Hein, F.J. and Dolby, G. (2018): Lithostratigraphy, palynology, and biostratigraphy of the Athabasca Oil Sands deposit, northeastern Alberta; Alberta Energy Regulator, AER/AGS Open File Report 2017-08, 105 p.
This report is a compilation of decades of work at the Alberta Geological Survey (AGS) on the regional lithostratigraphy, palynology, and biostratigraphy of the Athabasca Oil Sands deposit.
The Athabasca Oil Sands are hosted within the Lower Cretaceous Wabiskaw-McMurray succession, which has complex lithofacies relationships within individual stratigraphic units. The complexity of the lithofacies tied to fragmentary preservation of different units makes it challenging to develop appropriate geological models for the characterization of the Wabiskaw-McMurray stratigraphy. Biostratigraphic analysis of systematically sampled fine-grained materials, tied with the regional lithostratigraphy, can aid in the correlation of units and delineation of paleoenvironments.
The report provides the historical and scientific context for the stratigraphic data, documents the compilation approach and analytical methods, reviews the compiled descriptions, and summarizes their interpretations.
The digital files that accompany this report include 1) stratigraphy of sampled cores and outcrops, 2) well information for the sampled cores, 3) compilation of historical palynological records (pre-1999) from AGS files, 4) compilation of palynological reports done by and for the AGS (19992017), 5) new palynofacies analysis and biostratigraphic charts for 31 cores and 10 outcrops, and 6) sedimentological and lithostratigraphic descriptions of cores and outcrops sampled for palynology. Tabular data are provided in Microsoft Excel and tab-delimited text formats.