Geophysical Study of Chukchi Borderland and Lomonosov and Alpha Ridges

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Abstract This award supports a geophysical survey from a nuclear submarine during operation SCICEX-95 cruise to the Arctic Ocean. The survey will result in a comprehensive map of bathymetry and gravity of the Chukchi Borderland and portions of the Lomonosov Ridge, Makarov Basin and Mendeleev Ridge. These areas are out of the normal operating range of aerogeophysics platforms and data from the region that are available to western scientists are extremely sparse. The proposed survey is designed to test current hypotheses of the geologic structure and tectonic development of the main geographic features of the region. Whether the hypotheses prove to be true or not, the data will fill a conspicuous gap in the geophysical data coverage in the Arctic Ocean Basin. Hence, the data collected will be valuable to determining the geologic and tectonic structure of the region and, in turn, will also be useful for evaluating tectonic models for the development of the region.