--> Abstract: Changes in the Provenance of Cretaceous and Tertiary Sediments and Possible Tectonic Causes, Bylot Island, Nunavut, CA, by Lisel Currie; #90177 (2013)

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Changes in the Provenance of Cretaceous and Tertiary Sediments and Possible Tectonic Causes, Bylot Island, Nunavut, CA

Lisel Currie

The undeveloped Lancaster Sound-Baffin Bay area is considered to have significant petroleum potential, making it a focus of the Baffin Bay Basins project of the Geological Survey of CA’s GEM-Energy program. Understanding the Mesozoic and Cenozoic depositional history and its relation to tectonic events will aid in the determination of this area’s hydrocarbon potential and reduce exploration risk. Cretaceous and Cenozoic fluvial-deltaic sedimentary rocks of the Lancaster Sound-Baffin Bay area were deposited in an extensional setting characterised by horst and grabens formed during the opening of Baffin Bay and Lancaster Sound. Eclipse Trough and North Bylot Trough (grabens) are exposed on the southwest and north sides of Bylot Island, respectively, and are separated by crystalline basement rocks of the Canadian Shield that comprise the Central Bylot High (horst). Detrital zircon U-Pb SHRIMP ages, palynology, and detrital rutile, rare earth element, and Nd and Hf isotopic geochemistry for mid-Cretaceous and Paleocene samples from Bylot Island indicate a progression to isolated basins as early as the Maastrichtian (coeval with rifting in Baffin Bay), and at least three changes in provenance and/or levels of erosion. The change in the composition of sediment deposited in Eclipse Trough in late Cretaceous time is likely related to surface uplift and erosion resulting from rifting in Baffin Bay, whereas the arrival of sediment derived from Caledonian sources (likely recycled) in the early Late Paleocene is considered the result of erosion of the Eurekan Orogen and/or a change in drainage patterns related to the opening of Baffin Bay and/or regional uplift caused by a mantle plume. A return to locally-derived detritus later in the Late Paleocene reflects renewed local erosion, possibly due to surface uplift and erosion associated with the opening of Lancaster Sound.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90177©3P Arctic, Polar Petroleum Potential Conference & Exhibition, Stavanger, Norway, October 15-18, 2013