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Title: Paleotectonic controls on sedimentation in northern Williston basin area, Saskatchewan

Conference · · Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol., Bull.; (United States)
OSTI ID:6432928

The Williston basin lies within the so-called stable cratonic interior and would not be expected to have had the same intensity of tectonic activity as is generally considered to be characteristic of cratonic margin sedimentary basins. From time to time, however, other structural features appear to have been effective controls on sediment distribution patterns. In southern Saskatchewan, one of the most active of these was the Swift current platform. This feature appears to have been sufficiently positive during early Paleozoic time to have caused a distinct thinning of those sediments over it. The platform was mildly positive during other periods of sedimentation, as well as during periods of erosion. It was a site of widespread salt solution during Mesozoic time, which was also its time of major tectonic fluctuation, as well as being the period when it had the most significant influence on sedimentation. Southeastern Saskatchewan is the locale for some significant regional gravity and magnetic anomalies which appear related to exposed structural zones in the Precambrian Shield. A major gravity anomaly on the extreme eastern side of the province is on trend with the Nelson River zone of Manitoba and a magnetic anomaly (Camfield-Gough conductor zone) can be traced to the Wollaston trend in north-central Saskatchewan. The Camfield-Gough zone is particularly significant in that it lies along the axis of the Hummingbird trough, an area affected by basement-controlled early salt solution, and it extends southward into the United States, where it is flanked by a number of local multizone oil-producing structures in North Dakota and Montana.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Regina, Saskatchewan
OSTI ID:
6432928
Report Number(s):
CONF-8309274-
Journal Information:
Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol., Bull.; (United States), Vol. 67:8; Conference: AAPG Rocky Mountain Section meeting, Billings, MT, USA, 18 Sep 1983
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English