Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology => Topic started by: billyaimee on 23/09/2018 23:54:43
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I'm doing research on climate change of the past and one aspect I wanted to look at is correlations between climate and the ancient ocean currents. I was happy to see there's actually a name for this called "palaeocurrents" (also palaeo-oceanography) but I'm having trouble finding much detailed information. I've read brief descriptions about large-scale directional trends of ocean currents flowing in an easterly or westerly direction in parts of the Phanerozoic, can anyone enlighten me more on this subject?
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This article on climate change and palaeo-environments in the Adriatic is related to your enquiry and might be of interest:
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/science-features/lost-palaeoenvironments-what-can-we-learn-past
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Thanks, that article is really interesting.
I was more trying to focus in on how the oceans have behaved over the history of the earth, especially any large-scale patterns which are alleged in parts of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic.
For example this image shows large general trends in the Paleozoic ocean currents around North America. Most of the arrows seem to be following a northeast to southwest direction.
(oops, won't let me post link, but just google "pznorth paleocurrents" and I think it's the first result)
But the image looks dated, and I can't find the source material, or really any further discussion on such phenomena.
There seems to be lots of studies focused on the paleocurrents of small local regions but not looking at global or at least continent wide trends, which might be more interesting from the perspective of studying global climate change. Any help would be appreciated!