I acknowledge the assistance of Andy Bowman, Taylor McCay, and Dan Weirauch with smear slide preparation. I am grateful to Samantha Gibbs for providing ranges of key taxa near the PETM at Site 1209. I thank Isabella Premoli Silva and Woody Wise for constructive reviews. This research used samples and/or data provided by the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP). ODP is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) under management of Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI), Inc. This research was funded by JOI-U.S. Science Advisory Committee.