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The Rollrock Section in the Sverdrup Basin, Arctic Canada, is one of the northernmost outcrops where the Jurassic-Cretaceous transition is accessible. The over 500 m thick sedimentary succession exposes the Oxfordian to Valanginian Ringnes and Deer Bay formations. Macrofauna from 15 discrete horizons includes ammonites, Buchia bivalves and belemnites. These fossils improve the biostratigraphy of the Tithonian and Berriasian in the Sverdrup Basin, provide correlation to the remainder of the Boreal Realm and set reliable calibration points. The occurrence of Buchia rugosa in the Ringnes Formation moves the upper formation boundary of from the top of the Kimmeridgian into the lower Tithonian. Dorsoplanites maximus and D. sachsi document the middle Tithonian Dorsoplanites maximus Zone in Arctic Canada for the first time. The late Tithonian to early Berriasian Buchia terebratuloides is considered to be the best approximate indicator of the Jurassic-Cretaceous transition in the Rollrock Section. The middle early Berriasian Praetollia maynci and the late early Berriasian Borealites fedorovi tie the respective horizons to the successive Chetaites sibiricus and Hectoroceras kochi zones. Two species of the belemnite Arctoteuthis, collected from an interval with glendonites, suggest a Valanginian age for the upper Deer Bay Formation. The dearth of Late Jurassic to earliest Cretaceous macrofossils in the Sverdrup Basin is inferred to be predominantly a function of diagenetic carbonate loss. Abundant dropstones and glendonites in the middle Tithonian to middle Valanginian interval suggest cold climatic conditions, and make the Rollrock Section a prime candidate for studying the Arctic environmental perturbations of this time.

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The Upper Cretaceous Kanguk Formation of the Sverdrup Basin, Canadian Arctic Islands, contains numerous diagenetically altered volcanic ash layers (bentonites). Eleven bentonites were sampled from an outcrop section on Ellesmere Island for U–Pb zircon secondary ion mass spectrometry dating and whole-rock geochemical analysis. Two distinct types of bentonite are identified from the geochemical data. Relatively thick (0.1 to 5 m) peralkaline rhyolitic to trachytic bentonites erupted in an intraplate tectonic setting. These occur throughout the upper Turonian to lower Campanian (c. 92–83 Ma) outcrop section and are likely associated with the alkaline phase of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province. Two thinner (<5 cm) subalkaline dacitic to rhyolitic bentonites of late Turonian to early Coniacian age (c. 90–88 Ma) are also identified. The geochemistry of these bentonites is consistent with derivation from volcanoes within an active continental margin tectonic setting. The lack of nearby potential sources of subalkaline magmatism, together with the thinner bed thickness of the subalkaline bentonites and the small size of zircon phenocrysts therein (typically 50–80 μm in length) are consistent with a more distal source area. The zircon U–Pb age and whole-rock geochemistry of these two subalkaline bentonites correlate with an interval of intense volcanism in the Okhotsk–Chukotka Volcanic Belt, Russia. It is proposed that during late Turonian to early Coniacian times intense volcanism within the Okhotsk–Chukotka Volcanic Belt resulted in widespread volcanic ash dispersal across Arctic Alaska and Canada, reaching as far east as the Sverdrup Basin, more than 3000 km away.