Late Cretaceous Oceans and the Cool Tropic Paradox
- 29 March 1996
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 271 (5257) , 1838-1841
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.271.5257.1838
Abstract
Oxygen isotopic proxies of paleo-sea surface temperatures (SSTs) suggest that Maastrichtian (about 66 million years ago) tropical SSTs were lower than those of today. They also demonstrate that Maastrichtian latitudinal SST gradients were much lower than those of the present. The low Maastrichtian SST gradients indicate that meridional heat transport was much greater or latitudinal differences in the balance of radiation to and from the sea surface were much less extreme during the latest Cretaceous than they are today, or that both conditions were true. These findings challenge traditional interpretations of “greenhouse” Late Cretaceous climates.Keywords
This publication has 29 references indexed in Scilit:
- Late Paleocene to Eocene paleoceanography of the equatorial Pacific Ocean: Stable isotopes recorded at Ocean Drilling Program Site 865, Allison GuyotPaleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 1995
- Possible role of oceanic heat transport in Early Eocene climatePaleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 1995
- Interspecies variation in stable isotopic signals of Maastrichtian planktonic foraminiferaPaleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 1995
- Evolution of Early Cenozoic marine temperaturesPaleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 1994
- Past climate and the role of ocean heat transport: Model simulations for the CretaceousPaleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 1993
- Past CO2 Changes and Tropical Sea Surface TemperaturesPaleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 1991
- Some patterns of planktic foraminiferal assemblage turnover at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundaryMarine Micropaleontology, 1991
- Precessional climate cyclicity in Late Cretaceous—Early Tertiary marine sediments: a high resolution chronometer of Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary eventsEarth and Planetary Science Letters, 1990
- Paleoceanographic modeling of temperature‐salinity profiles from stable isotopic dataPaleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 1989
- Warm saline bottom water in the ancient oceanNature, 1982