Paleogeography and paleobathymetry of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic North Atlantic Ocean

The history of the North Atlantic Ocean has been traced quantitatively back in time using age and subsidence of the oceanic crust in an attempt to reconstruct the vertical and horizontal elements of its physiographic evolution. Special emphasis has been paid to the history of the Iceland-Faeroe Ridge and of the epicontinental seas around this young basin. The implications of this evolution for changes in the hydrographic regime and for temporal as well as spatial contraints of the surface and bottom water circulation of the North Atlantic are enormous. During its early history this part of the world ocean was connected to the circum-equatorial Tethys Ocean (Late Jurassic to mid-Cretaceous). However, the formation of a deep water pathway to the South Atlantic towards the end of the Mesozoic and the opening of the Norwegian-Greenland Seas during the Early Cenozoic caused the North Atlantic to become part a longitudinal basin allowing an exchange between the Artic and Antarctic polar water masses.Dedicated to Professor Dr. E. Seibold, President of the German Research Society, on the occasion of his 60th birthday.