Cambrian-Ordovician platform stratigraphy: correlations around Kane Basin

Abstract

Cambrian and Ordovician platform strata in western North Greenland and adjacent Ellesmere Island were deposited on an elongate platform lying to the south of the Franklinian Trough. The sequence is dominated by carbonates with prominent evaporite horizons and subsidiary shales and sandstones. A transect across the platform shows changes in facies and increase in thickness from inner platform sequences in Inglefield Land and Bache Peninsula, to the south, to outer platform sequences in the Judge Daly Promontory area; clastic trough deposition characterises sections in northern Ellesmere Island. This paper briefly describes and correlates these sequences occurring around Kane Basin. The regional framework and close similarity of Cambrian and Ordovician sequences in Greenland and Canada indicate that substantial transcurrent net displacement has not taken place along Nares Strait. Of special note are narrow belts of Ordovician evaporites which cross Nares Strait from Ellesmere Island into Greenland without displacement at the present day. The continuity of these environmentally specialised belts of deposition demonstrates that net transcurrent displacement along Nares Strait since the Early Ordovician has not exceeded 50 km.