Cambrian - Middle Ordovician stratigraphy of the Adams Gletscher region, south-west Peary Land, North Greenland

Abstract

Previous geological descriptions of the Adams Gletscher region (fig. 9) have been given by J. C. Troelsen (unpublished field notes in GGU) and Dawes (1976) - the latter based on a three day reconnaissance during 1975. The sequence contains a much fuller record of the Cambrian system than is present in the geologicaIly better described area near Jørgen Brønlund Fjord to the east (Christie & Peel, 1977; Jepsen, 1971), where only Lower Cambrian strata are present. A sample with trilobites collected by Dawes established the occurrence of Middle Cambrian rocks near Adams Gletscher (Peel in Dawes, 1976), but it would now appear that a substantial part of the sequence is of this age. In addition, the location in 1978 of early Late Cambrian trilobites near the base of a 900 m thick unit overlain by the Wandel Valley Formation of Early-Middle Ordovician age, suggests that the upper sub-division of the Cambrian is also well represented. An unconformity of regional extent separates the Cambrian from the overlying Wandel Valley Formation. This formation maintains the same generallithology at Adams Gletscher as that described by Christie & Peel (1977) to the east, although a tentative lithologicallink to the late Lower Ordovician of western North Greenland is established.