Geology of Elu Inlet and Melville Sound, Nunavut, Arctic Canada

We present the results of helicopter- and field-based geological mapping of Elu Inlet and Melville Sound, Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Arctic Canada. The area includes a ∼150 km-wide belt of Proterozoic sedimentary rocks that unconformably overlie the Archean Slave Province of the Canadian Shield an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Maps
Main Authors: Alessandro Ielpi, Robert H. Rainbird, J. Wilder Greenman, C. Gabriel Creason
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2017
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2016.1268981
https://doaj.org/article/30c8d947509c432fb9a026677e2efbab
Description
Summary:We present the results of helicopter- and field-based geological mapping of Elu Inlet and Melville Sound, Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Arctic Canada. The area includes a ∼150 km-wide belt of Proterozoic sedimentary rocks that unconformably overlie the Archean Slave Province of the Canadian Shield and are cross-cut by Neoproterozoic mafic rocks and covered by early Palaeozoic deposits. This work introduces an updated sedimentologic, stratigraphic, and structural framework for the area and is corroborated by geophysical analysis of natural radioactivity. Three Proterozoic sedimentary sequences have been identified, spanning in age from ∼1.9 to ∼1.2 Ga, and including fluvial–aeolian sandstone and shallow-marine carbonate rocks. Mass-spectrometric analyses identified above-baseline concentrations of uranium along the unconformities underlying the two oldest Proterozoic sequences. Proterozoic deposits display weak deformation, related to syn-orogenic foreland and intracratonic-sag stages of the Kilohigok and Elu basins, respectively.