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  • Review Article
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Arctic Ocean bathymetry and its connections to tectonics, oceanography and climate

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 6, pages 211–227 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

For at least the past 50 million years, the Arctic region has had a major role in regulating global climate regimes and their variations through time. In this Review, we discuss the role of the Arctic oceanic basin and its complex bathymetry in controlling ocean circulation and marine cryosphere development. The spatial distribution and depth of various seafloor features, such as ocean gateways, submarine plateaus and continental shelves, influence the pathways of ocean currents, both today and in the past. The Arctic Ocean was an enclosed basin until the Early Eocene (56–48 million years ago), when the Eurasian Basin started to form and a shallow sea connected the Arctic to the Tethys Ocean. The connections with the North Atlantic and the global ocean through shallow and deep gateways prompted the transition from a global greenhouse to icehouse climate. However, the Arctic Ocean remains underexplored, as less than one-quarter of its seafloor is mapped in detail. Future integrated geoscience research, modern bathymetric mapping technology and active international programmes are needed to close these data gaps.

Key points

  • Bathymetry controls ocean current pathways, especially along steep slopes, and influences ocean mixing, ventilation, and the horizontal and vertical distribution of temperature and salinity.

  • In the Cretaceous period, when the first Arctic abyssal plain was forming 126 million years ago (Ma), the Arctic Ocean was confined between large land masses and their wide continental shelves.

  • From 56 Ma, tectonic changes and mantle dynamics facilitated the opening of shallow and deep seaways within Eurasia and at its continental margins, initiating water exchange with the Tethys, North Atlantic and global oceans.

  • A temporary deepening of the Barents Seaway in the Eocene at 50 Ma reduced the strength of the proto-Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation via freshwater fluxes from the Arctic, which suppressed dense-water formation at the northern limb of the overturning circulation.

  • Bathymetric changes of the proto-Fram Strait, Barents Seaway and the Greenland–Iceland–Scotland Ridge together with decreasing atmospheric carbon dioxide probably influenced the climate transition from greenhouse to icehouse conditions at the Eocene–Oligocene Transition (34 Ma).

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Fig. 1: Circum-Arctic topography, bathymetry and key geological events.
Fig. 2: Present-day ocean circulation and cryosphere influenced by Arctic bathymetry.
Fig. 3: Geophysical characterization of the Arctic Ocean basin.
Fig. 4: Detailed submarine structures and processes in difficult-to-access Arctic regions.
Fig. 5: Seafloor depth, basement roughness and geodynamic processes along the Gakkel Ridge.
Fig. 6: Reconstructed palaeobathymetry of Arctic and North Atlantic oceans over the Cenozoic.

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Acknowledgements

C.G. acknowledges financial support from the Research Council of Norway (RCN) through its Centres of Excellence scheme, project number 332523 (PHAB) and RCN project 309477 (NOR-R-AM2). M.J. was supported by the Nippon Foundation of Japan and the Swedish Research Council VR (grant 2021-04512). E.O.S. acknowledges support from RCN project 314371 (DOTpaleo). M.-L.T. acknowledges support from the National Sciences Foundation, Office of Polar Programs. K.B. was supported by the Geological Survey of Canada’s UNCLOS programme. S.B. acknowledges support from the Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence scheme, project number 332635 (iC3).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Planetary Habitability (PHAB), Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Carmen Gaina

  2. Department of Geological Sciences, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Martin Jakobsson

  3. Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Martin Jakobsson

  4. NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS, Bergen, Norway

    Eivind O. Straume

  5. Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Eivind O. Straume

  6. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Mary-Louise Timmermans

  7. Natural Resources Canada, Geological Survey of Canada, Dartmouth, NS, Canada

    Kai Boggild

  8. Centre for Ice, Cryosphere, Carbon and Climate (i3C), University of Tromsø, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

    Stefan Bünz

  9. Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany

    Vera Schlindwein

  10. Geomagnetism and Geospace, Department of Space Research and Technology, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Lyngby, Denmark

    Arne Døssing

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Contributions

C.G. designed the Review structure and wrote the first draft. M.J., M.-L.T., E.O.S. and K.B. provided figures and made substantial contributions to the discussion of content, writing and review/editing of manuscript before submission. S.B. provided a figure and contributed to specific sections of the manuscript. V.S. and A.D. made contributions to specific sections of the manuscript. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript before submission.

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Gaina, C., Jakobsson, M., Straume, E.O. et al. Arctic Ocean bathymetry and its connections to tectonics, oceanography and climate. Nat Rev Earth Environ 6, 211–227 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-025-00647-0

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