Fusulinaceans from the flank of Northwind Ridge in the Arctic Ocean indicate that this feature is underlain by miogeoclinal upper Paleozoic strata, and that the fauna belongs to the Middle Carboniferous through Early Permian Arctic Fusulinacean Province. This province stretched from the Canadian Arctic Islands eastward to Svalbard where it merged with the similar Ural Fusulinacean Province in the western Ural Mountains. Because these provinces did not extend into Siberia, the Northwind Ridge assemblage indicates that these rocks originally were adjacent to, or a part of, the Canadian Arctic Islands Carboniferous-Permian shelf margin