The Fram Formation is a Late Devonian

Devonian

The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...

 sequence of rock strata on Ellesmere Island

Ellesmere Island

Ellesmere Island is part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. Lying within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, it is considered part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, with Cape Columbia being the most northerly point of land in Canada...

 that came into prominence in 2006 with the discovery in its rocks of examples of the transitional fossil

Transitional fossil

A transitional fossil is any fossilized remains of a lifeform that exhibits characteristics of two distinct taxonomic groups. A transitional fossil is the fossil of an organism near the branching point where major individual lineages diverge...

, Tiktaalik

Tiktaalik

Tiktaalik is a genus of extinct sarcopterygian from the late Devonian period, with many features akin to those of tetrapods . It is an example from several lines of ancient sarcopterygian "fish" developing adaptations to the oxygen-poor shallow-water habitats of its time, which led to the...

, a sarcopterygian or lobe-finned fish showing many tetrapod

Tetrapod

Tetrapods are vertebrate animals having four limbs. Amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals are all tetrapods; even snakes and other limbless reptiles and amphibians are tetrapods by descent. The earliest tetrapods evolved from the lobe-finned fishes in the Devonian...

 characteristics. The Fram Formation is a Middle to Upper (Late) Devonian clastic wedge forming an extensive continental facies consisting of sediments derived from deposits laid down in braided stream systems that formed some 375 million years ago, at a time when the North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n craton

Craton

A craton is an old and stable part of the continental lithosphere. Having often survived cycles of merging and rifting of continents, cratons are generally found in the interiors of tectonic plates. They are characteristically composed of ancient crystalline basement rock, which may be covered by...

 ("Laurentia

Laurentia

Laurentia is a large area of continental craton, which forms the ancient geological core of the North American continent...

") was straddling the equator.