Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 10 January 1992:
Vol. 255. no. 5041, pp. 172 - 178
DOI: 10.1126/science.255.5041.172
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Paleoceanography of the Tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean

RICHARD W. GRIGG 1 and RICHARD HEY 1

1 Department of Oceanography, 1000 Pope Road, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822

The East Pacific Barrier (EPB) is the most effective marine barrier to dispersal of tropical shallow-water fauna in the world today. The fossil record of corals in the eastern Pacific suggests this has been true throughout the Cenozoic. In the Cretaceous, the EPB was apparently less effective in limiting dispersal. Equatorial circulation in the Pacific then appears to have been primarily east to west and the existence of oceanic atolls (now drowned guyots) in the eastern Pacific probably aided dispersal. Similarly, in the middle and early Mesozoic and late Paleozoic, terranes in the central tropical Pacific likely served as stepping stones to dispersal of tropical shelf faunas, reducing the isolating effect of an otherwise wider Pacific Ocean (Panthalassa).


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Fossil Ceratioid Anglerfishes (Teleostei: Lophiiformes) from the Miocene of the Los Angeles Basin, California.
G. Carnevale, T. W. Pietsch, G. T. Takeuchi, and R. W. Huddleston (2008)
Journal of Paleontology 82, 996-1008
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Crossing the impassable: genetic connections in 20 reef fishes across the eastern Pacific barrier.
H.A Lessios and D.R Robertson (2006)
Proc R Soc B 273, 2201-2208
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
PHYLOGENY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY OF THE ATLANTIC AND EASTERN PACIFIC HYPSELODORIS STIMPSON, 1855 (NUDIBRANCHIA, CHROMODORIDIDAE) WITH THE DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES FROM THE CARIBBEAN SEA.
A. ALEJANDRINO and A. VALDES (2006)
J. Mollus. Stud. 72, 189-198
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Molecular Evidence for Cryptic Species of Aurelia aurita (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa).
M. N. Dawson and D. K. Jacobs (2001)
Biol. Bull. 200, 92-96
   Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)