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Equatorial ocean circulation in an extremely warm climate
Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Center for Geophysical Investigation of the Shallow Subsurface, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA
Center for Geophysical Investigation of the Shallow Subsurface, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA
The warm climates of the early Paleogene and the associated diminished near-surface winds should have resulted in a reduction in near-surface ocean circulation. One check on this deduction is the delineation of biogenic sediments associated with an equatorial current system of the early Eocene Pacific. A latitudinal seismic reflection transect across the tropical Pacific along early Paleogene ocean crust reveals a basal high-amplitude reflection package that we take to be the lower Eocene section. This unit varies in thickness by a factor of about two, with the thickest portion forming a low mound some 3°–4° north of the 56 Ma paleoequator. This mound may represent the position of a divergence generated in the frontal region between two currents flowing in opposite directions, and its position suggests that the wind-driven equatorial circulation of the early Eocene was one without a pronounced equatorial divergence.
Published 13 February 2002.
Citation: (2002), Equatorial ocean circulation in an extremely warm climate, Paleoceanography, 17(1), 1005, doi:10.1029/2000PA000566.
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