An Upper Cretaceous Fluvio‐Lacustrine Coal‐Bearing Sequence, Red Deer Area, Alberta, Canada

Coal-Bearing Depositional Systems

“…The first two are part of the flood plain environment, in which rivers dominate depositional patterns and thus also influence both shape and composition of the coals associated with them (Cassyhap 1970;Galloway and Hobday 1983). Upper Cretaceous and Eocene upper delta plain coals of Alberta, Canada and Texas, U.S.A., respectively, are described by Nurkowski and Rahmani (1984) and Rahmani (1984) as forming basinward dip-elongated belts between bifuracted networks of similarly trending sandstones. Kaiser et al (1978) find in Eocene coal measures in Texas, U.S.A., a positive correlation between sand and brown coal content in deltaic settings but a negative correlation in fluvial settings.…”

Controls on the distribution of coal in the Campanian to Paleocene post-Wapiabi strata of the Rocky Mountain Foothills, Canada

“…Coals associated with the marginal marine facies above and below the Bearpaw shale have much better developed correlatives in the Judith River Formation (McLean, 1971) and the lower part of the Horseshoe Canyon Formation (Hughes, 1984;Dawson and others, 1989) farther northeast in the humid part of the basin. Although much detailed work on certain coal-bearing intervals of the post-Wapiabi strata in the Foothills and Plains has been published (e.g., Shepheard and Hills, 1970;Kramers and Mellon, 1972;Gibson, 1977;McLean and Jerzykiewicz, 1978;Jerzykiewicz and McLean, 1980;Hughes, 1984;Nurkowski and Rahmani, 1984;Dawson and others, 1989), this chapter represents the first attempt to demonstrate that the distribution of coal in the foothills is closely related to changes in tectonism, climate, and sea level. By demonstrating this in the foothills-where the interplay between changes in tectonism, climate, and sea level is perhaps best recorded-a framework is provided for future discussions of the post-Wapiabi coal-bearing strata in the remaining part of the Western Canada foreland basin.…”

Testing the Utility of Vertebrate Remains in Recognizing Patterns in Fluvial Deposits: An Example from the Lower Horseshoe Canyon Formation, Alberta

“…The informally named Drumheller Marine Tongue (DMT) records a mi- nor transgressive episode (Langston, 1959b;Russell and Chamney, 1967), recently correlated to the Campanian/ Maastrichtian boundary (Lerbekmo, pers. commun., 2000), that divides the HCF into upper and lower successions of subequal thickness (Nurkowski and Rahmani, 1984). Up to 165 m of the lower HCF and the overlying 30 m of the DMT represent approximately 2 myr of relatively continuous deposition, and constitute a cycle of aggradation and progradation of a clastic wedge, ending with the final incursion and retreat of the Bearpaw Sea into southcentral Alberta (Catuneanu and Sweet, 1999).…”

“…Extension of these surfaces into the updip fluvial succession has not been attempted because the surfaces are obscured by the absence of marine ichnofossils and by lateral lithofacies variation. Coal seams used as informal stratigraphic markers in the HCF (Gibson, 1977;Nurkowski and Rahmani, 1984;McCabe et al, 1989;Hamblin, 1998a,b) have been numbered as Coal Seam 0 above the Bearpaw/HCF contact to Coal Seam 10 within the DMT. However, coal seams are more numerous in the HCF than this scheme suggests, in many places pinching out or splitting (Figs.…”