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Yet there are still important questions to be addressed - by the active geophysical programmes on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge system and the passive margins, by ongoing Ocean Drilling Program work and by hydrocarbon exploration in frontier areas in more hostile North Atlantic waters. Just one topic that illustrates what the North Atlantic has to offer as a natural laboratory is the research into oceanic gateways, such as the North Atlantic-Arctic Gateway and the Greenland-Scotland Ridge. These features are created by the tectonics of the basin, the sedimentary record documents the history of their development and the palaeoceanography was strongly influenced by the circulation patterns permitted through the gateways.
This volume is aimed at a very wide audience. Although there is material in this book of interest to almost all geoscientists working in the North Atlantic region, there is a focus of papers on the basin margins, and on the NW European margin in particular, covering aspects from Mesozoic rifting to Quaternary sedimentation. Papers on the evolution of the Grand Banks and Iberian passive margins, and sedimentation over the Iceland-Scotland Ridge and in the equatorial Atlantic gateway all relate strongly to the Ocean Drilling Program, whilst of interest to the oil industry will be a number of papers on shelf basins, such as the Jeanne D'Arc and the Moray Firth.
