Type Locality:

North side of Hare Fiord, near van Hauen Pass. Ellesmere Island.

Distribution:

At the type locality, 400 m with anhydrite units up to 80 m and lime-stone units ranging to 30 m. In this area only the middle and upper parts of the formation are exposed; the lower part is hidden because of faulting. Farther east along Hare Fiord, complete sections of Otto Fiord are present at Stepanow Creek and east of Girty Creek. The maximum thickness of 600 m occurs near Stepanow Creek; near Girty Creek, the unit is 300 m thick.

Lithology:

On northern Ellesmere Island characterized almost exclusively by cyclical or alternating thick units of anhydrite and thinner limestones, with minor interbedded sandstone and green, fissile shales appearing in the upper part of the section. Prominent white anhydrite units form about two-thirds of the formation's thickness. The anhydrite is generally medium- to massive-bedded and exhibits a variety of textures ranging from laminar to nodular mosaic. Recessive-weathering limestones make up all but a small percentage of the remainder of the formations's thickness. These units are generally thin to massive bedded, fine-grained, and weather dark grey to black, offering a striking contrast to the anhydrite beds. Evidence from diapirs, geophysical data, and drilling confirms the presence of a salt facies in the subsurface to the southwest of Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere Islands.

Relationship:

Regionally, the Otto Fiord Formation is underlain by prominent red-weathering clastic rocks of the Borup Fiord Formation and is overlain by dark, basinal shales, siltstones and limestones of the Hare Fiord Formation or by massive, light coloured shelf carbonates of the Nansen Formation. Northerly from the type area the Otto Fiord grades into the lower part of the Nansen Formation while to the south it probably is continuous with clastic rocks of the Canyon Fiord Formation.

Other Citations:

Thorsteinsson and Tozer, 1970; Thorsteinsson, 1974; Wardlaw and Christie, 1975; Davies, 1975a, b, 1977a; Davies and Nassichuk, 1975a; Nassichuk and Davies, in press.