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Two sediment traps were deployed in time series collection from November 1991 to August 1994 at 3000 and 3500m, respectively, above and below the oxygenated sea water/anoxic brine interface in the Bannock Basin, central eastern Mediterranean. Here, the coccolithophore flux and its contribution to the carbonate particulate flux are presented for the 3000m trap and compared with the record in eastern Mediterranean surface sediments. A marked seasonal variation is observed in the fluxes of total mass, total coccoliths and whole coccospheres, with flux maxima in late winter and spring. The annual coccolith flux of 1×10¹⁰coccolithsm⁻²year⁻¹ measured in the deep waters of Bannock Basin is much lower than published data from most other oceanographic settings, even when corrected for the trap efficiency of ∼23% calculated from the ²³⁰Th flux. The biogenic and lithogenic fluxes are primarily controlled by …