The Albert Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Early

Mississippian Mississippian may refer to: * Mississippian (geology), a subperiod of the Carboniferous period in the geologic timescale, roughly 360 to 325 million years ago *Mississippian culture, a culture of Native American mound-builders from 900 to 1500 AD ...

( Tournaisian) age in the Moncton Subbasin of southeastern New Brunswick. It was deposited in a lacustrine environment and includes fossils of fish and land plants, as well as trace fossils. It also includes significant deposits of oil shale. The oil shale beds are the source rocks for the petroleum and natural gas that has been produced from Albert Formation reservoirs at the Stoney Creek and McCully fields. In addition, the solid asphalt-like hydrocarbon albertite was mined from the Albert Formation at Albert Mines between 1854 and 1884.

Lithology and mineralogy

The Albert Formation includes sandstone,

siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, p ...

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology. ...

, and oil shale, with minor limestone and

conglomerate Conglomerate or conglomeration may refer to: * Conglomerate (company) * Conglomerate (geology) * Conglomerate (mathematics) In popular culture: * The Conglomerate (American group), a production crew and musical group founded by Busta Rhymes ** Co ...

. The oil shale beds are primarily kerogen-rich calcareous to dolomitic marlstones, clay marlstones, and laminated marlstones.Macauley, G., Ball, F.D. and Powell, T.G. 1984. A review of the Carboniferous Albert Formation oil shales of New Brunswick. Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, vol. 32, no. 1, p. 27-37. The formation also includes local deposits of the

evaporite mineral An evaporite () is a water-solubility, soluble sedimentation, sedimentary mineral deposition (geology), deposit that results from concentration and crystallization by evaporation from an aqueous solution. There are two types of evaporite deposit ...

s halite (rock salt), gypsum, anhydrite, and glauberite. The solid hydrocarbon albertite occurs as veins filling fissures in some of the beds, and is derived from the hydrocarbons in the oil shales.

Environment of deposition

The Albert Formation has been interpreted as a composite alluvial fan, fluvial-deltaic, and lacustrine sequence. The coarser-grained

lithologies The lithology of a rock unit is a description of its physical characteristics visible at outcrop, in hand or core samples, or with low magnification microscopy. Physical characteristics include colour, texture, grain size, and composition. Lit ...

are nearshore deposits, while the finer-grained rocks, including the oil shale beds, are an offshore, deeper-water assemblage. Fossils of whole fish preserved in the laminated oil shales indicate very low energy, anoxic conditions.

Paleontology

The Albert Formation is known for its complete, articulated specimens of lower

actinopterygian Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fishes, is a class of bony fish. They comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. The ray-finned fishes are so called because their fins are webs of skin supported by bony or ho ...

(palaeoniscoid) fishes, including the

genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

Rhadinichthys ''Rhadinichthys'' is an extinct genus of prehistoric bony fish. It is known from several species that lived in the Late Devonian epoch (geology), epoch, the Carboniferous period (geology), period and the Cisuralian epoch (early Permian) in what ...

'', ''

Elonichthys ''Elonichthys'' is an extinct genus of prehistoric bony fish. The genus is represented by several species from Carboniferous and Permian of Europe, Greenland, South Africa, and North America. Species See also * Prehistoric fish The evo ...

'', and ''

Canobius ''Canobius'' (named for Canobie, the district where it was discovered) is an extinct genus of early ray-finned fish that lived in the Carboniferous period of Europe. ''Canobius'' was a small fish, in length. Compared with its earlier relativ ...

''.Mickle, K.E. 2017. The lower actinopterygian fauna from the Lower Carboniferous Albert shale formation of New Brunswick Canada – A review of previously described taxa and a description of a new genus and species. College of Science, Health and the Liberal Arts Faculty Papers, paper 1. https://jdc.jefferson.edu/jchsfp/1; doi:10.5194/fr-20-47-2017. There are remains of land plants such as '' Lepidodendrales'' and '' Sphenopteris'',Bell, W.A. 1960. Mississippian Horton Group of type Windsor-Horton District, Nova Scotia. Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir 314, 112 p. as well as palynomorphs.Utting, J. 1987. Palynostratigraphic investigation of the Albert Formation (Lower Carboniferous) of New Brunswick, Canada. Palynology, vol. 11, no. 1, p. 73-96. Trace fossils include ''

Paleodictyon ''Paleodictyon'' is a trace fossil, usually interpreted to be a burrow, which appears in the geologic marine record beginning in the Precambrian/Early Cambrian and in modern ocean environments.Swinbanks, D. D., 1982: ''Paleodictyon'': the traces ...

'', ''

Helminthopsis ''Helminthopsis'' is the ichnogenus of a type of trace fossil that is found preserved on the bedding planes of fine-grained sedimentary rocks. It is characterized by short, curvilinear, non-branching, parallel-sided, unlined traces on bedding sur ...

'', and ''

Planolites ''Planolites'' is an ichnogenus found throughout the Ediacaran and the Phanerozoic that is made during the feeding process of worm-like animals. The traces are generally small, , unlined, and rarely branched, with fill that differs from the hos ...

''.Pickerill, R.K. 1990. Nonmarine ''Paleodictyon'' from the Carboniferous Albert Formation of southern New Brunswick. Atlantic Geology, vol. 26, p. 157-163.

Economic resources

Oil and gas

The Albert Formation hosts the only two commercial onshore oil and gas fields in Canada's Maritime Provinces. The Stoney Creek field produced from sandstone reservoirs in the Albert Formation between 1909 and 1991, and estimates suggest that significant oil remains in place there. The McCully field, which was discovered in 2000, produces from tight gas sandstones in the upper part of the Albert Formation, above the main organic mudstone (oil shale) source rocks.Keighley, D. 2008. A lacustrine shoreface succession in the Albert Formation, Moncton Basin, New Brunswick. Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, vol. 56, no. 4, p. 235-258.

Albertite

Veins of the solid black hydrocarbon that was subsequently named albertite were first noted in the Albert Formation in 1820. In 1846, Abraham Gesner used albertite in developing the first method for distilling kerosene, and between 1854 and 1884 albertite was mined by underground methods at Albert Mines for use in the production of kerosene and illuminating gas.

References

* {{cite web, title= Fossilworks: Gateway to the Paleobiology Database, author= ((Various Contributors to the Paleobiology Database)), url= http://www.fossilworks.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?action=home, access-date= 17 December 2021 Geologic formations of Canada Fossiliferous stratigraphic units of North America Carboniferous New Brunswick Oil shale in Canada Oil shale formations Carboniferous southern paleotropical deposits