10.02.2014: FB1-Seminar

11:00 h Hörsaal Düsternbrooker Weg 20

Abstract:

In 1993, I was invited to sail on the USS Pargo, a US Navy fast-attack nuclear-powered submarine. We spent 40 days underway and 20 days in the Arctic Ocean itself, collecting water samples, doing CTD casts and collecting narrow-beam bathymetry and gravity anomaly data. These were the 1st systematic surveys of Arctic Ocean bathymetry ever conducted. Since that time, there has been a slow explosion of arctic seafloor mapping, driven most recently by the Extended Continental Shelf surveys to establish the seafloor territorial claims of the Arctic coastal states (eg. Norway, Greenland, Canada, US and Russia).

In 1993, we knew only the crude outlines and approximate positions of the features that segment the Arctic Ocean. Now, through the amalgamation of data collected during diverse surveys (satellite, airborne, ship, ice surface and submarine) we have a reasonable set of basic maps that permit the formulation of hypotheses about the origin of the basins and ridges in the basin.

The expansion of activity within the Arctic Ocean has included extensive acquisition of multi-channel seismic reflection data, which images complex stratigraphy that is largely un-dated. Dating these reflectors will require scientific ocean drilling expeditions.

My talk will summarize the development of gridded maps of the Arctic Ocean (bathymetry and gravity and magnetic anomaly) and present data collected during a 2011 cruise of the RV M.G. Langseth to the Arctic Ocean. These data are being used to test models for the formation of the Amerasia Basin.

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