Marine and nonmarine systems tracts in fourth-order sequences in the Early-Middle Cenomanian, Dunvegan Alloformation, northeastern British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

Abstract The Early to Middle Cenomanian Dunvegan Alloformation is a 3rd-order clastic sequence that was deposited on the western margin of the Alberta foreland basin. The alloformation, comprising ten allomembers (A-J) has been mapped over 33 000 km 2 using 1500 well logs and 40 outcrops. Regional flooding surfaces are used to define allomembers because they are more reliably identified in well logs than are Exxon-type unconformities (although in many instances unconformities and flooding surfaces are coplanar). The Dunvegan records episodic deltaic progradation from NW to SE along the axis of the foreland basin. This paper focuses on an 800 km 2 study area in NE British Columbia where both shallow marine and coastal plain strata are exposed in the valleys of the Peace and Beatton rivers. Marine strata comprise sandier-upward successions that grade from platy mudstone through cm-scale interbeds of wave rippled fine sandstone to dm-scale beds of HCS, commonly including large gutter casts. Successions may be capped by SCS and cross-bedded, fine-grained sandstone, sometimes with a rooted top. The succession of facies suggests a strongly wave-influenced deltaic shoreline. Gutter casts are consistently orientated shore-normal and appear to have been formed by oscillatory wave scour during storms. Sandstone distribution varies between successive progradational packages (‘shingles’) in allomember J, suggesting that delta switching was an important control on depositional cyclicity. Coastal plain deposits include small-scale (few metres) coarsening-upward successions of carbonaceous mudstone, siltstone and fine sandstone interpreted as lake and bay-fill deposits. Decimetre scale sharp-based sandstones may represent crevasse splays whereas lenticular, rippled and crossbedded sandstones were probably deposited in distributary channels. Rooted palaeosols are abundant. Both coastal plain and marine strata are locally replaced by erosive-based bodies of cross-bedded sandstone up to 25 m thick and 0.5–3 km wide, interpreted as incised valley fills underlain by type 1 sequence boundaries. Additional evidence of relative sea-level fall is provided by regressive surfaces of marine erosion beneath sharp-based shoreface sandstones. If attached to highstand deposits, these sandstones are assigned to the falling stage systems tract, whereas detached sandstones are assigned to the lowstand systems tract. During the early part of the transgressive systems tract, sedimentation was confined to incised valleys but later, interfluves were buried by sediments that locally contain dense Thalassinoides burrow systems, Teredolites and well-developed mud drapes, suggestive of brackish, tidally-influenced conditions. Overlying coastal plain strata lack evidence of marine influence and are attributed to the highstand systems tract.