the molloy deep is a roughly rectangular, seismically active, extensional, sea-floor basin, that lies between the northwestern tip of the molloy fracture zone, (a right-lateral, strike-slip fault), and the spitsbergen fracture zone (also a right-lateral, strike-slip fault). these two fracture zones connect the knipovich ridge (the actively spreading northern segment of the mid-atlantic ocean ridge system), with the lena trough, an actively spreading mid-ocean ridge region north of the spitsbergen fracture zone. the lena trough joins the southwestern end of the arctic ocean’s gakkel ridge which is the slowest spreading mid-ocean ridge on earth, and which stretches across the entire arctic oceans’ eurasian basin.