Type Locality:

The only continuous and well exposed section through the entire formation is the type section which is located on the north shore of Strand Fiord, immediately above the type section of the Strand Bay Formation. The base of the section is located at latitude 79°14'N and longitude 91°27"W; the top of the section is latitude 79°14.5'N and longitude 91°15"W, 11km due west of the mouth of Kanguk River (Ricketts, 1986).

Distribution:

In many areas of the eastern Arctic, the Iceberg Bay Formation is the highest stratigraphic unit preserved. The preserved thickness of the Iceberge Bay Formation at its type section at Strand Fiord is 1950 m, with additional thick sections located at Mokka Fiord (1500 m recorded by Bustin, 1977), 1240 m at Strathcona and Bay fiords, 600 m preserved at Canon Fiord, and possibly as much as 2000 m near Hot Weather Creek. In most cases, the top of the formation in these areas is eroded and thickness values are a minimum (Ricketts, 1986).

Locality Data:

Thickness(m): Typical 1950.

Lithology:

The Iceberg Bay Formation is characterized by three principal lithotypes: a unit of noncalcareous or slightly calcareous sandstone and shale; a calcareous, flaggy, white siltstone and sandstone unit; and a unit containing sandstone and thick coal seams (Ricketts, 1984, 1985). Fine-grained, brown sandstone and shale beds composing the lower 890m of the formation at Strand Fiord (map unit 4, Ricketts, 1984), are arranged into a large number of coarsening- and thickening-upward cycles. A few thin coal seams appear in the upper cycles of this map unit. In comparison, fining-upward sandstone sequences, commonly capped by coal seams (locally up to 6m thick), constitute the upper 1060m of the formation at the locality (map unit 5, Ricketts, 1984). A sequence of calcareous, flaggy siltstone and white sandstone, at least 600 m thick, occurs in the lower part of the Canon fiords. Like their stratigraphic counterparts at Strand Fiord, the flaggy lithotypes are arranged into coarsening-upward cycles, some of which contain abundant hummocky crossbedding (for example at South Bay), and channels filled with coarse grained calcareous sandstone. In the Canon Fiord area, the calcareous rock types form prominent cliffs. An addational unit of shale, up to 158 m thick, has been mapped locally at south Strathcona Fiord, where it abruptly overlies a coal seam that caps the calcareous flaggy strata. This shale thins northward to Bay Fiord where it is replaced laterally by a thin, pebble conglomerate, indicating the presence of a hiatal surface of lcoal extent within the Iceberg Bay Formation. Coal-bearing sandstones that cap fining-upward, sandstone-shale sequences occur in the upper 600 m of the formation at Bay Fiord, and correlate with the principal coal-bearing sequence at Strand Fiord (map unit 5, Ricketts, 1984, 1985). Toward the north west along Fosheim Peninsula, coal-bearing sequence, and at Hot Weather Creek the formation consists almost entirely of fining-upward sandstone-coal (Ricketts, 1986).

Relationship:

This unit is a formation of the Eureka Sound Group. Where basal strata of the Iceberg Bay Formation include thick brown sandstone (as at Strand Fiord), or calcareous, flaggy siltstone and sandstone (as at Canon Fiord and Strathcona Fiord), the contact with the underlying Strand Bay Shale is easily mapped. The contact is gradational over a few metres, in which the proportion of coarse grained rock types interbedded with shale increases. Contact with the overlying Buchanan Lake Formation is abrupt and disconformable, although locally it may be conformable, as noted at Lake Hazen by Miall (1979b). At the head of Mokka Fiord, in the footwall of Stolz Thrust and 8 km due south of Mokka Fiord Diapir, the contact is defined by the abrupt transition from pale brown weathering, quartz-rich sandstones interbedded with coal seams, to dark brown, lithic sandstones and diabase-pebble conglomerates. The Iceberge Bay Formation is equivalent to both members III and IV recorded at Strathcona Fiord by West et al. (1981) (Ricketts, 1986). Two members have been defined at Strand Fiord (Ricketts, 1991a): 1) the Lower member consists of sandstone and mudstone and minor coal and is arranged into numerous coarsening-upward cycles, and 2) the overlying Coal member consisting of fining-upward sandstone-mudstone-coal cycles. The Coal member, 1060 m thick at Strand Fiord, has been mapped over most of Sverdrup Basin, from Strathcona Fiord in the south (at least 600 m), and as far north as Emma Fiord and Philllips Inlet and northeast to Lake Hazen. It is the most widesperad of all formations in the Eureka Sound Group. Elsewhere, rocks that are stratigraphically equivalent to the Lower member at Strand Fiord have a more restricted distribution and are generally found only in the Fosheim Peninsula-Strathcona Fiord area. Sufficient differences in lithology alos exist in these areas to warrant the definition of two new members: the Cap Pillsbury Member, and the Braskeruds Member (Ricketts, 1994).

History:

The formation is named after Iceberg Bay, situated north of Expedition Fiord on west Axel Heiberg Island (Ricketts, 1986).

References:

Bustin, R.M., 1977. The Eureka Sound and Beaufort formations, Axel Heiberg and west-central Ellesmere islands, District of Franklin; M.Sc. Thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, 209 p.

Miall, A.D., 1979b. Tertiary fluvial sediments in the Lake Hazen intermontane basin, Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada; Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 79-9, 25 p.

Ricketts, B.D., 1984. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File Map 1147.

Ricketts, B.D., 1985. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File Map 1182.

Ricketts, B.D., 1986. New formations in the Eureka Sound Group, Canadian Arctic Islands; in, Current Research, Part B; Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 86-1B, pp. 363-374.

Ricketts, B.D., 1991a. Delta evolution in the Eureka Sound Group, western Axel Heiberge Island: The transition from wave-dominated to fluvial-dominated deltas; Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 402, 72 p.

Ricketts, B.D., 1994. Basin analysis, Eureka Sound Group, Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere Islands, Canadian Arctic Archipelago; Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir 439, 126 p.

West, R.M., Dawson, M.R., Hickey, L.J., and Miall, A.D., 1981. Upper Cretaceous and Paleogene sedimentary rocks, eastern Canadian Arctic and related North Atlantic areas; In: Kerr, J. W., and Fergusson, A. J. (Eds.), Geology of the North Atlantic Borderlands; Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Memoir 7, p. 279-298.

West, R.M., Dawson, M.R., and Hutchison, J.H., 1977. Fossils from the Paleogene Eureka Sound Formation, Northwest Territories, Canada: occurrence, climate and paleogeographic implications; in Paleontology and Plate Tectonics, ed. R.M. West; Iilwaukee Public Museum, Special Papers in Biology and Geology, no. 2.