Basin Fill and stratigraphy of western Canada foreland basin Basin fill in foreland basin is generally filled with

clastic sediments that originated form the high sediments input of adjacent uplifts. The clastic wedges for during the collision between the plate boundaries especially collision between continental-continental plate boundaries. Carbonate sediment also grow in some setting especially in forebulge area. It is actually significant with the interplay between the generations of accommodation space with the sediment influx. Generally, the tectonic mechanism involves the flexure of tectonic loading on crust. Generally, western Canada foreland basin comprises two major sedimentary basins; which are the Alberta Basin and the Williston Basin. The Alberta basin components are the cordilleran folds and thrust belt that extending eastward towards Canadian shield while the Williston basin which is located at North Dakota and extending towards north Saskatchewan and Southwest Manitoba.

Alberta Basin In the northeast of foreland wedge, irregular thickness is due to the active erosional until today on the exposed parts of Caribou Mountains and Cypress Hill. The thickness of the basin sequence is estimated 4000m thick. It is formed due to the deformation of western Edge of North America Craton in late Jurassic with the accretion of terranes from Pacific. The loading of North America craton was due to structural thickening and overlapping during the compressional deformation. This causes deflation and flexure, hence forming the foreland basin. The trough of the Western Canada foreland basin is generally filled with sediments from uplifted western source area. In order to further understand stratigraphy and basin fill of western Canada foreland basin, several geophysical logs from many formations are analyzed to emphasize thickness and variability of throughout the basin. Viking formation is one of prominent formation in western Canada foreland basin in order to picture its stratigraphy. Thickness of Viking formation is ranging from 15m to 35m. Generally, Viking formation covers northeastern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and northwestern of United Stated. It consists of clastic sediments of interbedded mudstone, sandy mudstone, interbedded sandstone-shaly siltstone, fine to medium grained shale and clean sandstone and conglomerate (Reinson and Warters, 1986 ). Therefore, Viking formation has a high potential of petroleum reservoir due to the presence of relatively porous sandstone and conglomerate.

Figure 7 - Viking formation: prominent formation in western Canada foreland basin

Numerous studies by Tizzard and Lerbekmo (1975) and Reinson et al (1986) exhibit an observation that Viking formation has a uniform succession throughout south-central to central of Alberta. The succession consists of coarsening upward bioturbated sandy mudstones to bioturbated muddy sandstone cycles in a regional shelf to shoreface sequence. An offshore transitional deposit is indicated by the bioturbated sandy mudstones while the lower offshore deposit is indicated by bioturbated muddy mudstone. Three to four cyclic segments have been recorded for the entire formation. As it progressively move towards the central of Alberta, the formation becomes thinner and it becomes shalier to east and northeast. It can be concluded that the Viking formation which dominated on the central, south-central and southcentral Alberta consist of shallow marine unit. The presence of shallow marine unit is proven with the several coarsening upwards, shelf to shoreface successions that indicates the progradation into shallow sea. As it progressively moves towards the eastward and northeastward of central Alberta, it is represented by almost entirely silty shale. It reflects the deposition of sediment in deeper shelf environments.

In Cretaceous, Manville Group also covers almost all parts of Western Canada foreland Basin. The thickness of Manville group is estimated to be 40m to 700m thick towards the Rocky Mountains foothills. Manville group also shows significant similarities with the Viking Formation the lithology gradually becomes marine shale at the northwestern on Alberta. The interplay between the sediment influx with the tectonic elements are clearly reflects by the Manville Group. Manville Groups foredeep is basically dipping towards southwestward. Peace River Arch becomes the depocenter for Manville Group. Dominated by the non-marine succession, it becomes complicated to determine the correlations on Manville Group as it is lacking of diagnostic fossils to be analyzed. Though some correlations have been made, it is not fully validated. Correlations among Southern Foothills, Southern and Central parts of Plains, and Central Highlands are discussed in order to get brief picture of Albertas stratigraphy at Manville Formation ( refer belows pic)

Figure 8 Albertas stratigraphy framework at Manville Formation

Calcareous members that represented 50m of brackish water facies of ostracod, gastropod and pelecypod faunal assemblages are dominating the Southern Foothills. A Fossiliferous Black shale with same assemblages as the Calcareous members also can be found at Cadomin region. The middle part of Manville group is very thick and dominated with the open marine shale that indicates by the Moosebar Formation where the sandstone and shale are interbedded with each other. The Calcareous and the ostracod strata representing a broad, shallow lake that developed behind the barrier island system of northwestern of Alberta during the Moosebar Transgression. Next, the overlying Glauconitic interval record in the stratigraphy further proves the retreats of the overlying open marine strata. The Southern and Central Plains imply the same records as the Foothills with the Calcareous/Ostracod and Glauconitic intervals in northern and central plains. However, it is overlain by a series of regressive, shallow marine sand and sandstones sequence. As the correlations proceed to the Central Highlands, the lithology is quite disperse and heterogeneous, indicating various depositional environment. At the east part of the Manville Group, the upper Manville consists of quartzose sandstone that originated during Precambrian.

The stratigraphy is also related by its interplay with hydrocarbon. In other new research by Deschamps et al (2008) specifically at Manville Group at Central Alberta, gas prospects are proposed to exist in incised valleys. The Lower Cretaceous Manville formation has been drilled over past few decades but the upper interval of Manville basin is predicted to be immature for petroleum and gas exploration. Factors such as discontinuous sand bodies due to its formation as incised valley, the litharenitic natures of sandstones that affect its nature and the trapping mechanism of Upper Manville formation that is predicted as combination of structural and stratigraphic lead to subtle exploration activities in the Upper Manvillle strata. High resolution stratigraphic correlation has been conducted to define the stratigraphic architecture of Upper Manville. Figure 8 shows the stratigraphic scheme and facies evolution of Upper Manville.

Figure 9 : Upper Manville Group

The Upper Manville Group is punctuated by several sequences that associated with sea level drop that induced the incised valleys. Based on the study by Deschamps, nine sequences have been recognized at regional scale. It is a strong guide to detect the presence of incised valleys that contribute to the hydrocarbon prospects. Combination of well log assessment together with the mapping technique and structural contouring can lead to better analysis of the gas prospects. The large reserves in the Upper Manville formation are ready to be analyzed and discovered that would bring a substantial prize for future exploration.

Reference Deschamps et al. (2008). The Upper Manville Incised Valleys of Central Alberta: An Example of Subtle Gas Trap. Back to Exploration 2008 CSPG CSEG CWLS Convention, page 760-763. Reinson E. E. et al. (September 11, 2012). Chapter 21: Cretaceous Viking Formation of western Canada Sedimentary Basin. Bhattacharya J.P, Posamentier H.W. (September 11, 2012). Chapter 25: Sequence Stratigraphy and Allostratigraphic Applications in the Alberta Foreland.