38. SITE 398: EVOLUTION OF THE WEST IBERIAN PASSIVE CONTINENTAL MARGIN IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE EARLY EVOLUTION OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN1

• Main Authors: Reprinted From Sibuet, J. -c
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Flem; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.539.6008; http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/1979/publication-5269.pdf

continental margin, south of Galicia Bank, 20 km to the south of Vigo Seamount (Figure 1). The kinematic evo-lution of the Iberian plate is closely controlled by the relative motions of the African, European, and North American plates. A study based on magnetic data and land data was undertaken to better define the relative motion of Iberia with respect to these main plates (Sibuet et al. in preparation). Trapped between these plates, microcontinents such as Galicia Bank and Flem-ish Cap (located between Iberia and North America) as-sumed their own relative motions with respect to Iberia and North America during the early evolution of the North Atlantic. Consequently, the initial oceanic cir-culation between small basins corresponding to the Bay of Biscay and the North Atlantic West of Iberia and