The Povungnituk Group was created by Bergeron (1959) in the Cape Smith Belt to identify a volcano-sedimentary rock package that unconformably overlies Archean bedrock. The work of Hynes and Francis (1982) and Francis et al. (1983) subsequently described the stratigraphy, structure and geochemistry of rocks of the Povungnituk and Chukotat groups. Lamothe et al. (1984) divided the Povungnituk Group into two subgroups. At the base, the Lamarche subgroup consists of a predominantly sedimentary rock package. Overlying the latter, the Beauparlant Subgroup consists mainly of volcanic or volcaniclastic units. These subdivisions were subsequently maintained by Ministère‘s researchers (Roy, 1985, 1989; Moorhead, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1996a, 1996b; Togola, 1992). In accordance with the North American Stratigraphic Code, the use of these two subgroups has been discontinued in this compilation. Three of the eight formations of the Povungnituk Group were introduced by Lamothe (1994), namely the Beauparlant, Cécilia and Nuvilic formations. The other five units, namely the Korak, Kuuvvaluk, Leclair, Nituk and Natirnaalik formations, are newly introduced in this record.

The Povungnituk Group unconformably lies on Archean bedrock (Taylor, 1982; St-Onge et al., 1988; Moorhead, 1988, 1996b). Because of tectonic overprinting, this discordance is only visible very locally at the contact between bedrock and thin beds of lenticular conglomerate or in erosion klippes at the eastern end of the orogen. Apart from these sparse autochthonous units, all units forming the Povungnituk Group are allochthonous, forming imbricate slices connected to a basal decollement fault (St-Onge et al., 1988). The distribution of the lower Povungnituk sedimentary units indicates an increasingly distal setting and gradual deepening from south to north.