THE OCEANOGRAPHIC PROBLEMS OF THE 

 STILL UNKNOWN ARCTIC REGIONS 



Fridtjof Nansen 



[With separate map, PI. I, facing p. 14.] 



Submarine Topography 



A MOST interesting feature of the geography of the Arctic Regions 

 is the deep sea basin which extends northwards and eastwards from 

 the region north of Spitsbergen and Franz Josef Land and probably 

 covers a considerable portion of the still unknown area (Fig. 6). 

 The depth of this sea was found during the Frani expedition (1893- 

 1896) to range between 3000 and 3850 meters. 



This deep basin forms the northern termination of a series of ocean 

 deeps which stretch from the eastern deep of the North Atlantic as 

 a continuous sea northwards through the Norwegian Sea^ — between 

 Norway-Spitsbergen on the one side and Iceland-Greenland on 

 the other. This series of deep basins forms a striking feature of the 

 topography of the earth's crust, dividing the great continental masses 

 of the Old and the New World. The basins are separated by sub- 

 marine ridges such as the Scotland-Faeroes-Iceland-Greenland 

 Ridge, the low ridge between Jan Mayen and Bear Island, and the 

 probable ridge between northwest Spitsbergen and northeast Green- 

 land (see the bathymetric map, PI. I). Whether there may be similar 

 ridges across the Arctic Basin in the region between the New Siberian 

 Islands and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago is still unknown. 



Like the basins to the south, the Arctic Basin is surrounded on all 

 sides by a continental shelf, which, at least on the Siberian side, is 

 very broad and has, where it is known, an extremely flat and level 

 surface. The edge of this shelf has been explored only in the region 

 northwest of the New Siberian Islands and north of the Lena delta, 

 along the Pram's drift route in 1893. The shelf here has a breadth 

 of more than 600 kilometers between its edge and the Siberian coast, 

 and its depth below the sea surface ranges mostly between 20 and 

 40 meters. Its surface is remarkably level, and it has a sharply defined 

 edge at a depth of nearly 100 meters. The continental slope, descend- 

 ing abruptly from the edge to the deep basin, is very steep (see PI. I 

 and Fig. i). The New Siberian Islands are situated on this shelf. 

 In the region between the New Siberian Islands and Bering 



1 Elsewhere in the present work this sea is termed the North European Sea. — Edit. Note. 



