| Summary: | Understanding the original depositional environments, architecture, and sediment sources of intracratonic basins is integral to terrane analysis in Precambrian cratons. Proterozoic intracratonic basins are widespread throughout Arctic North America, yet their inception and evolution are poorly understood. The late Mesoproterozoic amalgamation of the supercontinent Rodinia represents, specifically, an exemplary time to investigate intracratonic basin development due to many basins being formed. Four basins in eastern arctic Canada and Greenland, known as the Bylot basins, are thought to be genetically linked due to broadly similar lithologies, age, and geographic proximity. Southernmost in this basin system is the Fury and Hecla Basin, which straddles the homonymous strait and is exposed on Baffin Island and Melville Peninsula. Establishing a correlative framework between the Fury and Hecla Basin and the better characterized Borden Basin is key to a refined understanding of the broader Bylot basins. The late Mesoproterozoic strata filling the Fury and Hecla basin, cumulatively known as the Fury and Hecla Group, comprise six formations: Nyeboe, Sikosak Bay, Hansen, Agu Bay, Whyte Inlet, and Autridge; of these, three (the Nyeboe, Sikosak Bay, and Whyte Inlet formations) are sandstone-dominated. Facies analysis indicates that the lowermost Nyeboe Formation records a range of depositional environments including terrestrial, backshore eolian, marine intertidal, wave-dominated marine shelf, and marine-offshore transitional. The Sikosak Bay and Whyte Inlet formations were largely deposited in a wave-dominated marine-shelf realm and show evidence of large sandwave buildup due to prolonged longshore drift. Seven sandstone samples were analyzed for detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology from the Fury and Hecla Group, and yielded grains with ages ranging from ~3350 to ~1695 Ma. Altogether, detrital zircon grains show a bimodal age distribution with peaks at ~2.7 Ga and ~1.9 Ga. Notably, the Archean age peak is more prominent in ...
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