iq6 



DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN 



Abyssal area 

 of the North 

 Atlantic. 



Deeps of th' 



North 

 Atlantic. 



the area between the lOO-fathoms Hne and the 500-fathoms Hne 

 is only a little over 2 million square miles (or 9 per cent), and 

 the area between the 500-fathoms line and the looo-fathoms 

 line is only about i million square miles (or 4 per cent of the 

 total area). It thus appears that the area with depths less than 

 1000 fathoms within the North Atlantic basin, as already defined, 

 is equal to about 9 million square miles (or 39 per cent of the 

 total area), and of this the continental shelf covered by water 

 less than 100 fathoms in depth occupies 6 million square miles 

 (or 26 per cent). 



Proceeding into the abysmal region, we find that the area of 

 the North Atlantic sea- floor covered by water between 1000 

 and 2000 fathoms in depth is about 5 million square miles (or 

 22 per cent), the area covered by water between 2000 and 

 3000 fathoms in depth is about 7^- million square miles (or t,^ 

 per cent), and the area covered by more than 3000 fathoms of 

 water ("deeps") is about i^ million square miles (or 6 per cent 

 of the total area). These figures show what a large proportion 

 of the North Atlantic sea-fioor is covered by shallow water less 

 than 1000 fathoms (equal to two-fifths of the entire area), and 

 by deep water between 2000 and 3000 fathoms (equal to one- 

 third of the entire area). 



The deeps of the North Atlantic number fourteen, and cover 

 an area of about i J million square miles, as already indicated. 

 The larger and more important of these, Nares Deep, Moseley 

 Deep, and Chun Deep, have been briefly described on pages 

 141, 142, and 143. The smaller ones are : Makaroff Deep in the 

 West Indian seas; Bartlett Deep in the Caribbean Sea; Mill 

 Deep and Keltie Deep in the sea between Bermuda and the 

 American coast ; Suhm Deep, Libbey Deep, Sigsbee Deep, 

 and Thoulet Deep, to the south of Nova Scotia and Newfound- 

 land ; Peake Deep to the west of Cape Finisterre ; Monaco 

 Deep to the south of the Azores ; and Hjort Deep immediately 

 to the east of the mid-Atlantic ridge in lat. 20° N. 



The 



Norwegian 



Sea. 



The Norwegian Sea is bounded on the east by Spitsbergen, 

 Bear Island, the banks of the Barents Sea and the Norwegian 

 coast ; on the south by the North Sea, the Shetland and Faroe 

 Islands, and the submarine ridges between the Shetlands and 

 Faroes and between the Faroes and Iceland ; on the west by 

 Iceland and Greenland ; and on the north, about lat. 80° N., 

 by a submarine ridge supposed to separate the two deep basins 

 called the Norwegian Sea and the Polar Sea. 



