Canada is a land of contrasts, and the province of Alberta is no exception. We have some of the most
diverse environments in the country. The geology of Alberta reflects that diversity. The following links provide detailed information on the geology of Alberta, Both the
Geological Map of Alberta (15.17 MB) and the Geological Map of Alberta Legend (1.67 MB)
are available for viewing or download as a 
PDF document.
The Geological Map of Alberta and other maps are made available through the generousity of the
Alberta Geological Survey.
The materials are provided here for informational and educational purposes only, any use outside this context may may constitute copyright infringement. If you are unsure if the fair dealing provision of the Copyright Act would allow copying specific materials, contact AGS before using AGS materials.
North America has gone through some major changes over the course of our geologic history, the links below offer you a visual representation of how North America may have appeared during some of those periods. The Images are all
© Dr. Ron Blakey, and are provided here for informational and educational purposes only.
| Jurassic Period | Cretaceous Period |
Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin
The Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) is a vast sedimentary basin underlying 1,400,000 square kilometres (540,000 sq mi) of Western Canada including southwestern Manitoba,
southern Saskatchewan, Alberta, northeastern British Columbia and the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories. It consists of a massive wedge of sedimentary rock extending from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Canadian Shield in the east. This wedge is about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) thick under the Rocky Mountains,
but thins to zero at its eastern margins. (Source Information)
Uppermost Cretaceous-Tertiary Succesion
The uppermost Cretaceous-Tertiary succession is a predominantly clastic prism that thickens from a zero edge in eastern Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba to over 4000 m in the foothills of Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. Over one third
of the foreland basin stratigraphic thickness is encompassed in this interval. The interval is bounded at the base by the Milk River Formation and equivalents and is unconformably overlain by Quaternary sediments. The rocks range in age from early Late Campanian (83 Ma) to Late Paleocene (57 Ma), with scattered remnant gravels
as young as 1.6 Ma (Mack and Jerzykiewicz, 1989).
Sediments were deposited in a series of transgressive/regressive cycles associated with the development of two depocentres, the foreland basin in the west and the Williston Basin in the east, separated by the Bow Island Arch. Tectonic influences, eustatic sea-level
changes and regional climatic overprinting were major factors that controlled sedimentary facies. Natural resources in the uppermost Cretaceous-Tertiary strata consist of extensive hydrocarbon accumulations in coarse-grained continental strata near the base of the Belly River wedge, abundant coal deposits and potential
coalbed methane from the Belly River Group, and the Horseshoe Canyon and upper Scollard formations, refractory clays from the Whitemud Formation, and extensive aggregate resources and minor metalliferous deposits from the poorly consolidated remnant upper Tertiry gravels. View Map (Source Information)
Judith River Group
The Judith River Group is a group of geologic formations in western North America dating from the late Cretaceous and noted as a site for the extensive excavation of dinosaur fossils. The formation is named after the Judith River in Montana. The group is also called the Judith River Wedge. It is stratigraphically equivalent with the Belly River Group in Alberta.
It comprises the Judith River Formation in north central Montana, as well as the Foremost, Oldman, and Dinosaur Park formations in Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada. Within Canada, the name term Belly River Group is more widely used for what is essentially the same stratigraphic interval as the Judith River. The wedge is exposed discontinuously in river drainages. (Source Information)
Fossil Definition
Fossils (from Latin fossus, literally "having been dug up") are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous (fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how they were formed, and the evolutionary relationships between taxa (phylogeny) are some of the most important functions of the science of palaeontology.
Such a preserved specimen is called a "fossil" if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10,000 years ago. Hence, fossils range in age from the youngest at the start of the Holocene Epoch to the oldest from the Archaean Eon several billion years old. The observations that certain fossils were associated with certain rock strata led early geologists to recognize a geological timescale in the 19th century. The development of radiometric dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed geologists to determine the numerical or "absolute" age of the various strata and thereby the included fossils.
Like extant organisms, fossils vary in size from microscopic, such as single bacterial cells only one micrometer in diameter, to gigantic, such as dinosaurs and trees many meters long and weighing many tons. A fossil normally preserves only a portion of the deceased organism, usually that portion that was partially mineralized during life, such as the bones and teeth of vertebrates, or the chitinous exoskeletons of invertebrates. Preservation of soft tissues is rare in the fossil record. Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as the footprint or feces (coprolites) of a reptile.
These types of fossil are called trace fossils (or ichnofossils), as opposed to body fossils. Finally, past life leaves some markers that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of biochemical signals; these are known as chemofossils or biomarkers. (Source Information)
| Fossil Information | Fossil Forums |
| All links open in a new window | |