The Mount Whyte Formation is a
stratigraphic unit that is present on the western edge of the
Western Canada 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 ...
in the southern
Canadian Rockies
The Canadian Rockies (french: Rocheuses canadiennes) or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part ...
and the adjacent southwestern Alberta plains.
It was deposited during
Middle Cambrian time and consists of
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, especial ...
interbedded with other
siliciclastic rock types and
limestones. It was named for
Mount Whyte
Mount Whyte is a mountain in Alberta, Canada located in Banff National Park, near Lake Louise. The mountain can be seen from the Trans-Canada Highway, and offers views of the Valley of the Ten Peaks, including the Chateau Lake Louise. The mounta ...
in
Banff National Park
Banff National Park is Canada's oldest National Parks of Canada, national park, established in 1885 as Rocky Mountains Park. Located in Alberta's Rockies, Alberta's Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary, Banff encompasses of mountainous terrain, wi ...
by
Charles Doolittle Walcott, the discoverer of the
Burgess shale fossils, and it includes several
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 ...
of
fossil trilobites.
Lithology and deposition
The Mount Whyte Formation was deposited during
Middle Cambrian time in shallow water at the western margin of the
North American Craton.
It consists mainly of shale interbedded with other siliciclastic rock types and limestone. In the Mount Whyte area it can be subdivided into three units:
*Upper member: Shale interbedded with
oolitic limestone.
*Middle member: Shale with thin beds of
sandstones 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 ...
s, grading into impure limestones at the top.
*Basal member: Thin-bedded limestones and sandy limestones with lenticular beds of pebbly sandstone and shale partings.
Distribution and stratigraphic relationships
The Mount Whyte Formation
outcrops in the southern Rocky Mountains of southwestern Alberta and southeastern British Columbia, and is present in the subsurface beneath the southwestern Alberta plains where it grades onto the
Earlie Formation
The Earlie Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Middle Cambrian age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin that is present beneath the plains of Alberta and eastern Saskatchewan. It was named for Earlie Lake in the County of Vermilion River ...
. It grades into the
Snake Indian Formation
The Snake Indian Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Middle Cambrian age that is present on the western edge of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in the northern Canadian Rockies of Alberta and British Columbia. It was named for Snake In ...
to the north and
Naiset Formation to the west. It
disconformably overlies the Lower Cambrian
Gog Group and is conformably overlain by the
Cathedral Formation
The Cathedral Formation is a stratigraphic unit in the southern Canadian Rockies of Alberta and British Columbia, on the western edge of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. It is a thick sequence of carbonate rocks of Middle Cambrian age. It w ...
.
Paleontology
The Mount Whyte Formation includes ''
Olenellus'' and other fossil trilobites that establish its Middle Cambrian age by
biostratigraphy.
[Rasetti, F. 1951. Middle Cambrian stratigraphy and faunas of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 116, no. 5, 277 p.]
See also
*
List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in British Columbia
References
References
*
{{Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, Canadian Rockies=yes
Cambrian System of North America
Geologic formations of Alberta
Geologic formations of British Columbia
Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin
Cambrian Alberta
Cambrian British Columbia
Cambrian southern paleotropical deposits
Limestone formations of Canada
Sandstone formations of Canada
Shale formations
Conglomerate formations