Benthic foraminifera from the Mauritanian shelf and upper slope

Foraminiferal assemblage data was collected from the top 0-1 cm sediment layer of 30 surface samples from the Mauritanian slope and shelf. The material was sampled with a box corer (50x50x55cm), grabs and gravity corer (6m lenght) during the expedition MSM16/3 of RV Maria S. Merian in October-November 2010. The samples range from water depths of 13 m on the shelf to 1310 m on the middle bathyal slope. They are from the inner and outer shelf, upper bathyal slope, canyons, coral mounds, the cold-water coral reef chains at 400–600 m water depth and the middle bathyal slope.