Gakkel Ridge

The Gakkel Ridge (also Mittelarktischer back, Hackel back or Nansen back) is about 1,800 km long mid oceanic ridge in the Arctic Ocean.

Location

The Gakkel Ridge is the northern continuation of the North Atlantic Ridge in the Arctic Ocean between Greenland and Siberia.

There the submarine threshold is approximately parallel to the Lomonosov Ridge and divides the Eurasian Basin into a northern half, Amundsen Basin ( also pole deep- level or Eurasia Basin), and a southern half, the Nansen Basin ( also Barents abyssal plain or Frambecken ). Its central grave breach extends approximately along a line from the mouth of the Lena Delta in the east to northeast Greenland rings round the west.

History, Exploration and Geology

The Gakkel Ridge is the slowest spreading mid-ocean ridges worldwide. It was established in 1966 after the Soviet oceanographers Yakov Yakovlevich Gakkel (Russian Яков Яковлевич Гаккель, 1901-1965, also called Hackel ) named.

Until 1999, volcanoes discovered as scientists from a nuclear submarine along the back, the Gakkel Ridge was assumed to be volcanic. In 2001, explored several research groups who were traveling with the research icebreaker Polarstern and Healy, the Gakkel Ridge and took soil samples. It surprised especially the discovery of hydrothermal activities that necessitate a review of the current concepts on the formation of the seabed.

In 2007, an expedition discovered evidence of explosive volcanism in the Arctic Ocean with a specially developed camera in 4,000 meters water depth at the Gakkel Ridge: extensive ash deposits on the sea floor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption.

In the Arctic Ocean, at 85 ° N 85 ° E, in 1999 almost unnoticed a violent volcanic explosion occurred - however, under a water layer thickness of four kilometers. Previously, researchers assumed that explosive volcanism in water depths of more than three kilometers can not occur because of high ambient pressure. The Gakkel Ridge opens with six to fourteen millimeters per year so slow that current theories volcanism unlikely - to 1999 a series of 300 strong earthquakes over eight months signaled a volcanic eruption.