Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Résumé Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (12) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Root, K. G. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Devonian Antler fold and thrust belt and foreland basin development in the southern Canadian Cordillera: implications for the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin

Alberta Energy Company Ltd., 3900, 421 - 7 Avenue SW, Calgary, AB, T2P 4K9

This contribution describes evidence for Middle Devonian contractional deformation and foreland basin development in the Purcell and Rocky mountains of southern Canada. These are interpreted as early manifestations of the Antler Orogeny, which is well documented in the western United States. Middle Devonian foreland basin strata include the Mount Forster Formation and correlative strata, which change laterally from > 500 m of lithic sandstones, conglomerates and volcanic flows in westernmost exposures to predominantly shale and gypsum in exposures to the east, and the Harrogate Formation, which comprises shallow water carbonates and minor mudstone. Significant local lateral thickness and facies changes, and angular unconformities that truncate folds, were created within the Middle Devonian foreland basin strata in the Delphine Creek region of southeastern British Columbia in response to syndepositional folding within an interpreted wedge-top basin. A normal fault, formed during Neoproterozoic rifting, was inverted during the Devonian contraction. Middle Devonian foreland basin strata pinch out to the northeast against the West Alberta Ridge, which was a Middle Devonian paleohigh interpreted to have been a peripheral bulge.

Integration of the interpretations of Middle Devonian fold and thrust belt and foreland basin development with published structural and stratigraphic evidence from elsewhere in western Canada leads to the conclusion that Antler fold and thrust belt and foreland basin development may have occurred along the length of the Canadian portion of the ancient Cordilleran continental margin during the Devonian and Mississippian. The Western Canada Sedimentary Basin is interpreted to have been a distal foreland basin during the Devonian and Mississippian. Important changes in subsidence and uplift patterns within the basin, and an increase in the general rate of subsidence, may have been influenced by a combination of flexural loading by thrust sheets and foreland basin strata and horizontal in-plane stresses associated with Antler convergent tectonism. Faults that influenced deposition of mid-Paleozoic sediments, and created permeable pathways for the flow of hot fluids, may have formed as the result of horizontal in-plane stresses. Hot fluids interpreted to have significantly influenced diagenetic processes in mid-Paleozoic carbonate reservoir rocks may have been tectonically expelled in response to Antler thrust belt development.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Colpron and J. L. Nelson A Palaeozoic Northwest Passage: incursion of Caledonian, Baltican and Siberian terranes into eastern Panthalassa, and the early evolution of the North American Cordillera Geological Society, London, Special Publications, January 1, 2009; 318(1): 273 - 307. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				K. Lund Geometry of the Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic rift margin of western Laurentia: Implications for mineral deposit settings Geosphere, April 1, 2008; 4(2): 429 - 444. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				K. P. Larson and R. A. Price The southern termination of the Western Main Ranges of the Canadian Rockies, near Fort Steele, British Columbia: stratigraphy, structure, and tectonic implications Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, March 1, 2006; 54(1): 37 - 61. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. Nelson, J. Nelson, S. Paradis, J. Christensen, and J. Gabites Canadian Cordilleran Mississippi Valley-Type Deposits: A Case for Devonian-Mississippian Back-Arc Hydrothermal Origin Economic Geology, August 1, 2002; 97(5): 1013 - 1036. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				H. G. Machel, E. W. Mountjoy, G. D. Jones, and B. J. Rostron Toward a sequence stratigraphic framework for the Frasnian of the Western Canada Basin Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, June 1, 2002; 50(2): 332 - 338. [Full Text] [PDF]

				K. Potma, P. K. Wong, J. A.W. Weissenberger, and M. G. Gilhooly REPLY TO DISCUSSION of H.G. Machel, E.W. Mountjoy, G.D. Jones and B.J. Rostron: Toward a sequence stratigraphic framework for the Frasnian of the Western Canada Basin Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, June 1, 2002; 50(2): 350 - 359. [Full Text] [PDF]