Foxe Platform and Basin Tectono-Sedimentary Element, Northeast Canada

AbstractThe Foxe Platform and Basin Tectono-Sedimentary Element (TSE) is an ovoid-shaped, predominantly marine basin located in the Canadian Arctic. The Paleozoic sedimentary succession (Cambrian–Silurian) unconformably overlies the Precambrian basement and reaches a maximum measured thickness of slightly over 500 m in the only exploration well drilled in this basin. The Lower Paleozoic Foxe Platform and Basin TSE is surrounded by Precambrian basement, and by the Paleozoic Arctic Platform to the north and by the Paleozoic–Mesozoic (?) Hudson Bay Strait Platform and Basin to the south. The Paleozoic succession consists of a Cambrian clastic-dominated interval overlain by Ordovician–lower Silurian predominantly shallow-marine carbonate. Other than a single well drilled in the northern part of the basin, no subsurface information is available. Thermally immature Upper Ordovician organic-matter-rich calcareous black shales have been mapped on the onshore extension of the basin to the SE. Potential hydrocarbon reservoirs consist of Cambrian porous coarse-grained clastics, as well as Upper Ordovician dolostones and reefs.