Allostratigraphy of the Upper Cretaceous Cardium Formation in subsurface and outcrop in southern Alberta, and correlation to equivalent strata in northwestern Montana

Shank, Joel A.; Plint, A. Guy

doi:10.2113/gscpgbull.61.1.1

Cited by 27 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Gouge of comparable age was absent from major thrust faults in the Rocky Mountains, consistent with the tectonic quiescence hypothesis (Pana and van der Pluijm, 2015). Leckie and Smith (1992) Pana and van der Pluijm (2015) Cant and Stockmal (1989) Ross et al (continued) Smith et al, 1984;Leckie, 1986;Jackson, 1984;Casas and Walker, 1997;Wadsworth et al, 2003Smith et al, 1984Rahmani, 1984;Youn, 1983Smith et al, 1984Rahmani andSmith, 1988 Bhattacharya et al, 1994;Plint, 2000Walker, 1983Shank andPlint, 2013 Lerand, 1983;Leckie, 1989;Beaumont et al 1993;Collom, 2001;Benham andCollom, 2012 Monger andPrice, 1979;Smith et al, 1984;Leckie, 1985 coalescing channel belts 1835, 185, 260, 592 1788, 117, 440, 384, 1035, 632, 1108, 199, 1481114, 1761, 1803, 627, 195 110, 1845, 168, 238, 428, 1017, 618, 1635166, 115, 415, 484, 591, 290, 1040, 1690, 1869165, 109, 214 436, 594, 110, 380, 324, 1674, 1196, 1734, 1046, 1488…”

Section: Stratigraphic Context and Study Areamentioning

confidence: 52%

Record of orogenic cyclicity in the Alberta foreland basin, Canadian Cordillera

et al. 2016

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Jurassic-Cretaceous sedimentary rocks of the Alberta foreland basin are a key record of the evolution of the Canadian Cordillera. We test a recent model for cyclical development of Cordilleran orogenic systems using detrital zircon analysis of the major sandstone units deposited between 145 and 80 Ma exposed in the Rocky Mountain Foothills near Grande Cache, Alberta. The basin history is well constrained by decades of study, and the stratigraphy has been previously subdivided into tectonostratigraphic wedges. U-Pb data from 14 detrital zircon samples are included in this study. All the major magmatic provinces of North America are represented in each sample, with the relative proportions varying between samples. The samples are assigned to five groups with the aid of multidimensional scaling. Groups 1-3 are interpreted to record recycling from specific passive-margin units of western North America with varying input from the Cordilleran magmatic arc. Group 4 is interpreted to record recycling from sedimentary strata in the United States and dispersal by basin-axial fluvial systems. Group 5 is dominated by Mesozoic zircon grains interpreted to have originated in the Cordilleran magmatic arc. Detrital zircon age spectra do not form groups based on the tectonostratigraphic wedges from which they were sampled; rather, within each tectonostratigraphic wedge, they exhibit evolution from diverse age spectra to a less-diverse distribution of detrital zircon ages. We constructed a proxy for magmatic flux of the Cordilleran magmatic arc using detrital zircon ages younger than 200 Ma; it shows three modes at ca. 165, 115, and 74 Ma. These ages are considered high-flux episodes of magmatism that are linked to cyclical uplift and plateau formation in the orogen. This cyclical process is interpreted to: (1) control sedimentation rates in the foreland; (2) account for evolving provenance by altering catchments; and (3) be a plausible mechanism for the deposition of the tectonostratigraphic wedges in the Alberta foreland basin.

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Section: Stratigraphic Context and Study Areamentioning

confidence: 52%

Record of orogenic cyclicity in the Alberta foreland basin, Canadian Cordillera

et al. 2016

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“…The most well‐developed lowstand conglomerates in the Viking Formation are in allomembers VA and VB, and also in the middle part of the Cardium alloformation between surfaces E3 and E6. Both of these intervals of rock are regional‐scale, sheet‐like bodies that either thin and pinch out up‐dip, or show minimal thickening, indicating deposition under conditions of no, or very low flexural subsidence (Shank & Plint, ; Plint et al ., ). Viking and Cardium shoreface sandstones have little or no equivalent up‐dip alluvial deposits suggesting that rivers flowed over a seaward‐inclined surface that bypassed sediment, including gravel, to the shore.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tectonic, eustatic and climatic controls on marginal‐marine sedimentation across a flexural depocentre: Paddy Member of Peace River Formation (Late Albian), Western Canada Foreland Basin

Plint

Krawetz

Buckley

et al. 2017

The Depositional Record

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In north‐central Alberta and adjacent British Columbia, clastic strata of the middle to late Albian Peace River and Shaftesbury formations were deposited in alluvial to shallow‐marine environments across the foredeep of the Western Canada Foreland Basin. A high‐resolution, log and core‐based allostratigraphic framework for the Paddy Member of the Peace River Formation established nine allomembers, PA to PI, bounded by flooding surfaces and apparently equivalent non‐marine surfaces. Within the estimated 2 Myr. duration of the Paddy, allomembers allow the evolving palaeogeography and changing relationship between accommodation and sedimentation rates to be analysed on time‐steps on the order of 105 years. Paddy strata fill an arcuate depocentre ca 300 km wide, across which the rocks thin eastward from 125 m to ca 5 to 10 m. The northern part of the basin is occupied by muddy, offshore marine deposits that pass abruptly southward into a linear, WSW‐ENE‐trending body of sandstone deposited in a wave‐dominated barrier‐strandplain, at least 350 km long. Extending >200 km to the south of the strandplain was a region of shallow brackish to freshwater lagoons and lakes that graded to the SW into alluvial facies. Within the lagoon region, few‐m thick, elongate and patchy sandstones represent river‐dominated deltas. In allomembers PA to PG, these sandstones are concentrated in the west and south, implying supply from the western Cordillera. In allomembers PH and PI, sandstones are mainly in the east and have a distinctive, quartz‐rich composition. They can be correlated eastward into the coeval Pelican Formation, and were sourced probably from the Canadian Shield on the opposite side of the basin. In the western foredeep, alluvial rocks comprise aggradational, unconfined floodplain deposits with ribbon sandstones, dissected, on at least nine separate levels, by palaeovalleys that are confined to the proximal foredeep. Valleys are 10 to 30 m deep, few km wide, and filled with multi‐storey channel‐bars of pebbly coarse sandstone or conglomerate. Valleys cut down from well‐developed interfluve palaeosols that record a falling and then rising water table. Alternating aggradation and degradation, and advance and retreat of the alluvial gravel front is attributed to cycles of varying rainfall intensity, rather than tectonism or eustasy. Apparently, coeval transgressive‐regressive successions in the lagoon and marine regions are attributed to few‐m scale eustatic changes. On the NE margin of the basin, tidal sandstone fills a northward‐opening estuary cut on the basal Paddy unconformity. This sandstone contains the first well‐documented specimens of Gnesioceramus comancheanus (Cragin), proving contemporaneity with at least part of the marine Joli Fou Formation to the east. Paddy allomembers change shape upward from short blunt wedges, through more acutely tapered wedges, to sheets. This change reflects initially rapid flexural subsidence, attributed to active thickening of the adjacent orogenic wedge. A waning rate of def...

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“…Beneath the Peace River Plains in the Northeast, the Marshybank Member is uncon- formably overlain by an upper Coniacian unit called the Bad Heart Formation, which consists of very fine-grained sandstones and ooidal ironstones and is exposed along the Smoky River Donaldson et al, 1998Donaldson et al, , 1999. The Cardium and Wapiabi formations in Alberta correlate with the Ferdig and Kevin members of the Marias River Formation in Montana Shank, 2012;Shank and Plint, 2013;Walaszczyk et al, 2014). Plint et al (this issue) divided the Coniacian and lowermost Santonian rocks of the Wapiabi Formation into 24 informal allomembers based on the recognition of marine flooding surfaces.…”

Section: Geologic Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This seaway continued to widen through the late Cenomanian to a maximum extent in the early Turonian, before progressive eustatic sea-level fall caused the seaway to narrow to a minimum in the late Turonian and earliest Coniacian, as recorded by rocks of the Cardium Formation (e.g., Shank and Plint, 2013;Walaszczyk et al, 2014). Earliest Coniacian regressive sandstones in the upper part of the Cardium Formation were buried by marine mudstone of the early to middle Coniacian Muskiki Member of the Wapiabi Formation.…”

Section: Tectonic and Paleogeographic Overview Of The Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%