The Melville Island oil sands are a large deposit of
oil sands
Oil sands, tar sands, crude bitumen, or bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and wate ...
(sometimes referred to as tar sands) on
Melville Island in the
Canadian Arctic Archipelago
The Arctic Archipelago, also known as the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, is an archipelago lying to the north of the Canadian continental mainland, excluding Greenland (an autonomous territory of Denmark).
Situated in the northern extremity of No ...
.
Exploration for
petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
deposits in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago began, on Melville Island, in 1961.
Oil sands deposits were found in the
Marie Bay
Marie Bay is a fjord on the Northwest tip of Melville Island.
Marie Bay lies on the part of Melville Island that is in the Northwest Territories.
The Eastern part of the Island is in Nunavut.
Oil sands
Oil sands, tar sands, crude bitum ...
region in 1962, and other locations that are part of the
Bjorne Formation
The Bjorne Formation is a formation of sandstones and shales in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
The southern edge of the formation includes petroleum reserves in Melville Island.
The basin also includes Mackenzie King Island, Lougheed Island and ...
.
[{{cite news
, url=http://www.cspg.org/conventions/abstracts/2008abstracts/015.pdf
, title=The Significance of Oil in the Sverdrup Basin
, publisher=
, year=2008
, author=Robert Meneley
, accessdate=2010-06-30
, quote=The 100 million barrel tar sand deposit at Marie Bay (Trettin and Hills, 1966) on western Melville Island is held in a possible stratigraphic trap in the Bjorne Formation where conventional oil has been highly degraded by exposure at surface.
, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719100748/http://www.cspg.org/conventions/abstracts/2008abstracts/015.pdf
, archive-date=2011-07-19
, url-status=dead
]
See also
*
Athabasca oil sands
*
Peace River oil sands
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
*
Cold Lake oil sands
The Cold Lake oil sands are a large deposit of oil sands located near Cold Lake, Alberta. Cold Lake is east of Alberta's capital, Edmonton, near Alberta's border with Saskatchewan, and a small portion of the Cold Lake field lies in Saskatchewan.
...
*
Wabasca oil sands
References
Bituminous sands of Canada