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The Karstryggen area of eastern Greenland represents the western edge of sedimentation in the Jameson Land Basin, an arm of the northern Zechstein seaway. Upper Permian strata of this area were deposited as two major sequences. The first marine incursion transgressed largely peneplaned Lower Permian strata and deposited thin, paralic conglomerates, sandstones and shales (the Huledal Formation) followed by a thick package of carbonates and evaporites (the Karstryggen Formation). Although the Karstryggen Formation represents the transgressive maximum of this sequence, it contains only marginal or restricted marine strata, including micritic, stromatolitic and peloidal carbonates and thick, but localized, bedded gypsum deposits. These lithofacies indicate that relatively arid climates prevailed in this basin, as in most of the Zechstein region.

A major regression, associated with a change to a more …