Tectonic History of the Arctic Basins: Partial Solutions and Unsolved Mysteries (Chapter 3),

As yet inaccessible to deep-sea drilling and shipborne surveying, the ice-locked Arctic Basin has been slow to give up details of crustal genesis and later modification. Extensive geophysical surveying both in the Arctic Basin and the North Atlantic confirms sea-floor spreading as the only probable mode of crustal genesis for the Eurasia Basin. Magnetic anomalies, although less clear than elsewhere suggest spreading rates of approximately 0.5 to 1 cmyr since 10 m.y.b.p. the basin was born perhaps 60 m.y.b.p., with the separation of the Lomonosov Ridge from the Eurasian margin.