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The geological history of the North Atlantic Ocean.
The North Atlantic Ocean is a late product of the disintegration of Laurasia, a part of Pangaea, which split to form North America, Greenland, Europe and Asia. Before considering the birth and growth of the North Atlantic, a brief résumé concerning plate tectonics is in order. As a result of processes in the Earth's core, the magnetic field spontaneously reverses at irregular intervals averaging at 500 000 years. The most voluminous magmatic events during the Earth's history have been related in space and time to an impact at the base of the lithosphere by such a plume head. Evidence of continental uplift preceding the magmatism is plausibly attributed to the arrival of the buoyant and abnormally hot mantle plume. A prolonged period of global warming commencing at 55Ma is attributed to the effects of the proto-Iceland plume. In the aftermath of the ocean opening there was notable uplift of the adjacent ‘trailing’ continental margins.
NOTE: This article was published in a former series of GEUS Bulletin. Please use the original series name when citing this article, for example: Dawes, P. R. (2002). Scientific publications on Greenland by the Survey, 2001. Geology of Greenland Survey Bulletin, 191, 157-161. https://doi.org/10.34194/ggub.v191.5145 _______________ No abstract available.
The antipodal distribution of continental blocks and oceanic receptacles ranges among the most peculiar features of the earth. The deep-sea area of the North Pole is situated directly opposite the Antarctic Continent. The six non-polar continents are grouped in pairs, with a roughly meridional orientation, and form an elongated triangle with its apex pointing southwards. Conversely, the oceanic sectors extend in an opposite direction. The broad bases of the continents, arranged in a nearly continuous ring around the North Polar Basin, have their antitype in the broad, circum-Antarctic ring of water.
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