Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Metal-silicate Partitioning at High Pressure and Temperature: Experimental Methods and a Protocol to Suppress Highly Siderophile Element Inclusions
Published on: June 13, 2015
Thermal structure of the deep pacific ocean in the early pliocene
Abstract:
The thermal structure of the Pacific Ocean between water depths of about 1 and 4.5 kilometers is estimated from the oxygen isotopic ratio of benthonic foraminifera from deep-drilled and piston cores of early Pliocene age (about 3 to 5 million years ago). The ratio of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16 in the early Pliocene at each site varies by an average of only +/- 0.12 per mil (1 standard deviation). A plot of the oxygen isotopic ratio against modern bottom-water temperature is adequately fit by a line having a slope of - 0.26 per mil per degree Celsius (the equilibrium temperature dependence of calcite-water fractionation), suggesting that the temperature gradient of the Pacific Ocean during the early Pliocene was similar to that of today.
Related Concept Videos
Protein Organization
Conditions on Early Earth
Conditions on Early Earth
Protein Organization
The primary structure of a protein is its amino acid sequence.
Stability of structures
Deep Sea Microbial Ecology

