The shell is skeneimorph, depressed, fairly solid, colourless, with a broad umbilicus. The larval shell consists of about 0.8 whorls, diameter about 0.33 mm, and is sculptured with two indistinct spiral cords, one at the middle of the whorl and a more indistinct and incomplete one close to the first suture. These lines consist of aligned, long, and irregular tuberc¬les. There are also more irregular, small tubercles scattered over the protoconch and a zone between the two lines where these tubercles occur in higher density. The teleconch is well demarcated and consists of about two whorls. The sculpture consists of fairly straight, irregular and widely scattered growth lines; about six strong spiral ribs inside the umbilicus, confined to the central 2/7 of the basal surface, and strong, radial and curved incised furrrows covering 2/3 of the basal surface. The aperture is prosocline, almost radial, almost circular; the inner lip is connected to the preceding whorl along about 35° of the circle formed by the aperture. The diameter of the holotype is 1,46 mm.
The operculum is corneous, densely multispiral, brownish. Radula formula is n - 4 - 1 - 4 - n . The central tooth is wide and membranaceous, with one slightly larger central and 3-6 small lateral cusps. There are four strongly curved lateral teeth with broad, thin shafts and handshaped cutting edges. There are more than 25 marginals, the outer ones partly fused, equipped with a fairly broad cutting edge, which on more lateral teeth becomes smaller.

Skenea ossiansarsi is the only species of the northern members of Skenea where the aperture starts its connection to the preceding whorl at the widest point of the whorl. In the other species it starts either below this level and their shells are consequently less depressed, or as in S. serpuloides, well above this point and the shell becomes more planispiral. Skenea serpuloides can also be distinguished by having a fine spiral sculpture all over the shell, stronger in the umbilical region, but it does not have as strong umbilical ribs as ossiansarsi and it lacks totally the radiating, basal furrows.
Young specimens of S. trochoides bear a strong resemblance to S. ossiansarsi, but they are proportionally higher, with a height corresponding to more than 0.8 of the width, while in S. ossiansarsi the same figure is below 0.75.
Skenea ossiansarsi resembles S. pelagia NOFRONI & VALENTI, 1987, from the Mediterranean, but that species has a much finer umbilical sculpture and was found in shallow water. 0.5-2 m.

Southwestern and southern Iceland. Severnaya Zemlya. to northern and western Norway and the Faroes. Depth range 50-500 m.