About This Item

Share This Item

The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

CSPG Special Publications

Abstract


Third Annual Alberta Society of Petroleum Geologists Field Conference & Symposium, 1953
Pages 117-133
Miscellaneous Contributions

History of Geological Interpretation of the Turner Valley Structure and Alberta Foothills, Canada

Theo. A. Link

Abstract

The anticlinal structure of the Turner Valley oil and gas field was observed and described briefly in a Geological Survey of Canada publication as early as the year 1884 by R. G. McConnell. The first holes were drilled without geological advice, and the first commercial production of gas and oil was discovered in the year 1913 in Lower Cretaceous sands near the top of the structure adjacent to a gas seepage. D. B. Dowling submitted the first published map and report dealing exclusively with the then termed “Sheep River” anticline in the year 1914, with considerable error in stratigraphic correlation. S. E. Slipper published a more comprehensive report on the field in the year 1921 in which Dowling’s stratigraphic errors were corrected.

Wet gas and naphtha were discovered at Royalite No. 4 in the Madison limestone of Mississippian age in the year 1924, and this gave rise to an intensive exploitation of the gas-cap area, and resultant detailed stratigraphic and structural data. The presence of an underlying low-angle major thrust fault was established in 1928, and the first well to indicate possible crude oil on the west flank, Model No. 1, was drilled in 1930. However, the undeniable presence of crude oil was not established until 1936 when the Turner Valley Royalite No. 1 was brought into production. The exploitation of the west-flank crude oil area extended from 1936 until the present, with the peak production years in 1941 and 1942, when some ten million barrels of liquid hydrocarbons were produced, and some 380,000 feet of hole drilled.

The northward extension of the Turner Valley field, on what is known as the Millarville Fault block, began when Home-Millarville No. 1 was drilled during 1938. The northward extension of the field has proven to be much more complicated by thrust faulting than the main part of the Turner Valley structure.


Pay-Per-View Purchase Options

The article is available through a document delivery service. Explain these Purchase Options.

Watermarked PDF Document: $14
Open PDF Document: $24