Census counts of benthic foraminifera, environmental parameters (temperature, salinity, and oxygen concentration), and radiocarbon measurements from cores obtained under and near a whale-fall off western Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

Push cores were collected by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI; Moss Landing, California) personnel onboard the R/V Western Flyer using the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Doc Ricketts in 2009 at the request of personnel from the United States Geological Survey (USGS; Menlo Park, California). All four push cores were sliced into 3-centimeter sections on shipboard, placed in glass jars, and immediately refrigerated. Upon completion of the cruise 16 days later, the samples were washed through nested 0.063 millimeter, 0.150 millimeter, and 1.0 millimeter sieves in the USGS Micropaleontology Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, in order to progressively remove the clay-sized particles and protect the finer sieves. The size fractions were then combined and stained with a mixture of 2 grams rose Bengal per 1 liter of greater than 70 percent ethyl alcohol, stirred gently, and left to sit overnight. The purpose of this stain was to identify benthic foraminifera that were alive, or recently living, at the time the samples were collected. The samples were washed again the next day to remove the excess stain, transferred to filter paper, and left to air dry. Due to the paucity of living (stained) benthic foraminifera recovered, both living and dead specimens were picked from the greater than 0.63 millimeter sediment size fraction. A microsplitter was used to separate the samples into statistically valid aliquots and greater than 300 specimens were recovered from each sample. Those samples with low foraminiferal density (less than 400 specimens per sample) in a large amount of matrix of primarily glauconitic sediment and whale bone fragments were floated with sodium polytungstate at a specific gravity of 2.4 grams per liter to concentrate the specimens before picking. While viewing under a microscope, both living and dead specimens were removed from the matrix with a small, moistened picking brush, placed on pre-glued microfaunal slides, and identified using the nomenclature registered in the World Foraminiferal Database. Living and dead specimens were counted separately. Total (living and dead) counts were converted to percent abundance whereas only raw counts of the living specimens were tabulated.

Sensors measuring water temperature, salinity, depth, and oxygen concentration were attached to the ROV and were monitored directly by the ROV data management system. Temperature, salinity and depth were measured with Falmouth Scientific OTM, OCM, and OPM modules, and oxygen concentration was measured with a SeaBird sbe 43 instrument.

Samples for radiocarbon analysis were measured by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) at the National Ocean Sciences AMS (NOSAMS) Facility of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The radiocarbon ages were obtained by a ratio of 14C to 12C using a 14C half-life of 5568 years (Stuiver and Polach, 1977) and then were converted to calibrated calendar ages (cal years BP), with BP (Before Present) equal to 1950, using the CALIB 8.01 program and the Marine20 calibration curve (Heaton and others, 2020). The calibrated ages are reported as the median probability ages for the 2 sigma range. A reservoir age of 750 and 1750 years was used for the planktic and benthic foraminiferal samples, respectively, which is the sum of the global surface-water reservoir age correction of 400 years (Stuiver and Braziunas, 1993) for both and the regional reservoir-age correction (delta R) of 350 plus or minus 45 years (McNeeley and others, 2006) for the planktics and delta R of 1350 plus or minus 200 years for the benthics (Mix and others, 1999).

Performed minor edits to the metadata to correct typos. No data were changed