Integrated ichnological, sedimentological and sequence stratigraphic analysis of along-strike variations in the Albian upper Falher and basal Notikewin members, NW Alberta and NE British Columbia, Canada

This subsurface study comprises an integrated ichnological, sedimentological, petrophysical and sequence stratigraphic analysis of the Albian upper Falher and basal Notikewin members of the Spirit River Formation in NE British Columbia and NW Alberta. Ninety-six kilometres of along-strike analysis of the Falher A cycle within a 3400 km2 study area, incorporating the deep basin gas reservoirs of the Noel field in British Columbia, through the Elmworth and Wapiti fields of Alberta were employed in the study. Over 100 cores and 680 petrophysical logs are interpreted and correlated through 10 stratigraphic strike-oriented and 10 stratigraphic dip-oriented cross-sections.; Detailed ichnological and sedimentological analyses assist in resolving contrasts in previously published stratigraphic models, by differentiating autocyclic sharp facies contacts from allocyclic stratigraphic discontinuities, through comparing fairweather versus post-storm trace fossil assemblages within the shorefaces, and by identifying palimpsest (omission) trace fossil suites demarcating marine flooding surfaces (MFS). The Falher A cycle is bound by two allocyclic MFS, the lowermost capping the Falher B shoreline cycle, and the uppermost initiating the transgressive basal Notikewin cycles. The upper Falher and basal Notikewin reflect a retrogradational parasequence set in an overall transgressive systems tract.; The Falher A cycle is interpreted as NW-SE trending, coarse-grained, wave- and storm-dominated strandplains, and associated wave- and storm-dominated deltaic successions, deposited during periods of pronounced progradation. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...