Summary of stratigraphy of Melville Island, Arctic Canada

Abstract

The sedimentary rocks of Melville Island can be grouped into three sedimentary successions that were controlled by regional tectonics. The groups are: 1) Infill of the Franklinian Geosyncline (now called the Franklinian Mobile Belt): the rocks are upper Precambrian to Upper Devonian carbonates succeeded by evaporites and black shales. These rocks are overlain by Devonian clastic rocks. The clastic rocks dominated the basin fill from the Middle Devonian until the Ellesmerian Orogeny (Famennian to Viséan). An angular unconformity separates the rocks from the Sverdrup Basin fill above. 2) Sverdrup Basin rocks ranging from Pennsylvanian to early Tertiary. Carboniferous rocks are mainly sandstone, conglomerate and minor limestone. Anhydrite of Pennsylvanian age is exposed in two domes in Sabine Peninsula. Bitumen-bearing Triassic rocks are found on northwestern Melville Island. The youngest rocks of the Sverdrup succession are the Maastrichtian and Paleocene strata of the Eureka Sound Group. 3) Beaufort Formation strata, consisting of gravel and sand containing wood, discontinuously overlie older rocks. They are assigned to the Upper Tertiary probably Pliocene-Miocene.