Journal of Petroleum Geology, Vol.18,
No.2, pp. 207-222, 1995
©Copyright 2000 Scientific Press,
Ltd.
TECTONIC FABRIC OF THE
ATLANTIC OCEAN FLOOR:
SPECULATION VS. REALITY
N. C. Smoot* and (the
late) A. A Meyerhoff**
* Seafloor Data Bases Division, US
Naval Oceanographic Office, Stennis Space Center, Mississippi
39522, USA. NCS is an employee of the Naval Oceanographic Office.
However, this paper was prepared in his personal time.
As such, the opinions and assertions contained herein are those
of the Author, and are not to be considered as official
statements of the US Department of the Navy.
** Formerly of PO Box 4602, Tulsa,
Oklahoma 74159, USA. See In Memoriam, page 220.
Abstract
Almost all published charts of the world's
ocean floors have been drawn deliberately to reflect the
predictions of the plate-tectonics hypothesis. For example, the
Atlantic Ocean floor is unvaryingly shown to be dominated by a
sinuous, north-south mid-ocean ridge, flanked on either side by
abyssal plains, cleft at its crest by a rift valley, and offset
at more-or-less regular 40- to 60-km intervals by
east-west-striking fracture zones. However, it is now clear that
as new, detailed, bathymetric surveys are being completed, this
oversimplified portrayal of the Atlantic Basin is largely wrong.
Thousands of bathymetric features present, many of them major,
are wholly unexplained by plate tectonics. Others, predicted by
plate tectonics, are totally absent. We show, on the basis of
specific examples based on real data from the North Atlantic
Ocean, that the real bathymetry and the real tectonic fabric are
very different from the bathymetry and tectonic fabric portrayed
(but rarely documented) in plate-tectonics publications. A new
hypothesis is needed to explain the origin of the real bathymetry
and tectonic fabric of the deep oceans. Such a hypothesis could
very well provide clues for future petroleum and other mineral
exploration along the continental margins.
