|
Fernie Group
The Fernie Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Jurassic age. It is present in the western part of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in western Alberta and northeastern British Columbia.Poulton, T.P., Tittemore, J. and Dolby, G. 1990. Jurassic strata of northwestern (and west-central) Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology 38A: 159-175. It takes its name from the town of Fernie, British Columbia, and was first defined by W.W. Leach in 1914.Leach, W.W., 1914. Blairmore map-area, Alberta; Geological Survey of Canada, Summary Report 1912, p. 234. with Map 107A, Blairmore, Alberta, Scale: 1 inch to 2 miles Depositional history The Fernie Formation consists of marine sediments that were deposited in the Sundance Sea. Deposition took place throughout most of the Jurassic period, starting during the Hettangian stage in some parts of northeastern British Columbia and continuing until the mid-Tithonian, as determined from its fossil assemblag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sparwood
Sparwood is a district municipality in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is the second-largest community on the Elk River. Located approximately 30 kilometres from Fernie, the District Municipality of Sparwood has approximately 4,200 residents. Sparwood is quite large for its population, taking up an area of 191.01 square kilometres and incorporating the local coal mines. In the late 1800s, there was a railroad stop known as Sparwood, which was so named because of the trees from this area being shipped to the coast for manufacturing spars for ocean vessels. Economy The local economy is heavily dependent on steel-making coal mining, one of British Columbia's primary industries. A large part of the population either works in the mines or as tradespeople and labourers in related support industries, such as trucking or as mechanics. Logging is another important industry. Sparwood/Elk Valley Airport is the local airport for general aviation. The closest airport with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin
The Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) underlies of Western Canada including southwestern Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan, Alberta, northeastern British Columbia and the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories. This vast sedimentary basin 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 thick under the Rocky Mountains, but thins to zero at its eastern margins. The WCSB contains one of the world's largest reserves of petroleum and natural gas and supplies much of the North American market, producing more than per day of gas in 2000. It also has huge reserves of coal. Of the provinces and territories within the WCSB, Alberta has most of the oil and gas reserves and almost all of the oil sands. Conventional oil The WCSB is considered a mature area for exploration of petroleum and recent development has tended toward natural gas and oil sands rather than conventional o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phosphate
In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phosphoric acid by the removal of three protons . Removal of one or two protons gives the dihydrogen phosphate ion and the hydrogen phosphate ion ion, respectively. These names are also used for salts of those anions, such as ammonium dihydrogen phosphate and trisodium phosphate. File:3-phosphoric-acid-3D-balls.png, Phosphoricacid File:2-dihydrogenphosphate-3D-balls.png, Dihydrogenphosphate File:1-hydrogenphosphate-3D-balls.png, Hydrogenphosphate File:0-phosphate-3D-balls.png, Phosphate In organic chemistry, phosphate or orthophosphate is an organophosphate, an ester of orthophosphoric acid of the form where one or more hydrogen atoms are replaced by organic groups. An example is trimethyl phosphate, . The term also refers to the triv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conchoidal Fracture
Conchoidal fracture describes the way that brittle materials break or fracture when they do not follow any natural planes of separation. Mindat.org defines conchoidal fracture as follows: "a fracture with smooth, curved surfaces, typically slightly concave, showing concentric undulations resembling the lines of growth of a shell".Conchoidal fracture at Mindat.org Materials that break in this way include , , |
Shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite.Blatt, Harvey and Robert J. Tracy (1996) ''Petrology: Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic'', 2nd ed., Freeman, pp. 281–292 Shale is characterized by its tendency to split into thin layers ( laminae) less than one centimeter in thickness. This property is called '' fissility''. Shale is the most common sedimentary rock. The term ''shale'' is sometimes applied more broadly, as essentially a synonym for mudrock, rather than in the more narrow sense of clay-rich fissile mudrock. Texture Shale typically exhibits varying degrees of fissility. Because of the parallel orientation of clay mineral flakes in shale, it breaks into thin layers, often splintery and usually parallel to the otherwise indistinguishable beddin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Facies
In geology, a facies ( , ; same pronunciation and spelling in the plural) is a body of rock with specified characteristics, which can be any observable attribute of rocks (such as their overall appearance, composition, or condition of formation), and the changes that may occur in those attributes over a geographic area. A facies encompasses all of the characteristics of a rock including its chemical, physical, and biological features that distinguish it from adjacent rock. The term facies was introduced by the Swiss geologist Amanz Gressly in 1838 and was part of his significant contribution to the foundations of modern stratigraphy, which replaced the earlier notions of Neptunism. Types of facies Sedimentary facies Ideally, a Sedimentary structures, sedimentary facies is a distinctive rock unit that forms under certain conditions of sedimentation, reflecting a particular process or environment. Sedimentary facies are either descriptive or interpretative. Sedimentary facies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microfossil
A microfossil is a fossil that is generally between 0.001 mm and 1 mm in size, the visual study of which requires the use of light or electron microscopy. A fossil which can be studied with the naked eye or low-powered magnification, such as a hand lens, is referred to as a macrofossil. Microfossils are a common feature of the geological record, from the Precambrian to the Holocene. They are most common in deposits of marine environments, but also occur in brackish water, fresh water and terrestrial sedimentary deposits. While every kingdom of life is represented in the microfossil record, the most abundant forms are protist skeletons or microbial cysts from the Chrysophyta, Pyrrhophyta, Sarcodina, acritarchs and chitinozoans, together with pollen and spores from the vascular plants. Overview A microfossil is a descriptive term applied to fossilized plants and animals whose size is just at or below the level at which the fossil can be analyzed by the naked eye. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mollusca
Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is estimated between 60,000 and 100,000 additional species. The proportion of undescribed species is very high. Many taxa remain poorly studied. Molluscs are the largest marine phylum, comprising about 23% of all the named marine organisms. Numerous molluscs also live in freshwater and terrestrial habitats. They are highly diverse, not just in size and anatomical structure, but also in behaviour and habitat. The phylum is typically divided into 7 or 8 taxonomic classes, of which two are entirely extinct. Cephalopod molluscs, such as squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses, are among the most neurologically advanced of all invertebrates—and either the giant squid or the colossal squid is the largest known invertebrate species. The gastropod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ammonoidea
Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) than they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living ''Nautilus'' species. The earliest ammonites appeared during the Devonian, with the last species vanishing during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. Ammonites are excellent index fossils, and linking the rock layer in which a particular species or genus is found to specific geologic time periods is often possible. Their fossil shells usually take the form of planispirals, although some helically spiraled and nonspiraled forms (known as heteromorphs) have been found. The name "ammonite", from which the scientific term is derived, was inspired by the spiral shape of their fossilized shells, which somewhat resemble tightly coiled rams' horns. Pliny the Elder ( 79 AD nea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tithonian
In the geological timescale, the Tithonian is the latest age of the Late Jurassic Epoch and the uppermost stage of the Upper Jurassic Series. It spans the time between 152.1 ± 4 Ma and 145.0 ± 4 Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Kimmeridgian and followed by the Berriasian (part of the Cretaceous).See for a detailed version of the geologic timescale Gradstein ''et al.'' (2004) Stratigraphic definitions The Tithonian was introduced in scientific literature by German stratigrapher Albert Oppel in 1865. The name Tithonian is unusual in geological stage names because it is derived from Greek mythology. Tithonus was the son of Laomedon of Troy and fell in love with Eos, the Greek goddess of dawn. His name was chosen by Albert Oppel for this stratigraphical stage because the Tithonian finds itself hand in hand with the dawn of the Cretaceous. The base of the Tithonian stage is at the base of the ammonite biozone of '' Hybonoticeras hybonotum''. A global reference profi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hettangian
The Hettangian is the earliest age and lowest stage of the Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ... Geological time scale, Period of the geologic timescale. It spans the time between 201.3 ± 0.2 annum, Ma and 199.3 ± 0.3 Ma (million years ago). The Hettangian follows the Rhaetian (part of the Triassic Period) and is followed by the Sinemurian. In European stratigraphy the Hettangian is a part of the time span in which the Lias Group, Lias was deposited. An example is the British Blue Lias, which has an upper Rhaetian to Sinemurian age. Another example is the lower Lias from the Northern Limestone Alps where well-preserved but very rare ammonites, including Alsatites, have been found. Stratigraphic definitions The Hettangian was introduced in the literature by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sundance Sea
The Sundance Sea was an epeiric sea that existed in North America during the mid-to-late Jurassic Period of the Mesozoic Era. It was an arm of what is now the Arctic Ocean, and extended through what is now western Canada into the central western United States. The sea receded when highlands to the west began to rise. Stratigraphy The Sundance Sea did not occur at a single time; geological evidence suggests that the Sea was actually a series of five successive marine transgressions—each separated by an erosional hiatus—which advanced and receded from the middle Jurassic onward. The terrestrial sediments of the Morrison Formation—eroded from rising highlands to the west—were deposited on top of the marine Sundance sediments as the sea regressed for the last time late in the Jurassic. Fauna The Sundance Sea was rich in many types of animals. ''Gryphaea'' was extremely common, and shark teeth have been found. In addition to fish, belemnites and to an extent ammonites ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
