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The Line Islands Ridge (LIR), located south of the Hawaiian Islands between 7°N and 1°S, is one of the few large central Pacific regions shallower than the regional carbonate compensation depth. Thick sequences of carbonate sediments have accumulated around the LIR despite it being located in the sediment-starved central tropical Pacific. The LIR is an important source of carbonates to the surrounding region and deposition around the LIR has expanded the equatorial Pacific carbonate sediment tongue by about 5% of its total area. Furthermore, sediments on the ridge are potentially important paleoceanographic archives. A recent survey at the crest of the LIR finds evidence for high current activity, significant erosion, but overall net sediment deposition. Currents are strong enough to form sediment waves and lee drifts in the Palmyra Basin, at the northern terminus of the LIR. Sediments along the LIR are pelagic foraminiferal sands that are easily eroded and flow out into the surrounding abyssal plain in active submarine channel systems. As channels migrate, pelagic sediments fill in the abandoned channel arms. Despite significant sediment losses from the top of the ridge, 1.3 km of sediment has accumulated in the upper Palmyra Basin over basement formed 68 to 85 million years ago (Ma). Late Neogene erosion may be more extensive than earlier erosion cycles, in response to reduced sediment production as the Palmyra Basin exited the high productivity equatorial latitudes. Sediments with good stratigraphic order needed for paleoceanographic study are limited in this dynamic sedimentary environment, but can be found with proper survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expanse of deep water between the central Pacific islands and the continental shelf of the Eastern Tropical Pacific is regarded as the world's most potent marine biogeographic barrier. During recurrent climatic fluctuations ( ENSO, El Niño Southern Oscillation), however, changes in water temperature and the speed and direction of currents become favourable for trans-oceanic dispersal of larvae from central Pacific to marginal eastern Pacific reefs. Here, we investigate the population connectivity of the reef-building coral Porites lobata across the Eastern Pacific Barrier ( EPB). Patterns of recent gene flow in samples ( n = 1173) from the central Pacific and the Eastern Tropical Pacific ( ETP) were analysed with 12 microsatellite loci. Results indicated that P. lobata from the ETP are strongly isolated from those in the central Pacific and Hawaii ( [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]