Wandel Sea Basin — The North Greenland equivalent to Svalbard and the Barents Shelf

Abstract

Recent investigations of the North Greenland Wandel Sea Basin confirm, to a large extent, previous assumptions of a parallel development with Svalbard and the Barents Shelf. Deposits from the Wandel Sea Basin have now been recorded in a coastal belt in North Greenland almost 500 km in length, but in many parts their distribution is limited and/or highly patchy. A composite sequence totalling well over 7 km has been recorded, which gives evidence for a complex depositional and structural history of the basin encompassing the Carboniferous to Tertiary interval. Depositional environments in the Carboniferous to Triassic, as well as in the Palaeocene, compare well with the situation recorded in Svalbard. The later Mesozoic history of the two areas deviates to varying degrees, and there is some evidence that the North Greenland development may be more closely paralleled in the Barents Shelf area than in onshore Svalbard. Late Jurassic to early Cretaceous deposition testifies to the separation of smaller basin units; however, the presence of thick late-Cretaceous on-shore sequences in North Greenland constitutes the most conspicuous difference from Svalbard. During the late Cretaceous, several pull-apart basins were filled and deformed in a dextral strike-slip mobile belt, largely paralleling the subsequent suture between Greenland and Svalbard. The type of deposition in individual basins varies widely. Some contain fluvial-deltaic and marine sediments whereas a single basin is dominated by continental vulcanogenic sediments and extrusives. Severe post- Palaeocene thermal alteration centrally in the Wandel Sea Basin constitutes the last major event so far recorded in North Greenland.