Predictions of how marine calcifying organisms will respond to climate change rely heavily on the fossilrecord of nannoplankton. Declines in calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and nannofossil abundance throughseveral past global warming events have been interpreted as biocalcification crises caused by oceanacidification and related factors. We present a global record of imprint—or“ghost”—nannofossils thatcontradicts this view, revealing exquisitely preserved nannoplankton throughout an inferred Jurassicbiocalcification crisis. Imprints from two further Cretaceous warming events confirm that the fossilrecords of these intervals have been strongly distorted by CaCO3dissolution. Although the rapidity ofpresent-day climate change exceeds the temporal resolution of most fossil records, complicatingdirect comparison with past warming events, our findings demonstrate that nannoplankton were moreresilient to past events than traditional fossil evidence suggests.