The Commander Basin (alternately Komandorsky Basin) is located between the

Shirshov Ridge The Shirshov Ridge is located on the eastern border of the Commander Basin below the Kamchatka Peninsula. It extends directly southward for a distance of 750 km toward the Aleutian arc in the eastern part of the Bering Sea (see figure).E. V. ...

and the

Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and we ...

. Its southern boundary is the Aleutian arc (see figure) and occupies the western part of the

Bering Sea The Bering Sea (, ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The Amer ...

. The Kamchatka Strait provides a deep water access to the basin from the southwest. The basins

sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

cover is less than 2 km thick. In the southwestern portion of the basin near the Ulakahn Fault, linear magnetic anomalies associated with the

Early Miocene The Early Miocene (also known as Lower Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages: the Aquitanian and Burdigalian stages. The sub-epoch lasted from 23.03 ± 0.05 Ma to 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma (million years ago). It was p ...

have been identified. The magnetic anomalies support a sequential opening of the Commander Basin resulting from stresses on the interface between the Eurasian and Pacific plates. The structures of the Bering Sea floor at the Commander Basin were created 17 to 21 Million years before the present. The Commander Basin floor is a horizontal plain 3800–3900 m deep. It is covered with 2000–6000 m of sediment overlying an oceanic crust which is 12–14 km thick. Active spreading in the Commander Basin occurred between 40 and 10 Myr ago, with subduction of the basin floor along the Ulakhan fault underneath the Kamchatka peninsula. There are four major fracture zones in the basin and magnetic lineations have been detected in the basin. Except in the southern end of the basin, the spreading center has been subducted. The water in the basin circulates in a cyclonic

gyre In oceanography, a gyre () is any large system of circulating ocean currents, particularly those involved with large wind movements. Gyres are caused by the Coriolis effect; planetary vorticity, horizontal friction and vertical friction determin ...

, with the western Kamchatka Current flowing southward along the Kamchatka Peninsula. The northward leg of the gyre is outside of the Commander Basin, and is carried by the Bering Slope Current, which flows along the edge of the continental shelf at the eastern edge of the Aleutian Basin. To the south, the Commander Basin connects to the North Pacific through the 4.4 km wide, 4,420 meter deep Kamchatka Strait and the 2.0 km wide, 2,000 meter deep Near Strait.M.S. Cook, , L.D. Keigwin, C.A. Sancetta; The deglacial history of surface and intermediate water of the Bering Sea; Deep-Sea Research Part II; Volume 52 (2005) pp. 2163–2173

References

{{coord, 57, 27, N, 166, 35, E, type:landmark_region:XP_dim:1000000, display=title Oceanic basins of the Pacific Ocean Landforms of the Bering Sea