Joanne Bryan

B. Sc. Honours Thesis

Magnetic Modelling in the Davis Strait and Northern Labrador Sea

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The Davis Strait is a constricted passage lying between Baffin Island and Greenland. Davis Strait separates the waters of Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea. There have been disagreements as to the nature of the crust in underlying the Davis Strait.

Detailed marine magnetic data from the Davis Strait were gathered on geophysical surveys carried out by the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in 1980-81. The data show north-south lineations over most of the area.

Wu (1984) interpreted the data and suggested that the magnetic anomalies were produced by seafloor spreading. The subsurface structure of the Davis Strait has been modelled based on Wu's (1984) interpretation. Of all the Davis Strait models, the one which produced calculated magnetic profile closest in fit to the observed magnetic data is based on a modified version of Wu's (1984) interpretation. Models were also developed in the northern Labrador Sea where more data are available and the anomalies are better identified.

The models seem to indicate that seafloor spreading has occurred in the Davis Strait. However, the process of spreading in the Davis Strait region appears, necessarily, to be more complicated than is indicated by Wu's (1984) simple model.

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Pages: 40
Supervisor:  Patrick J. C. Ryall