TECTONIC FABRIC OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN FLOOR: SPECULATION VS. REALITY

• Published in: Journal of Petroleum Geology
• Main Authors: Smoot, N. C., Meyerhoff, A.A.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1995
• Subjects: Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous); Geology; Energy Engineering and Power Technology; Fuel Technology; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-5457.1995.tb00898.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1747-5457.1995.tb00898.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1747-5457.1995.tb00898.x

Almost all published charts of the world's ocean floors have been drawn deliberately to reflect the predictions of the plate‐tectonics hypothesis. For example, the Atlantic Ocean floor is unvaryingly shown to be dominated by a sinuous, north‐south mid‐ocean ridge, flanked on either side by abyssal plains, cleft at its crest at its crest by a rift valley, and offset at more‐or‐less regular 40‐ to 60‐km intervals by east‐west‐striking fracture zones. However, it is now clear that as new, detailed, bathymetric surveys are being completed, this oversimplified portrayal of the Atlantic Basin is largely wrong. Thousands of bathymetric features present, many of them major, are wholly unexplained by plate tectonics. Others, predicted by plate tectonics, are totally absent. We show, on the basis of specific examples based on real data from the North Atlantic Ocean, that the real bathymetry and the real tectonic fabric are very different from the bathymetry and tectonic fabric protrayed (but rarely documented) in plate‐tectonics publications. A new hypothesis is needed to explain the origin of the real bathymetry and tectonic fabric of the deep oceans. Such a hypothesis could very well provide clues for future petroleum and other mineral exploration along the continental margins.