Caribbean Constraints on Circulation Between Atlantic and Pacific Oceans Over the Past 40 Million Years

• Main Authors: Draxler, Andre W, Burke, Kevin C, Cunningham, Andrew D, Hine, Albert C, Rosencrantz, Eric, Duncan, David S, Hallock, Pamela, Robinson, Edward
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York, NY 1998
• Subjects: Kennett; Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195112450.003.0008; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52433462/isbn-9780195112450-book-part-8.pdf

Abstract Openings and closings of those narrow passageways between neighboring oceans which are called straits by geographers and gateways by paleoceanographers have had a powerful influence on oceanic circulation and, therefore, on climate change over the past approximate 50 million years (see, e.g., Kennett, 1977; Lawver and Gahagan, this volume, chapter 10). The closing of the Panama passageway (also referred to as the Central American Seaway) by blocking the transport of oceanic waters between the low latitudes of the western North Atlantic and the eastern Pacific oceans and by strengthening interhemispheral oceanic transport from low to high latitudes in the Atlantic Ocean, has long been recognized to have strongly influenced both oceanic circulation and climatic change (see, e.g., Warren 1983).