Underway Doppler current profiles in the Gulf of California

Abstract

The circulation of the Gulf of California has long been of scientific interest. The first hydrographic expedition there was in 1889 [Roden and Groves, 1959], followed half a century later by Sverdrup's cruise on the R/V E.W. Scripps [Suerdrup, 1941] in February and March of 1939. Since then, the Gulfs circulation has been the subject of active research [Alvarez‐Boirego, 1983]. During the 1980s, scientists at CICESE and at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography designed a cooperative effort, the Pichicuco project, to investigate some of the notable physical oceanographic features of the Gulf.The Gulf of California is a marginal sea close to 1500 km long and about 200 km wide, oriented northwest to southeast, between the peninsula of Baja California and western continental Mexico. It consists of a succession of basins that shoal progressively from about 3500 m at the mouth, where the Gulf connects with the Pacific Ocean, to just over 2000 m in the central Guaymas Basin. In contrast, the far northern Gulf is a continental shelf sea whose depth exceeds 200 m only in a few small basins. The Gulf's circulation is profoundly influenced by processes taking place at the narrows that connect Guaymas Basin to the northern Gulf between 28°N and 29°N (see Figure 1). These are a sequence of channels, each about 15 km wide, between San Lorenzo, San Esteban, and Tiburón islands, which reduce the effective cross section of the Gulf to about 2.25×106m2. The westernmost connection, close to Baja California, is the Ballenas‐Salsipuedes (hereafter Ballenas) channel, whose depth exceeds 1600 m in its central part. It is bounded partially to the north by a lateral constriction with a maximum depth of 600 m, near the northern extreme of Angel de la Guarda island, and to the east by a ridge from which rise Angel de la Guarda, San Lorenzo, and other smaller islands. This ridge extends underwater about 20 km to the southeast from San Lorenzo into Guaymas Basin, where it forms the eastern wall of San Lorenzo sill, the southern end of Ballenas channel. A narrow canyon on this sill has a maximum depth of about 430 m. The central San Esteban channel is located between San Lorenzo and San Esteban islands, and is the deepest and widest of the three. It possesses a single, rather broad sill, formed by a westward underwater extension of San Esteban island. The third channel, between San Esteban and Tiburon islands, is narrower than the first two, has a broad sill at about 300 m depth, and connects the extension of the Sonoran shelf with the deeper basin to the north. Little studied before, it now appears to play a significant role in the regional exchange of water. A fourth, narrow channel between Tiburon island and mainland Mexico is too shallow to participate strongly in the circulation.