Strathcona Fiord facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Strathcona Fiord |
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 Strathcona Fiord
Location in Nunavut
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| Location | Ellesmere Island, Nunavut |
| Coordinates | 78°43′N 82°55′W / 78.717°N 82.917°W |
| Ocean/sea sources | Bay Fiord |
| Basin countries | Canada |
Strathcona Fiord is a long, narrow arm of the sea. It's located on the west coast of Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada. Ellesmere Island is the most northern island in the Canadian Arctic.
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Exploring Strathcona Fiord's Geography
Strathcona Fiord flows into Bay Fiord. The area has amazing and delicate natural beauty. Steep hills rise about 400 meters (1,300 feet) above the sea.
You can see a striking arc of rocks and dirt called a terminal moraine. This shows where the last ice sheet stopped moving. Taggart Lake flows east from this moraine. It drains Upper and Lower Taggart lakes into the fiord. The Prince of Wales Icefield is on the east side of this valley.
Human Activity in Strathcona Fiord
Even though no one lives permanently in Strathcona Fiord today, people lived here long ago. You can find old stone tent rings and other signs of past human life.
Eureka is a weather station about 170 kilometers (105 miles) northwest. It's a starting point for scientists and visitors to Ellesmere Island. Grise Fiord is an Inuit community. It's about 250 kilometers (155 miles) south on Ellesmere Island.
Some land south of Strathcona Fiord is owned by Inuit people. Hunters from Grise Fiord sometimes visit this area.
Coal Deposits in the Area
A large part of the Strathcona Fiord area has coal. A company called Canadian Sovereign Coal Corporation owns licenses to explore for coal here. They have licenses for an area of 37,628 hectares (93,000 acres).
The coal found here ranges from lignite (a soft coal) to sub-bituminous coal. Experts believe there might be about 1 billion tonnes of coal in this area.
In 2010, scientists learned about the company's plans. Many paleontologists (fossil experts) were worried. They sent over 70 letters to the Nunavut Impact Review Board. They wanted to make sure the important fossils in the area would be protected.
Amazing Fossils of Strathcona Fiord
The area around Strathcona Fiord is famous for its incredible fossils. These fossils include plants and animals. They help scientists understand how climate change has affected the Arctic over the last 4 to 5 million years. They also show how plants and animals have changed.
Pliocene Fossils (3-5 Million Years Old)
The only place in the High Arctic with Pliocene (3 to 5 million years old) vertebrate (animals with backbones) fossils is the Beaver Pond site. This site is in Strathcona Fiord.
- Discovery: John Fyles of the Geological Survey of Canada first noticed the Beaver Pond site in 1961. In 1988, he found the first animal bones there.
- Excavations: In 1992, fossil expert Richard Harington from the Canadian Museum of Nature started digging at the site. He worked there for ten summers.
This amazing fossil site has mummified (naturally preserved) plant remains. These include trees like an extinct larch (Larix groenlandii). Other trees suggest a boreal forest used to grow here. Many pieces of wood found were chewed by beavers or blackened by fire.
The site also has fossils of:
- Pollen
- Insects
- Mollusks (like snails)
- Fish (a type of perch)
- Frogs
- Mammals, including:
- An unusual rodent
- A small deer-like animal (Boreameryx)
- A 3-toed horse
- An extinct beaver (Dipoides)
- A rabbit (Hypolagus)
- An unusual shrew (Arctisorex polaris)
- A primitive black bear (Ursus abstrusus)
- A badger (Arctomeles)
- Several other meat-eating animals
Scientists believe the average temperature here was 14 to 19 degrees Celsius (25 to 34 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than it is today. The plant fossils found are typical of today's boreal forests. They include alder, birch, bogbean, larch, sweet gale, spruce, pine, and lingonberry. Even the Northern white cedar, a tree found further south, was present.
Eocene Fossils (About 50 Million Years Old)
The first land animal fossils from the High Arctic were found in 1975. A team led by Mary R. Dawson from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History discovered them in Strathcona Fiord.
- Early Discoveries: These first finds included an alligator fossil (Allognathosuchus) and small tree-dwelling mammals.
- Rich Fossil Record: Since then, many more fossils have been found. Strathcona Fiord has the richest collection of Eocene animal fossils in the Arctic.
The Eocene Arctic had a wide variety of animals. These included:
- Giant tortoises
- Varanid lizards
- Boid snakes
- Many different mammals, such as:
- Rhino-like brontotheres
- Hippo-like Coryphodon
- A tapir relative (Thuliadanta)
- An early horse (Hyracotherium?)
- Meat-eating animals like Viverravus and Miacis
- Creodonts (ancient meat-eaters) like Paaeonictis
- A mesonychid (Pachyaena)
- A small swimming carnivore (Pantolestid)
- A leptictid
- At least five types of rodents (including Paramys and Microparamys)
There are over 40 fossil sites in the Strathcona Fiord area.
There are also many Eocene plant fossil sites. Some shale rocks are full of fossilized leaves. What's really special are the petrified tree stumps. Some are still standing where they grew! The trees show wide growth rings. This means they had good conditions for growing.
The fossil plants show that rich forests grew here. These forests were mostly made up of dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). Other trees included ginkgo, walnut family trees (Juglans and others), elms, birch and alder, and katsura (Cercidiphyllum). Studies of similar fossil leaf sites nearby show that these forests grew with a lot of rain. They were like a polar rainforest!
This amazing Eocene ecosystem lived under a polar light system. Just like today, the region would have had 24-hour sunlight in the summer. It also would have had 24-hour darkness in the winter. This is because it was at almost the same latitude (distance from the equator) 50 million years ago as it is today. Even though the early Eocene climate was mild and mostly frost-free, the long periods of darkness likely made these plants lose their leaves in winter.
