Type Locality:

Valley walls of a northward flowing river that joins Bird Fiord valley 6.5 km east of the head of Bird Fiord, Ellesmere Island.

Distribution:

Occurs in the eastern Arctic, extending from the head of Vendom Fiord on the northeast to eastern Grinnell Peninsula on the west; recorded thicknesses range from 300 m to 1,480 m.

Lithology:

Alternating resistant sandstone units and recessive shale-siltstone units; lithologies are arranged in fining-upward cycles in which the shale-siltstone units form the bulk of the cycle. Sandstone units, 1 to 10 m thick, are fine-grained in the lower portion and very fine-grained in the upper portion. Trough cross-bedding is the predominant sedimentary structure. Recessive and poorly exposed shale-siltstone units range in thickness from 5 to 20 m. Red shale predominates in the lower half of the formation whereas green and grey shale with minor coal are common in the upper half. The only fossils found in the formation are plant and fish remains.

Relationship:

Conformably overlies the Hecla Bay Formation and is conformably over-lain by the Hell Gate Formation; stratigraphically equivalent to the lower portion of the Beverley Inlet Formation of the western Arctic.

History:

The stratigraphic unit designated as the Fram Formation was informally named the lower sandstone and shale member of the Okse Bay Formation (McLaren, 1963a). Embry and Klovan (1976) raised the Okse Bay to group status and formally defined the Fram Formation.

Other Citations:

McLaren, 1963a; McGill, 1974; Embry and Klovan, 1976.