Tectonics of the drake Passage-Scotia sea zone in the southern ocean

The relief and geophysical characteristics of the sea floor in the Drake Passage-Scotia Sea zone have been studied quite well in general. The oceanic floor within this zone is usually considered as a collage of small fragments of the continental bridge and of young oceanic plates formed by spreading under the large-scale motions of large lithospheric plates. The authors suppose an alternative version of the genesis of the Drake Passage-Scotia Sea lithospheric zone as an area of large fragments of the continental bridge subjected to basification under the conditions of temperate extension and local rifting.