Oolitic Ironstone and Coal Digital Compilation, 2004. Clear Hills - Smoky River Region, Northwestern Alberta

This report summarizes the digital data compiled for the Clear Hills - Smoky River region during mid to late 2004. The Clear Hills-Smoky River region is defined as extending from Township (Tp) 101 south to Tp 74, and from Range (Rg) 16 W5th west to Rg 13 W6th. In contrast, the northern part of this region, referred to as the Clear Hills in this report, extends just north of the town of Worsley (Tp 85), north to Tp 101.

The digital compilation shows there are:

1) 66 publicly available assessment reports, on file with the Alberta Geological Survey (AGS) as of mid 2004, containing pertinent information about prior exploration conducted within the Clear Hills-Smoky River region.

2) 37 AGS publications or maps, plus 19 Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) publications or maps, and more than 141 other publications and theses that potentially contain useful information for the Clear Hills-Smoky River region compilation. In general, most of the publications discuss the geology of northwestern Alberta in a regional context; a much smaller number specifically provide data and information about the Bad Heart Formation and the immediately underlying and overlying lithostratigraphic units.

3) 340 diamond-drill and auger mineral exploration holes, 230 coal holes, a minimum of 5432 water wells and more than 18 019 oil/gas wells drilled in the Clear Hills-Smoky River region. In summary, regarding these sources of information:

a) 198 of the 340 diamond-drill and auger holes contain data or information about the Clear Hills ooidal ironstone, and 8 of the diamond-drill and auger holes contain information about coal in the Clear Hills region;

b) 96 of the 146 exploratory coal holes drilled in the Clear Hills area (i.e., north of and including Tp 85) intersected coal, whereas the other 50 coal exploratory holes within the Clear Hills area are not coal bearing;

c) 11 exploratory coal holes contain 'ferruginous intercepts' that may reflect the Bad Heart Formation ooidal ironstone;

d) 80 water wells intersected the Bad Heart Formation oolitic iron-bearing unit or ironstone and 109 water wells intersected coal; and

e) a minimum of 1972 oil/gas wells contain information about the stratigraphic interval above the top of the 'Main Cardium Sand' interval, which is a well recognized unit a few tens of metres below the Bad Heart Formation and equates to Alberta Energy and Utility Board pick ID 1750. Nonetheless, only 162 oil/gas wells contain stratigraphic pick information specifically about the Bad Heart Formation.

Finally, this compilation provides a series of digital files in various formats that tabulate the compiled data. These files include an ArcExplorer project file that permits the data to be viewed without the need of proprietary Geographic Information System (GIS) software, as well as GIS shapefiles that can be loaded into ESRI GIS compatible software. Data and information about these files are included on the two CDs accompanying this report: CD 1 contains the report and compiled digital files, CD 2 contains the satellite imagery files.