Recent geophysical studies over the Bering shelf have outlined the basic structure of three previously unknown Cenozoic basins, Norton basin and Pribilof and Zhemchug depressions.

The upper part of the crust beneath the Bering shelf consists of a stratified sequence of generally undeformed Cenozoic deposits overlying a basement of Mesozoic sedimentary, volcanic, and plutonic rocks, and older Paleozoic sedimentary and metamorphic units. The average thickness of the Cenozoic deposits is approximately 1.0 km. However, they are more than twice that thick where the basement has been downfolded or downfaulted to form the major intrashelf basins (such as Bristol, Anadyr, and Norton basins) that typically underlie major bays and gulfs, and the narrower, fault-controlled outer shelf basins (such as Pribilof and Zhemchug depressions) that trend parallel with the continental margin.

Norton basin underlies the northern part of the Bering shelf north of St. Lawrence Island. It is an east-west trough filled with terrestrial and neritic deposits of Paleogene age and younger, as much as 2.0 km thick. Minor folds and offsets in this fill are present along the flanks of the basin. Pribilof and Zhemchug depressions underlie the outer shelf and the northeast-trending canyon heads of Pribilof and Zhemchug Submarine Canyons, respectively. These depressions in the basement rocks are grabens and/or half grabens, and are filled with stratified neritic deposits of Paleogene age and younger, as much as 2.0 km thick. The Cenozoic fill is deformed above faults that offset the basement and the sea floor near the Pribilof Islands.