Cretaceous and Tertiary surface currents of the oceans
Barraclough Fell, H. (1967). Cretaceous and Tertiary surface currents of the oceans, in: Barnes, H.B. (Ed.) Oceanogr. Mar. Biol. Ann. Rev. 5. Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review, 5: pp. 317-341
In: Barnes, H.B. (Ed.) (1967). Oceanogr. Mar. Biol. Ann. Rev. 5. Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review, 5. George Allen & Unwin: London. 653 pp., more
In: Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review. Aberdeen University Press/Allen & Unwin: London. ISSN 0078-3218; e-ISSN 2154-9125, more
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Document type: Review
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| Keywords |
Geological time > Phanerozoic > Geological time > Cenozoic > Tertiary
Geological time > Phanerozoic > Geological time > Mesozoic > Cretaceous
Motion > Water motion > Water currents > Surface currents
Marine/Coastal |
| Abstract |
One aim of biological oceanography is to trace the origins and evolution of marine faunas through geological time, since these throw light on the former history of the oceans. The main source of raw data lies in the fossil record. Since most fossiliferous marine sediments were formed on continental shelves, at moderate depths, the surface currents of the seas must always have been a prime factor in the dispersal of populations now represented by fossils, and of their living descendants.This paper attempts to derive the main features of surface circulation during the past hundred million years. It stems in part from earlier studies (summarized in Fell, 1962), but is chiefly a continuation of more recent investigations of fossil marine invertebrate populations of the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic. These latter studies have postulated a steady state model of the Earth, with relatively stable continents, and permanent ocean basins which have not changed significantly in their area or position since Cambro-Ordovician times, some 500 million years ago. The model implies, however, that the poles have moved through 70° over that time-span, for measurable changes in the direction of the North Atlantic and North Pacific currents can only be explained as due to rotation of the tranverse axes of the major gyres, and these in turn allow a determination of former axes of rotation of the planet. |
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