This report reviews bathymetric data, geological samples and geophysical information on the Alpha Ridge, a major bathymetric feature which crosses the Arctic Ocean and abuts the Continental Shelf of Arctic Canada northwest of Ellesmere Island.

Because of the biological origin of many siliceous deposits, their geochemical transformation in the marine environment, and their occurrence in many formations around the world, oceanographers, paleontologists, geologists, geochemists, and sedimentologists are working closely together to trace the evolution of such deposits. In this book, leading experts from all of these disciplines present new data on fine-grained deposits such as chert, primarily of the Tethys region but also of the Pacific. Much of the information presented here was gathered recently in coordinated international research projects and is made available in English for the first time.

Although it is generally accepted that the Arctic Ocean is a very sensitive and important region for changes in the global climate, this region is the last major physiographic province of the earth whose short-and long-term geological history is much less known in comparison to other ocean regions. This lack of knowledge is mainly caused by the major technological/logistic problems in reaching this harsh, ice-covered region with normal research vessels and in retrieving long and undisturbed sediment cores. During the the last about 20 years, however, several international and multidisciplinary ship expeditions, including the first scientific drilling on Lomonosov Ridge in 2004, a break-through in Arctic research, were carried out into the central Artic and its surrounding shelf seas. Results from these expeditions have greatly advanced our knowledge on Arctic Ocean paleoenvironments. Published syntheses about the knowledge on Arctic Ocean geology, on the other hand, are based on data available prior to 1990. A comprehensive compilation of data on Arctic Ocean paleoenvironment and its short-and long-term variability based on the huge amount of new data including the ACEX drilling data, has not been available yet. With this book, presenting (1) detailed information on glacio-marine sedimentary processes and geological proxies used for paleoenvironmental reconstructions, and (2) detailed geological data on modern environments, Quaternary variability on different time scales as well as the long-term climate history during Mesozoic-Tertiary times, this gap in knowledge will be filled.*Aimed at specialists and graduates *Presents background research, recent developments, and future trends*Written by a leading scholar and industry expert

This book contains the most complete description of the geologic and geophysical data of the structure of Arctic Basin including structures of the earth’s crust, crustal and acoustic basement, and sedimentary cover. The book includes information about extracted and studied cores and samples; observed, processed and interpreted data on geophysical anomalies and different conceptions, and a hypotheses of the origin of the modern Arctic Basin structures. Progress in solving the problems of the Arctic Basin geology is presented in the chapters and include contributions from leading field experts.