species distributions, genus distributions, and foraminiferal zoogeographic provinces. Geographic and depth distributions for over 300 commonly recorded species are tabulated for the eastern continental margin and the Gulf of Mexico. Four depth-related groups of species are noted for the east coast and 14 for the Gulf of Mexico. Species distributions can be used as paleoenvironmental (including paleobathymetric) indicators back at least to the Miocene and genus distributions back to the late Cretaceous.

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