ABSTRACT

A recently abandoned test hole, Dominion Explorers-Canso et al., Bathurst Caledonian R. No. J-34 drilled on Bathurst Island, District of Franklin, North-west Territories, bottomed in a thick section of Lower Paleozoic salt. Discovery of this salt provides a possible key to the solution of many of the problems associated with a structural analysis of the Parry Islands and Central Ellesmere fold belts. The plane of decollement beneath these folds probably coincides with this salt. Tensional normal faults on the flanks of some anticlines, and collapsed crests of other anticlines on Bathurst Island are attributable to vertical migration and solution of salt. Salt removal by solution may have been responsible for the ability of the pre-existing Cornwallis fold belt to withstand the stresses of post-Devonian - pre-Middle Pennsylvanian orogeny. Evidence suggests the possibility of Silurian-Devonian isostatically induced salt flowage and post-Devonian tectonically induced salt flowage on Bathurst Island.