Magnetized Basement Outcrops on the South-east Greenland Continental Shelf

Abstract

MOST continental shelves are included in the “Pacific” and “Atlantic” categories¹. The Pacific type marks lines along which lithospheric plates underthrust or move past one another along strike slip faults. It is not surprising, therefore, that such shelves are characterized by irregular relief, vulcanism, faulting and great seismicity. The Atlantic type represents edges of continents that were once contiguous but have been rifted apart by plate movements, with new oceanic crust created between the rifted edges by sea-floor spreading. Most shelves of the Atlantic type are depositional. A wedge, thickening towards the sea, of largely undeformed Cretaceous and younger sediments along the eastern United States attests to gradual subsidence.