Provenance of Late Paleozoic and Mesozoic sediment to key Arctic basins: implications for the opening of the Arctic Ocean

• Main Author: Omma, J. E.
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: 01 - Climate Change and Earth-Ocean Atmosphere Systems; Amerasia Basin; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Eurasia Basin; Greenland; Climate change; Alaska
• Online Access: http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/3086/; http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/3086/1/Jenny%20Omma%20PhD%20Thesis%202009.pdf; http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/3086/3/Jenny%20Omma1.png; http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/3086/2/Jenny%20Omma%20PhD%20Thesis%202009%20Appendix.zip

The Arctic region is dominated by the Arctic Ocean, which contains two deep oceanic basins and is surrounded by the shallow shelves of Alaska, the Canadian Arctic Islands, Greenland, Scandinavia and the Russian Arctic. The Arctic Ocean basins, the Amerasia and Eurasia basins, formed by rifting and spreading during Cretaceous and Tertiary time. Whilst the tectonic history of the Eurasia Basin is fairly well understood, there is great uncertainty surrounding the opening history of the Amerasia Basin. It is unclear how various Arctic plates were juxtaposed prior to Amerasia Basin formation and when and how they separated.