La subcorriente ecuatorial: características oceanográficas alrededor de las Islas Galápagos

Abstract

El propósito de este trabajo consiste en presentar nuevas evidencias de la presencia de esta subcorriente, que pasa a través de las Islas Galápagos y que sus aguas han sido observadas hasta los 82°W (frente al Golfo de Guayaquil), este trabajo esta basado en mediciones directas de corrientes efectuadas a bordo del BAE ORION, en un crucero oceanográfico desarrollado entre abril y mayo del 2002.

During the oceanographic cruise on board of the BAE ORION, between may and june of the 2002, they were carried out measurements of profiles of current, temperature and salinity, in three longitudinal sections 92°, 90° 89°W, whose outputs mark the existence of a surface high-salinity core were found north and south of the islands, zones that coincide with the areas of upwelling and surface flows toward the east. A correlation of these three parameters manifest the physical characteristics of the Equatorial Undercurrent or Cromwell Current, who is introduced to the west of the islands with a thickness of approximately 50 meters, with eastward velocity of 60 cm/s, temperatures between 20-15°C and salinities between 35-32.5 ups. Observations east of the Galápagos Islands, its forks in two branchs, with eastward velocities don't of up to 50 cm/s, weakening in accordance direct toward the east, without discarding the possibility of that the same approaches until our coast.