The ODP Site 1240 is located in the equatorial cold tongue in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific. The analysis
of the calcareous nannofossil assemblages allow us to monitor fluctuations in the Nutricline/Thermocline
over the last 500 Ka, using the relationship between the upper photic zone taxa (small placoliths) and the
lower photic zone taxa (Florisphaera profunda), by means of the N ratio function. The variations in this N
ratio pointed out two intervals with dominant higher relative abundances of small placoliths over
Florisphaera profunda, and other interval with an abrupt increasing in the relative abundance of Florisphaera
profunda over the small placoliths, controlled esentially by a precessional force, and during the last 177
Ka by a markedly excentricity component