Vendian – Lower Ordovician stratigraphy of Ella Ø, North-East Greenland: new investigations

Field work on Ella Ø in summer 2000 formed part of an ongoing research project to investigate the development of the Laurentian margin facing the Iapetus Ocean in the early Palaeozoic (Fig. 1). The extensive study region includes the well-exposed strata extending along the present coastlines of western Newfoundland, Canada, North-West Ireland and North- West Scotland, North-East Greenland and Svalbard. It is hoped to establish both the architectural and chronostratigraphic continuity and variation of these now disparate parts of a once contiguous platform.