Atlantic Ocean

Steven Dutch, Professor Emeritus, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay

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Scale: 1 pixel = 15 km. 10-degree grid;             Transverse Mercator Projection, Center 30W

Sea Floor Age Sea Floor Age, Tectonics and Volcanism Era-Level Geology Era-Level Geology, Tectonics and Volcanism Period-Level Geology Period-Level Geology, Tectonics and Volcanism Period-Level Geology, Bathymetry and Ocean Floor Ages Topography and Bathymetry Topography, Bathymetry and Plate Boundaries Topography, Bathymetry, Tectonics and Volcanism        Global Geology Index

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Land Geology and Ocean Floor Ages

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Legend

Ocean Floor Ages

Tectonic Structures

Topography

Land Geology

Notes and References

Discussion

The Atlantic Ocean is the type example of a symmetrical spreading ocean, and the North Atlantic is the best example of two plates spreading around a pole of rotation. All motions on a sphere can be represented as rotation around a pole, but for most plate pairs, the mutual pole of rotation is far away and often several plates away. The Eurasian and North American Plates, in contrast, rotate around a pole in northeastern Siberia on the Eurasian Plate, and the plate boundary changes from spreading to compressional near the pole.

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Created 11 April 2014, Last Update 19 January 2020