page_title: Canadian Arctic Rift System
section_title: Basins
hierarchical_section_title: Canadian Arctic Rift System / Geology / Structure / Basins
caption_attribution_description: English: Cross section of the structure of Baffin Basin
context_page_description: The Canadian Arctic Rift System is a major North American geological structure extending from the Labrador Sea in the southeast through Davis Strait, Baffin Bay and the Arctic Archipelago in the northwest. It consists of a series of interconnected rifts that formed during the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Extensional stresses along the entire length of the rift system have resulted in a variety of tectonic features, including grabens, half-grabens, basins and faults.
  Development of the Canadian Arctic Rift System was accompanied by two plate tectonic episodes that originated on opposite sides of the North American Plate and were propagated toward each other. Both were strongly controlled by pre-existing structures, which either guided the propagating faults or impeded their growth. The rift system is now inactive apart from minor adjustments that are indicated by occasional earthquakes in Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea.
context_section_description: Sverdrup Basin is a Carboniferous rift basin in the Queen Elizabeth Islands that formed during the Boreal Rifting Episode. It has a northeast-southwest axis of about 1,300 km (810 mi) and a width of up to 400 km (250 mi), encompassing an area of 313,000 km² (121,000 sq mi). 
  Baffin Basin is a north-northwest trending geologic structure underlying much of central Baffin Bay. It formed as a result of seafloor spreading during the Tertiary opening of Baffin Bay around 56 million years ago. The northern extent of the basin is bounded by the Jones Sound, Lancaster Sound and Nares Strait aquatic sills 150 to 200 m (490 to 660 ft) below sea level while its southern extent is delimited by the Davis Strait aquatic sill roughly 600 m (2,000 ft) below sea level.
  Lancaster Basin is a half-graben forming the eastern mouth of the larger Parry Submarine Rift Valley. It contains several block faulted structures and is filled with Mesozoic, Tertiary and Quaternary sediments.
  Barrow Basin is a prominent topographic depression and, like Lancaster Basin to the east, represents a half-graben of the Parry Submarine Rift Valley bounded on the north by high-angle normal faults. Non-marine Tertiary sediments up to approximately 1,100 m (3,600 ft) thick exist in the Barrow Basin.
  Lady Franklin Basin is one of the deepest basins offshore West Greenland. It was established during Early Cretaceous rifting and lies within a fault zone delimiting the northern end of the Labrador Sea. A thick succession of Cretaceous and Cenozoic sediments occupies the Lady Franklin Basin.
  Labrador Basin is an immense structural trough between Greenland and Labrador that formed as a result of seafloor spreading from the Late Cretaceous to the Late Eocene. Its seabed consists of a slightly southeast trending plain that ranges 3,000 to 4,500 m (9,800 to 14,800 ft) below sea level. In the southeastern part of the basin are a series of seamounts that gradually decrease in height to the northwest. Geophysical data suggest they are the tops of the buried Mid-Labrador Ridge, which in the southeast is conjugated with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The P-wave velocity structure under the Labrador Basin resembles that of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, supporting the interpretation that the Canadian Arctic Rift System is a branch of that ridge. A characteristic feature of the Labrador Basin is the Northwest Atlantic Mid-Ocean Channel. This is a 100-to-150-metre-deep (330 to 490 ft) turbidity current system of channels that extend southward along the axis of the basin and then into the Newfoundland Basin.
  Situated on Bylot Island and northern Baffin Island are a series of grabens and horsts that constitute the North Baffin Rift Zone. These structures formed intermittently from late Proterozoic to early Tertiary time, with the latest period of reactivation having taken place during the Eurekan Rifting Episode.
caption: Cross section of Baffin Basin showing sediment infilling (yellow) and underlying oceanic crust (blue)
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