Our ability to reconstruct the marine planktonic diatom early Paleogene history is hampered by decreased preservation as well as by observation bias. Collecting new diatom data in various Paleocene samples from legacy deep-sea sediment sections allows us to correct for the latter. The results show that the Paleocene deep-sea diatoms seem in fact as diverse and abundant as in the later Eocene while exhibiting very substantial survivorship of Cretaceous species up until the Eocene.