The Arctic Ocean is a small, nearly landlocked ocean basin that is the shallowest in the world (Figure 1). It has maintained a polar location since forming in Early Cretaceous times (Grantz et al., 1990). The ocean’s two central deep basins (Amerasian and Eurasian) and its shelf seas occupy 2.6 percent of the global ocean area and less than 1 percent of the global ocean volume (Menard and Smith, 1966; Jakobsson, 2002). The mean water depth is ~ 1400 m, which is ~ 2.5-km shallower than the global ocean mean depth (Jakobsson, 2002). The Arctic Ocean is further distinguished from the other oceans by its large shelf areas (53 percent in Arctic vs. 13 percent of total average area in all other oceans), small basins (17 percent vs. 42 percent), and large ridge areas (16 percent vs. 3 percent) (Jakobsson, 2002).

Moran, K., J. Backman, and the IODP Expedition 302 Science Party. 2006. The Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX) recovers a Cenozoic history of the Arctic Ocean. Oceanography 19(4):162–167, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2006.14.

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