Vascular plants from some localities in the western and northern parts of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago

1970 ◽  
Vol 48 (11) ◽  
pp. 1931-1938 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marian Kuc
Keyword(s):  
Vascular Plants ◽  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Canadian Arctic Archipelago ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Banks Island ◽  
Axel Heiberg Island

The paper lists 123 species of vascular plants from several areas hitherto not investigated botanically: Masik River Valley, Banks Island; Eglinton Island; Fitzwilliam Owen Island; and Good Friday Bay, Axel Heiberg Island. Also, collections are listed from Meighen Island and from the vicinity of Eureka, Axel Heiberg Island, both areas where botanical work has been carried out earlier.

Limnology of 46 lakes and ponds on Banks Island, N.W.T., Canadian Arctic Archipelago

Hydrobiologia ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 545 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darlene S.S. Lim ◽  
Marianne S.V. Douglas ◽  
John P. Smol
Keyword(s):  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Canadian Arctic Archipelago ◽  
Banks Island

New evidence from the western Canadian Arctic Archipelago for the resubmergence of Bering Strait

2008 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. England ◽  
Mark F.A. Furze
Keyword(s):  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Laptev Sea ◽  
Canadian Arctic Archipelago ◽  
Bering Strait ◽  
The North ◽  
Banks Island ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
The Laptev Sea

AbstractWidespread molluscan samples were collected from raised marine sediments to date the last retreat of the NW Laurentide Ice Sheet from the western Canadian Arctic Archipelago. At the head of Mercy Bay, northern Banks Island, deglacial mud at the modern coast contains Hiatella arctica and Portlandia arctica bivalves, as well as Cyrtodaria kurriana, previously unreported for this area. Multiple H. arctica and C. kurriana valves from this site yield a mean age of 11.5 14C ka BP (with 740 yr marine reservoir correction). The occurrence of C. kurriana, a low Arctic taxon, raises questions concerning its origin, because evidence is currently lacking for a molluscan refugium in the Arctic Ocean during the last glacial maximum. Elsewhere, the oldest late glacial age available on C. kurriana comes from the Laptev Sea where it is < 10.3 14C ka BP and attributed to a North Atlantic source. This is 2000 cal yr younger than the Mercy Bay samples reported here, making the Laptev Sea, ~ 3000 km to the west, an unlikely source. An alternate route from the North Atlantic into the Canadian Arctic Archipelago was precluded by coalescent Laurentide, Innuitian and Greenland ice east of Banks Island until ~ 10 14C ka BP. We conclude that the presence of C. kurriana on northern Banks Island records migration from the North Pacific. This requires the resubmergence of Bering Strait by 11.5 14C ka BP, extending previous age determinations on the reconnection of the Pacific and Arctic oceans by up to 1000 yr. This renewed ingress of Pacific water likely played an important role in re-establishing Arctic Ocean surface currents, including the evacuation of thick multi-year sea ice into the North Atlantic prior to the Younger Dryas geochron.

THE BOTANY OF THE NORTHWESTERN QUEEN ELIZABETH ISLANDS

1961 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 909-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. B. O. Savile
Keyword(s):  
Snow Cover ◽  
Vascular Plants ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Canadian Arctic ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Canadian Arctic Archipelago ◽  
Summer Climate ◽  
Parasitic Fungi ◽  
South West

Ellef Ringnes Island has a confirmed flora of 49 vascular plants and five parasitic fungi. The adjacent islands have less diversity of habitat and probably have even poorer floras. There are no endemics and the plants are extremely depauperate. The summer climate at Isachsen is colder than at any other station in the Canadian arctic. Although there are no convincing indications that Ellef Ringnes I. was overrun by a Wisconsin continental ice sheet, it cannot have escaped being snow-covered. The light cover of snow and ice on the outer islands was quickly lost in the postglacial xerothermic, which enabled plants to spread along the periphery of the archipelago. The numerous plants that occur south-west and northeast of these islands but not in them indicate that postglacial cold periods, probably accompanied by at least partial snow cover of the outermost islands, have driven out many species. Nearctic refugia are discussed and it is indicated, by analysis of distribution patterns, that no refugia occurred in the Canadian arctic archipelago. The region has been colonized from the Peary Land refuge, the Yukon–Alaska refugia, and from south of the retreating ice sheets.

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