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New marine geophysical data acquired across the partly ice‐covered northern East Greenland continental margin highlight a complex interaction between tectonic and magmatic events. Breakup‐related lava flows are imaged in reflection seismic data as seaward dipping reflectors (SDRs), which are found to decrease in size both northwards and southwards from a central point at 75° N. We provide evidence that the magnetic anomaly pattern in the shelf area is related to volcanic phases and not to the presence of oceanic crust. The remnant magnetization of the individual lava flows is used to deduce a relative timing of the emplacement of the volcanic wedges. We find that the SDRs have been emplaced over a period of 2‐4 Ma progressively from north to south and from landward to seaward. The new data indicate a major post‐middle Eocene magmatic phase around the landward termination of the West Jan Mayen Fracture Zone. This post‐40 Ma volcanism likely was associated with the progressive separation of the Jan Mayen microcontinent from East Greenland. The break‐up of the Greenland Sea started at several isolated seafloor spreading cells whose location was controlled by rift structures and led to the present‐day segmentation of the margin. The original rift basins were subsequently connected by steady‐state seafloor spreading that propagated southwards, from the Greenland Fracture Zone to the Jan Mayen Fracture Zone. Key Points Polyphase Cenozoic volcanic rifting and consecutive emplacement of breakup‐related lava flows units along the northern East Greenland margin Breakup along restricted margin segments is followed by north to south directed progressive opening of the Greenland Sea Widespread post‐middle Eocene (< 40 Ma) offshore magmatism, associated with the breakup of the Jan Mayen microcontinent from East Greenland

A number of rock samples were collected from two dredge positions on the Lomonosov Ridge at water depths of 2-3.5 km. The dredge samples are dominated by sediments deformed and metamorphosed under greenschist-facies conditions 470 myr ago according to 40Ar/39Ar dating of metamorphic muscovite. This shows that the Lomonosov Ridge was involved in a major Mid- Ordovician orogenic event that correlates with early arc-terrane accretion observed in northern Ellesmere Island, Svalbard, and other parts of the Caledonian belt. Detrital zircon age spectra of these metasediments span the Mesoproterozoic-Palaeoproterozoic with a main peak at around 1.6 Ga, and a pattern similar to that known from Caledonian metasedimentary rocks in East Greenland and northern Norway, as well as from Cambrian sediments in Estonia and Palaeozoic sediments on Novaya Zemlya. A second population of dredge samples comprises undeformed, non-metamorphic sandstones and siltstones. Detrital zircons in these sediments span the Palaeoproterozoic with a few Archaean zircons. Both rock types are covered by an up to 8 Ma ferromanganese crust and are evaluated to represent outcrop, and apatite fission-track data from three of the rock samples indicate that exposure at the seabed corresponds to a regional event of uplift and erosion that affected the Arctic in the Late Miocene. The data from the Lomonosov Ridge suggest that the 470 Ma orogenic event extended from Scotland and northern Scandinavia into the Arctic, including Svalbard, the Pearya Terrane and the Chukchi Borderlands.

Clarifying the functional roles of HLA-G and the variation in the HLA-G gene that affects the expression are increasingly important in reproduction, cancer, organ transplantation, and autoimmune diseases. The homology between HLA genes and the genetic variability within each gene complicates the design of HLA gene-specific genotyping assays. We have designed a high-throughput, cost-efficient, robust, and specific assay for sequencing the full HLA-G gene including the 5′-upstream regulatory region, introns, and the 3′-untranslated region, using the next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform Ion Torrent PGM (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, Massachusetts). Conventional sequencing methods require the design of multiple primer pairs in order to cover the entire HLA-G gene. Designing multiple primer pairs specific for the HLA-G gene that also target all known alleles is difficult. Here, we present a setup that by the use of long-range polymerase chain reaction amplifies the whole HLA-G gene in a single reaction, which only requires a single HLA-G-specific primer pair. Enzymatic DNA shearing is used to break the long-range PCR product into shorter fragments ranging from 75 to 200 bp in length that are sequenced by NGS.

Study of the deep structure of conjugate passive continental margins combined with detailed plate kinematic reconstructions can provide constraints on the mechanisms of rifting and formation of initial oceanic crust. In this study the central Atlantic conjugate margins are compared based on compilation of wide-angle seismic profiles from NW Africa Nova Scotian and U.S. passive margins. The patterns of volcanism, crustal thickness, geometry, and seismic velocities in the transition zone suggest symmetric rifting followed by asymmetric oceanic crustal accretion. Conjugate profiles in the southern central Atlantic image differences in the continental crustal thickness. While profiles on the eastern U.S. margin are characterized by thick layers of magmatic underplating, no such underplate was imaged along the African continental margin. In the north, two wide-angle seismic profiles acquired in exactly conjugate positions show that the crustal geometry of the unthinned continental crust and the necking zone are nearly symmetric. A region including seismic velocities too high to be explained by either continental or oceanic crust is imaged along the Canadian side, corresponding on the African side to an oceanic crust with slightly elevated velocities. These might result from asymmetric spreading creating seafloor by faulting the existing lithosphere on the Canadian side and the emplacement of magmatic oceanic crust including pockets of serpentinite on the Moroccan margin. After isochron M25, a large-scale plate reorganization might then have led to an increase in spreading velocity and the production of thin magmatic crust on both sides.

The distribution of Cenozoic compressional structures along the NW European margin has been compared with maps of the thickness of the crystalline crust derived from a compilation of seismic refraction interpretations and gravity modelling, and with the distribution of high-velocity lower crust and/or partially serpentinized upper mantle detected by seismic experiments. Only a subset of the mapped compressional structures coincide with areas susceptible to lithospheric weakening as a result of crustal hyperextension and partial serpentinization of the upper mantle. Notably, partially serpentinized upper mantle is well documented beneath the central part of the southern Rockall Basin, but compressional features are sparse in that area. Where compressional structures have formed but the upper mantle is not serpentinized, simple rheological modelling suggests an alternative weakening mechanism involving ductile lower crust and lithospheric decoupling. The presence of pre-existing weak zones (associated with the properties of the gouge and overpressure in fault zones) and local stress magnitude and orientation are important contributing factors.

This study describes the distribution and stratigraphic range of the Upper Paleozoic–Mesozoic succession in the NE Atlantic region, and is correlated between conjugate-margins and along the axis of the NE Atlantic rift system. The stratigraphic framework has yielded important new constraints on the timing and nature of sedimentary basin development in the NE Atlantic, with implications for rifting and the breakup of the Pangaean supercontinent. From a regional perspective, the Permian–Triassic succession records a northward transition from an arid interior to a passively-subsiding, mixed carbonate/siliciclastic shelf margin. A Late Permian–earliest Triassic rift pulse has regional expression in the stratigraphic record. A fragmentary paralic to shallow-marine Lower Jurassic succession reflects Early Jurassic thermal subsidence and mild extensional tectonism; this was interrupted by widespread Mid-Jurassic uplift and erosion, and followed by an intense phase of Late Jurassic rifting in some (but not all) parts of the NE Atlantic region. The Cretaceous succession is dominated by thick basinal-marine deposits, which accumulated within and along a broad zone of extension and subsidence between Rockall and NE Greenland. There is no evidence for a substantive and continuous rift system along the proto-NE Atlantic until the Late Cretaceous.

The distribution of Cenozoic compressional structures along the NW European margin has been compared with maps of the thickness of the crystalline crust derived from a compilation of seismic refraction interpretations and gravity modelling, and with the distribution of high-velocity lower crust and/or partially serpentinized upper mantle detected by seismic experiments. Only a subset of the mapped compressional structures coincide with areas susceptible to lithospheric weakening as a result of crustal hyperextension and partial serpentinization of the upper mantle. Notably, partially serpentinized upper mantle is well documented beneath the central part of the southern Rockall Basin, but compressional features are sparse in that area. Where compressional structures have formed but the upper mantle is not serpentinized, simple rheological modelling suggests an alternative weakening mechanism involving ductile lower crust and lithospheric decoupling. The presence of pre-existing weak zones (associated with the properties of the gouge and overpressure in fault zones) and local stress magnitude and orientation are important contributing factors.

Baffin Bay is an Arctic basin between Canada and Greenland, connected via Davis Strait with the Labrador Sea in the south. Due to its shallow water depth of only 500 m, Davis Strait acts as a gateway for the Arctic water exchange between Baffin Bay and the Atlantic. The nature of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait crust has long been a subject of debate. Either oceanic or stretched continental crust have been proposed by different authors from sonobuoy readings, seismic reflection and potential field data. We here present the new results of two seismic refraction lines acquired with ocean bottom seismometers. P-wave velocity models for both lines are constrained and complemented by density models, seismic reflection and magnetic anomaly data. Line AWI-20080500/AWI-20100400, in southern Baffin Bay, is oriented across a proposed Eocene spreading centre. This line confirms the existence of oceanic crust in southern Baffin Bay and allows for a regional mapping of the oceanic crust. With a plate kinematic model we depict the evolution of this basin and can distinguish between Palaeocene and Eocene oceanic crust. Line AWI-20080700 in Davis Strait crosses the Ungava Fault Complex, a major transform fault, where extension was followed by a stage of transpression. We here find deformed blocks of continental crust that are separated by transform faults of the Ungava Fault Complex. Between these blocks a region of 50 km is characterized by high P-wave velocities and a thin crust that we interpret as stretched and highly intruded crust. Tectonic modelling depicts a great lateral movement of 310 km of the continental blocks along the Ungava Fault complex. The compressional component is visible in a 70 km wide overlap of crust that had to be compensated by deformation of the blocks. With our new models and the compilation of published Moho depth and seismic stratigraphy we try to estimate the paleo bathymetry and the role of Davis Strait as a polar gateway.

Über die Labrador See und Baffin Bay wird zwischen Grönland und Kanada Flachwasser zwischen dem Arktischen Ozean und dem Atlantik ausgetauscht. Dieser Energietransport beeinflusst die klimatischen Bedingungen dieser Region wesentlich, so dass die wenig untersuchte tektonische Öffnung dieser Becken für das Paläoklima von besonderem Interesse ist. Hier werden Ergebnisse eines refraktionsseismischen Profils mit 24 Ozeanbodenseismometern des Fahrtabschnittes MSM09/3 mit der Maria S. Merian vorgestellt, das sich über 470 km von der Baffin Insel im SSW nach Grönland im NNO erstreckt und die vermutete Position einer Spreizungszone kreuzt. Auffällig ist eine Verdickung der Kruste westlich der vermuteten Spreizungszone, die durch eine negative Schwereanomalie bestätigt wird. Nordöstlich zeigt sich eine komplexe Struktur, die mit einer positiven Schwereanomalie zusammenfällt und auf Intrusionen mafischer Körper hinweist. Die anschließende grönländische Seite des Spreizungsbeckens ist weitgehend homogen mit dem typischen Aufbau ozeanischer Kruste, während sich auf kanadischer Seite ein komplexer struktureller Aufbau zeigt. Wir vermuten, dass die Komplexität mit wiederholten mafischen Intrusionen und/oder Scherzonen in Verbindung steht.