I04 



PRINCIPLES OF STRATIGRAPHY 



Table showing distribution area and depth of the principal 

 continental shelves — Continued. 



Name and location 



IV. Pacific Ocean: 



1. Australian coast 



Tasmania shelf 



Queensland shelf 



Arafura shelf, North Australia 



2. Austral- Asian coast 



Borneo- Java shelf 



3. Asiatic coast 



Tonkin-Hong Kong shelf (facing South 

 China Sea) 



Tung hai shelf (from Straits of Formosa 



to Straits of Korea) 



Okhotsk-Sachalin shelf 



Behring shelf 



Along the East Pacific (West American) border the continental 

 shelf is extremely narrow ; no specially defined portion of any size 

 being recognizable. 



Subordinate Features of the Continental Shelf. These are the 

 minor elevations and depressions of which the banks and furrows 

 are the most important. Of the former, the banks at the mouth 

 of the English and St. George's channels are characteristic, the 

 largest of these, the Labadie-Cockburn bank, having a length of 280' 

 kilometers. These banks are submarine continuations of the old 

 folds of southern Ireland, and on their surfaces are often found 

 the shells of shore Mollusca, which do not live in the depth of water 

 now covering the banks, showing a comparatively recent subsidence. 

 On the other parts of the British shelf we have the great Dogger 

 Bank in the North Sea. Bones of mammoth, rhinoceros, bison, 

 urochs, and wild horse are not infrequently brought up from this 

 bank, this, together with other facts, indicating depression, prob- 

 ably in glacial time, of a former land area. The Silver Pit furrow 

 in this bank has been regarded by Jukes-Brown as the ancient con- 

 tinuation of the Rhine. 



Examples of banks and furrows on the American coast are the 

 Newfoundland banks, Great Bahama banks, Campeche bank, etc., 

 and the St. Lawrence and Hudson furrows. 



