Fox Hills Sandstone Research Articles

Sections of Bearpaw Shale from Keho Lake to Bassano, Southern Alberta

The sections of the Bearpaw shale herewith presented were prepared from a study of cuttings from many shallow test-holes and three deep wells, located within an area extending from T. 11 to T. 21 and from R. 18 to R. 23, W. of 4th Mer., in southern Alberta. In this area, the base of the Bearpaw shale is limited below by the coal measures at the top of the Pale beds, and at the top by the massive Fox Hills sandstone. The formation is 740 feet thick in the southern part of the area, but this thickness decreases northeastward 230 feet in 65 miles. The Bearpaw shale consists of three lithologic units. The lower shale member contains bentonite beds, but no sand. The middle sandstone member is generally a fine-grained massive sandstone useful for correlation. The upper sandy member contains sandy shale and erratic sandstone lenses which ordinarily can not be correlated between adjacent wells.

Stratigraphy of Spring Coulee Well

The Spring Coulee well is located 40 miles south and west of Lethbridge, Alberta. The glacial drift here is underlain by the St. Mary River formation, Subsurface formations penetrated by the well are the marine Foxhills sandstone, the marine Bearpaw shale, the Belly River group, the marine Colorado shale, the Blairmore formation, the marine Fernie shale, and the upper Paleozoic limestone. The stratigraphy of these formations is described and correlations are suggested.

Palæontological Papers

FOSSIL floras figure largely in the recent publications of the United States Geological Survey. In Professional Paper g8-H, F. H. Knowlton describes thirteen species of plants from the Fox Hills Sandstone of S. Dakota, only four of which were previously known. Remains are scanty, since the beds are marine; but their interest lies in their position between series, the Montana and Laramie formations, that contain abundant plants. The affinities are distinctly with the Upper Cretaceous, and the flora seems to have been well supplied with moisture along a shore-line. E. Wilber Berry (Prof. Paper 91) furnishes a detailed report, accompanied by 117 plates, en “The Lower Eocene floras of South-Eastern North America.” The material is derived from the widely spread Wilcox series, Which is typically developed in Wilcox County, Alabama, and is known through Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Except for a small fauna (a “faunule”) recently discovered in Mississippi, the almost entire absence of animal remains in this vast area is remarkable. Insects, which must have been abundant, are represented merely by the traces of their activities among the plant-remains. The flora is of Ypresian age (p. 152), and contains thirty-nine genera in common with that of Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight. Identical climatic conditions on both sides of the Atlantic are implied.

The Cannonball Marine Member of the Lance Formation of North and South Dakota and Its Bearing on the Lance-Laramie Problem

Field examination by the writers and the paleontological determinations by Drs. Stanton and Knowlton during the years 1912 and 1913 show that in a large region west of Missouri River in North and South Dakota the Lance formation consists of two distinct parts, a lower non-marine part containing a flora very similar to, if not identical with, that of the Fort Union and an upper marine member containing a fauna closely resembling, but not identical with, that of the Fox Hills sandstone. This upper part, on account of its peculiar fauna, has been mapped separately and named the Cannonball marine member of the Lance formation. Farther west non-marine beds bearing lignite and occupying a similar stratigraphic position have been named the Ludlow lignitic member of the Lance. The area examined by the writers embraces a territory of over 5,000 square miles, extending from Mandan, North Dakota, west to Montana, a distance of about 175 miles (Fig. i), and south beyond the boundary line of South Dakota. The marine member of the Lance has been mapped from Mandan to a point 4 miles west of Haley, North Dakota, a total distance of about 130 miles. A large part of the area examined by the writers has been described already from an economic standpoint.2 The Lance formation had previously been mapped in two adjoining regions, the Bismark Quadrangle3 and the Standing Rock

Fox Hills sandstone and Lance Formation ("Ceratops beds") in South Dakota, North Dakota, and eastern Wyoming

Fox Hills sandstone and Lance Formation ("Ceratops beds") in South Dakota, North Dakota, and eastern Wyoming