Arctic Ocean gas reserves, and the Chukchi shelf forms the border between Russian and the United States as stated in the USSR–USA Maritime Boundary Agreement. The whole area is subject to international territorial claims. An underwater ridge, the Lomonosov Ridge, divides the deep sea North Polar Basin into two oceanic basins: the Eurasian Basin, which is between deep, and the Amerasian Basin (sometimes called the North American, or Hyperborean Basin), which is about deep. The bathymetry of the ocean bottom is marked by fault block ridges, abyssal plains, ocean deeps, and basins. The average depth of the Arctic Ocean is . The
Welsh Basin Welsh Basin The Welsh Basin was a northeast-southwest aligned back-arc depositional basin during the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian periods during which a considerable thickness of marine sediments was laid down in the area. To the southeast lay the Midland Platform (a part of the micro-continent of Avalonia) and to the northwest, within the Iapetus Ocean, through what is now Ireland and the Lake District, was an island arc; a northeast-southwest aligned Irish Sea landmass which was associated with volcanic activity. Examination of the sediments and associated fossils allows the deeper centre of the basin to be distinguished from shallower 'platform'