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Science 15 August 1986:
Vol. 233. no. 4765, pp. 761 - 764
DOI: 10.1126/science.233.4765.761
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Articles

Equatorial Pacific Seismic Reflectors as Indicators of Global Oceanographic Events

LARRY A. MAYER 1, THOMAS H. SHIPLEY 2, and EDWARD L. WINTERER 3

1 Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 4J1.
2 Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78751.
3 Geological Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA 92093.

The origin of a series of regionally correlatable seismic horizons in the Neogene sediments of the central equatorial Pacific is examined through seismic modeling and the detailed analyses of stratigraphic and physical property relationships in Deep Sea Drilling Project cores. These regionally traceable reflectors are synchronous; the younger reflectors are the direct result of carbonate dissolution events, the older ones of stratigraphically selective diagenetic processes. The changes in ocean chemistry associated with these events appear to be linked to global reorganizations of surface and bottom-water circulation patterns, the most dramatic of which are associated with reorganizations of North Atlantic bottom waters. These deepwater seismic horizons appear to correlate with the major events on the "relative sea-level" curve of Vail et al. for the Neogene.

Submitted on December 12, 1985
Accepted on May 15, 1986


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