Pieter R. Gurdebeke,^1,*,** Kenneth Neil Mertens,^2,*** Vera Pospelova,^3,**** Nicolas Van Nieuwenhove,^4,***** Stephen Louwye<sup>1,******

1</sup>aDepartment of Geology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
²bIfremer, LER BO, Station de Biologie Marine, Concarneau CEDEX, France
³cSchool of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada
⁴dDepartment of Earth Sciences, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada

^*CONTACT Pieter R. Gurdebeke pieter.gurdebeke@ugent.be Department of Geology, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281-S8, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
^**Pieter R. Gurdebeke is teaching assistant and a PhD candidate (MSc geology in 2012) at the Department of Geology of Ghent University. He studies late Quaternary environmental changes and palaeoceanography in fjord systems of western Canada by means of assemblages of dinoflagellate cysts, other palynomorphs and geochemistry.
^***Kenneth Neil Mertens is a researcher at Ifremer, Laboratoire Environnement Ressources Bretagne Occidentale (LER BO), Concarneau, France. He received his PhD in 2009 from Ghent University. His research interests are the taxonomy, evolution, phylogeny and biogeography of dinoflagellates, and the palaeoceanographical application of dinoflagellate cysts, particularly in the Quaternary and Neogene.
^****Vera Pospelova is a professor at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences (SEOS), University of Victoria, Canada. She received her PhD in 2003 from McGill University (Canada). Vera's research interests include: taxonomy of late Quaternary dinoflagellate cysts; cyst production, ecology, and seasonal and annual dynamics in coastal waters; applications of dinoflagellate cysts as indicators of water quality conditions, with an emphasis on pollution and eutrophication in North American estuaries; and high-resolution palaeoceanographic reconstructions using sedimentary archives.
^*****Nicolas Van Nieuwenhove is a visiting researcher at the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton, Canada). He graduated as geologist/palaeontologist from Ghent University (Belgium) in 2004 and received his PhD in 2008 from the Christian-Albrechts-Universiteat and the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel (Germany). As researcher at GEOMAR, the Université du Québec a Montréal (Canada), Aarhus University (Denmark) and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (Copenhagen, Denmark), he has been studying the palaeoceanography of the northern North Atlantic during the last two interglacials, using dinocysts and other microfossil and sedimentary tracers.
^******Stephen Louwye is a professor of palaeobotany and palynology at Ghent University, Belgium. He received his MSc in 1984 and his PhD in 1990, both from Ghent University. After several postdoctoral positions he was appointed professor in 2002. His research interests are the Neogene palynology of the North Atlantic and the North Sea Basin, sequence stratigraphy and palaeoclimatology.