Late Cenozoic paleomagnetic record of Duck Hawk Bluffs, Banks Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago

Abstract

Detailed paleomagnetic investigations have been completed on unconsolidated sediments from Duck Hawk Bluffs on Banks Island, in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, that record some of the oldest late Cenozoic glacial and nonglacial events in Canada. The preglacial Worth Point Formation, the overlying Duck Hawk Bluffs Formation, including marine and glacial deposits laid down during the Banks Glaciation, and the lower part of the interglacial Morgan Bluffs Formation have magnetically reversed directions and therefore are of Matuyama age (>790 ka). Upper Morgan Bluffs Formation organic beds and deposits of the younger Thomsen Glaciation, Cape Collinson Interglaciation, and Amundsen Glaciation are normally magnetized and therefore of Brunhes age (<790 ka). The Brunhes–Matuyama boundary is recorded in the upper portion of the Morgan Bluffs Formation. Its precise position within the interglacial sequence can be identified, since the sediments document the gradual change from reversely inclined directions to normally inclined ones. These results confirm that the preglacial Worth Point Formation is at least Early Pleistocene in age and that the Banks Glaciation (the oldest and strongest continental glaciation recorded in the western Arctic) and a good part of the Morgan Bluffs Formation are of Early Pleistocene age. The study also documents a rare site in Canada where terrestrial sediments record the Brunhes–Matuyama transition and in doing so permits a precise correlation of part of the Banks Island stratigraphy with other key late Tertiary and Early to Middle Pleistocene arctic terrestrial and marine sequences.