Strathcona Fiord is a fiord on the west central coast of

Ellesmere Island Ellesmere Island (; ) is Canada's northernmost and List of Canadian islands by area, third largest island, and the List of islands by area, tenth largest in the world. It comprises an area of , slightly smaller than Great Britain, and the total ...

, the most northern island within the

Arctic Archipelago The Arctic Archipelago, also known as the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, is an archipelago lying to the north of the Canadian continental mainland, excluding Greenland (an autonomous territory of the Danish Realm, which is, by itself, much larger ...

Nunavut Nunavut is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' and the Nunavut Land Claims Agr ...

, Canada.

Geography

Strathcona Fiord is a southern tributary of Bay Fiord. The landscape in the region is fragile and spectacular. The steep hills forming the sides of the valley rise about above sea level. The striking arc of a

terminal moraine A terminal moraine, also called an end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front e ...

marks the limit of the last ice advance in the area. Taggart Lake running eastward of the moraine drains Upper and Lower Taggart lakes into the head of the fiord. The Prince of Wales Icefield lies on the eastern flank of this valley.

Human activity

Although currently there is no permanent settlement in the Strathcona Fiord area, stone tent rings and other archaeological features indicate past human habitation. Eureka, about to the northwest, is a weather station and staging point for scientific expeditions and for other visitors to Ellesmere Island and the

Qikiqtaaluk Region The Qikiqtaaluk Region, Qikiqtani Region (Inuktitut syllabics: ᕿᑭᖅᑖᓗᒃ ) or the Baffin Region is the easternmost, northernmost, and southernmost administrative region of Nunavut, Canada. Qikiqtaaluk is the traditional Inuktitut nam ...

. Grise Fiord is an

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

community, located about to the south, also on Ellesmere Island. A parcel of land located south of the head of Strathcona Fiord is designated Inuit Owned Land. The area is sometimes visited by hunters from the nearest Inuit community, Grise Fiord.

Coal

A large portion of the Strathcona Fiord area lies within a coal license area, owned by Canadian Sovereign Coal Corporation, a subsidiary of Weststar Resources Corporation. The coal property is governed by three coal exploration licenses covering an area of . Coal deposits in the Strathcona Fiord area are ranked from

lignite Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35% and is considered the lowest ...

sub-bituminous Sub-bituminous coal is a lower grade of coal that contains 35–45% carbon. The properties of this type are between those of lignite, the lowest grade of coal, and those of bituminous coal, the second-highest grade of coal. Sub-bituminous coal ...

and have been estimated to comprise roughly 1 billion tonnes. In January 2010, when the

paleontological Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

scientific community learned of Weststar's interest in exploring this area the

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) is a professional organization that was founded in the United States in 1940 to advance the science of vertebrate paleontology around the world. Mission and activities SVP has about 2,300 members inte ...

issued a press release outlining the need to preserve the fossils in the area, Within four days the Nunavut Impact Review Board received over 70 letters of concern from paleontologists and the public alike.

Paleontology

The vicinity of Strathcona Fiord has yielded a fossil record of tremendous international scientific significance. These

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s, including plant and animal remains, have provided a unique opportunity for understanding the effect of

climatic change ''Climatic Change'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Springer Science+Business Media covering cross-disciplinary work on all aspects of climate change and variability. It was established in 1977 by Stephen H. Schneider, ...

through the past 4 or 5 million years on the

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

environment, and on its flora and fauna.

Pliocene fossils (3-5 million years old)

The only

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58vertebrate fossil locality known is the Beaver Pond site at Strathcona Fiord. The Beaver Pond site was first noted by John Fyles of the

Geological Survey of Canada The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC; , CGC) is a Canadian federal government agency responsible for performing geological surveys of the country developing Canada's natural resources and protecting the environment. A branch of the Earth Science ...

in 1961. In 1988 he found the first

vertebrate Vertebrates () are animals with a vertebral column (backbone or spine), and a cranium, or skull. The vertebral column surrounds and protects the spinal cord, while the cranium protects the brain. The vertebrates make up the subphylum Vertebra ...

remains there. In 1992 vertebrate paleontologist, Richard Harington of the

Canadian Museum of Nature The Canadian Museum of Nature (; CMN) is a national museums of Canada, national natural history museum based in Canada's National Capital Region (Canada), National Capital Region. The museum's exhibitions and public programs are housed in the Vi ...

, began ten summers of excavations at the site. This fossil site includes the mummified remains of fossil plants, including trees such as an extinct

larch Larches are deciduous conifers in the genus ''Larix'', of the family Pinaceae (subfamily Laricoideae). Growing from tall, they are native to the cooler regions of the northern hemisphere, where they are found in lowland forests in the high la ...

(''Larix groenlandii'') and other trees indicative of a

boreal forest Taiga or tayga ( ; , ), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by pinophyta, coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. I ...

.Matthews, Fyles 2000 Much of the wood preserved at the site has been gnawed by beavers and some of it is fire-blackened. This exceptional site also has yielded remains of pollen, insects, mollusks, fish (a percid), frogs and mammals such as an unusual rodent, a deerlet (''Boreameryx''), 3-toed horse, an extinct beaver (''Dipoides''), a rabbit ('' Hypolagus''), an unusual shrew (''Arctisorex polaris''), a primitive black bear (''Ursus abstrusus''), a badger (''Arctomeles''), and several other carnivores. Paleoclimatic reconstruction suggests a mean annual temperature that was warmer than present day Ellesmere Island. The assemblage of Pliocene plant macrofossils (wood, leaves, cones and seeds) is typical of present-day boreal forest, as it includes

alder Alders are trees of the genus ''Alnus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus includes about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few species ex ...

(''Alnus''),

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

(''Betula''), bogbean (''Menyanthes trifoliata''),

(''Larix''), sweet gale (''Myrica gale''),

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

(''Picea''),

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

(''Pinus''), and

lingonberry ''Vaccinium vitis-idaea'' is a small evergreen shrub in the heath family, Ericaceae. It is known colloquially as the lingonberry, partridgeberry, foxberry, mountain cranberry, or cowberry. It is native to boreal forest and Arctic tundra through ...

(''Vaccinium vitis-idaea''), as well as the southern boreal tree, the white cedar (''Thuja occidentalis'').

Eocene fossils (about 50 million years old)

The first High Arctic terrestrial fossil vertebrates were discovered in 1975, in the Strathcona Fiord by a team led by Mary R. Dawson from the Carnegie Museum. These earliest finds include the fossil remains of an alligator, considered to be '' Allognathosuchus'', and also small arboreal mammals called ''plagiomenids''. Since then, field expeditions in Strathcona Fiord have yielded a much more complete picture of the

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

of the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

Arctic. Although, Eocene fossil vertebrates are known from other areas on Ellesmere Island (e.g., Stenkul Fiord), and

Axel Heiberg Island Axel Heiberg Island (, ) is an uninhabited island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. Located in the Arctic Ocean, it is the 32nd largest island in the world and Canada's seventh largest island. According to Statistics Canada, it ha ...

, Strathcona Fiord has yielded the richest vertebrate fossil record. Simialir fossils have been unearthed in the nearby Buchanan Lake Formation. The fossil vertebrate record of the Eocene Arctic includes giant tortoises,

varanid The Varanidae are a family of lizards in the superfamily Varanoidea and order Anguimorpha. The family, a group of carnivorous and frugivorous lizards, includes the living genus '' Varanus'' and a number of extinct genera more closely related ...

lizards, and boid snakes. Mammal fossils are extremely diverse, including the rhino-like brontotheres, the hippo-like ''

Coryphodon ''Coryphodon'' (from Greek , "point", and , "tooth", meaning ''peaked tooth'', referring to "the development of the angles of the ridges into points n the molars") is an extinct genus of pantodonts of the family Coryphodontidae. ''Coryphodo ...

'', a

tapir Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a Suidae, pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk (proboscis). Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, South and Centr ...

like relative (''Thuliadanta''), an early horse (''

Hyracotherium ''Hyracotherium'' ( ; "hyrax-like beast") is an extinction, extinct genus of small (about 60 cm in length) perissodactyl ungulates that was found in the London Clay formation. This small, fox-sized animal is (for some scientists) considered t ...

''?), carnivores (e.g., '' Viverravus'', '' Miacis''), meat-eating creodonts (e.g. ''Paaeonictis''), a mesonychid ('' Pachyaena''), a small swimming carnivore ('' Pantolestid''), a leptictid and at least five rodents (including '' Paramys'' and ''Microparamys''). There are over 40 fossil vertebrate sites in the Strathcona Fiord region. There are numerous Eocene plant fossil sites, including

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

units that are rich with leaves as

compression fossil A compression fossil is a fossil preserved in sedimentary rock that has undergone physical compression. While it is uncommon to find animals preserved as good compression fossils, it is very common to find plants preserved this way. The reason f ...

s.Basinger, Greenwood, Sweda 1994McIver, Basinger 1999 Very notable are the

petrified In geology, petrifaction or petrification () is the process by which organic material becomes a fossil through the replacement of the original material and the filling of the original pore spaces with minerals. Petrified wood typifies this proce ...

tree stumps, some of which are preserved in their original growth position. The trees show wide

growth rings Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of chronological dating, dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed in a tree. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, ...

indicating favorable growth conditions. The fossil flora indicates the presence of rich floodplain forests dominated by dawn redwood (''

Metasequoia glyptostroboides ''Metasequoia glyptostroboides'', the dawn redwood, is a fast-growing, endangered deciduous pinophyta, conifer. It is the sole living species of the genus ''Metasequoia'', one of three genera in the subfamily Sequoioideae of the family (botany), ...

''), together with

ginkgo ''Ginkgo'' is a genus of non-flowering seed plants, assigned to the gymnosperms. The scientific name is also used as the English common name. The order to which the genus belongs, Ginkgoales, first appeared in the Permian, , and ''Ginkgo'' is n ...

(''Ginkgo adiantoides''), walnut family (''

Juglans Walnut trees are any species of tree in the plant genus ''Juglans'', the type genus of the family (biology), family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are referred to as walnuts. All species are deciduous trees, tall, with pinnate leaves , with ...

'' and other

Juglandaceae The Juglandaceae are a plant family known as the walnut family. They are trees, or sometimes shrubs, in the order Fagales. Members of this family are native to the Americas, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia. The nine or ten genera in the family have ...

), elms (''

Ulmus Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus ''Ulmus'' in the family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical- montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ...

'' spp.), birch and alder (

Betulaceae Betulaceae, the birch family, includes six genera of deciduous nut-bearing trees and shrubs, including the birches, alders, hazels, hornbeams, hazel-hornbeam, and hop-hornbeams, numbering a total of 167 species. They are mostly natives of ...

), and katsura (''

Cercidiphyllum ''Cercidiphyllum'' is a genus containing two species of plants, both commonly called katsura. They are the sole members of the monotypic family (biology), family Cercidiphyllaceae. The genus is native plant, native to Japan and China and unrelate ...

''). Analysis of nearby fossil leaf sites from central Ellesmere Island of the same age indicate that these forests grew under very high rainfall, and can be considered to have represented a polar rainforest.Greenwood, Basinger, Smith 2010 This lush Eocene ecosystem thrived under a polar light regime. Like today, the region would have seen 24-hour sun in the summer and 24-hour darkness in the winter as it was positioned at almost the same latitude in the Eocene as it is today. Despite an

early Eocene In the geologic timescale the Ypresian is the oldest age (geology), age or lowest stage (stratigraphy), stratigraphic stage of the Eocene. It spans the time between , is preceded by the Thanetian Age (part of the Paleocene) and is followed by th ...

climate with generally mild frost-free temperatures, the polar light regime likely forced these plants to be deciduous.

Notes

References

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Fjords of Nunavut Fjords of Qikiqtaaluk Region Canadian Arctic Archipelago Ellesmere Island