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Letter

Nature Geoscience 1, 453–457 (1 July 2008) | doi:10.1038/ngeo217

Warm saline intermediate waters in the Cretaceous tropical Atlantic|[nbsp]|Ocean

Oliver Friedrich , Jochen Erbacher , Kazuyoshi Moriya , Paul A. Wilson & Henning Kuhnert

During the mid-Cretaceous period, the global subsurface oceans were relatively warm, but the origins of the high temperatures are debated. One hypothesis suggests that high sea levels and the continental configuration allowed high-salinity waters in low-latitude epicontinental shelf seas to sink and form deep-water masses.