Axel Heiberg Island

About

Axel Heiberg Island (Inuktitut: ᐅᒥᖕᒪᑦ ᓄᓈᑦ, Umingmat Nunaat) is an uninhabited island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. Located in the Arctic Ocean, it is the 32nd largest island in the world and Canada's seventh largest island. According to Statistics Canada, it has an area of 43,178 km2 (16,671 sq mi). It is named after Axel Heiberg.

One of the larger members of the Arctic Archipelago, it is also a member of the Sverdrup Islands and Queen Elizabeth Islands. It is known for its unusual fossil forests, which date from the Eocene period. Owing to the lack of mineralization in many of the forest specimens, the traditional characterization of "fossilisation" fails for these forests and "mummification" may be a more precise description. The fossil records provide strong evidence that the Axel Heiberg forest was a high-latitude wetland forest. A holotype of the ammonite Otoceras gracile was found in the Griesbachian (Early Triassic) deposits of this island.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.