coccolith, minute calcium carbonate platelet or ring secreted by certain organisms (coccolithophores, classed either as protozoans or algae) and imbedded in their cell membranes. When the organisms die, the coccoliths are deposited (at an estimated 60,000,000,000 per square metres [10 square feet] annually) onto the ocean floor and form, along with organic debris, a gray sediment. Fossil forms of coccoliths date from as far back as the Cambrian Period (542 to 488 million years ago).
The taxonomy of these organisms is not yet established. Zoologists place them either in the protozoan order Chrysomonadida or in their own order Coccolithophorida; botanists include them in the algal division Chrysophyta because they contain yellow to brown chromatophores.