The study area is located just south of the Precambrian shield between the Meadow Lake escarpment and the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary. It is approximately 350 km long and 70 km wide and constitutes part of the Middle Devonian Meadow Lake basin, which is the southeastern portion of the early Elk Point basin. The Paleozoic strata comprise clastic rocks of the Cambrian Deadwood Formation and dominantly carbonate rocks

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of the Middle Devonian Elk Point Group. The Deadwood clastics are quartzose sandstone, sand, subordinate shale, and conglomerate. Locally, in the northernmost part of the area, they have been removed by pre-Devonian erosion. The carbonate sequence of the Elk Point Group is divided into lower and upper subgroups. The Lower Elk Point subgroup contains the Meadow Lake Formation (new) which is subdivided into lower and upper members. The basal formation of the Upper Elk Point subgroup, the Winnipegosis is present in the area. The younger formations of these southwest-dipping Devonian strata are absent owing to erosion or nondeposition. The Devonian carbonate rocks are overlain unconformably by clastic sediments of the Lower Cretaceous Mannville Group.

The common occurrence of fractured and brecciated carbonate rocks within the Meadow Lake Formation indicates salt solution and can be correlated with the extensive rock salt deposits of the Lower Elk Point subgroup in central Alberta. The depositional edge of one of these salt deposits, the Cold Lake Salt, can be traced.

Accessory copper, lead, and zinc minerals are present locally in clastic rocks of the Deadwood Formation and also in the Devonian carbonate rocks. Gas shows have been reported from the upper member of the Meadow Lake Formation. Meadow Lake limestone of economic significance was recently discovered near Pinehouse Lake.

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