ABSTRACT

The Ford Creek area is located on the east foreland edge of the Rocky Mountains. The stratigraphy is similar to that in the Sun River Canyon area located 20 km to the north. However, the Precambrian units are 20 to 50 percent thinner. The sedimentology of the Phanerozoic units is discussed. The belemnite Pachyteuthis is present in the Jurassic Swift Formation, extending its paleogeographic range to include the Boreal Sea. A possible vertebrate trackway supports a terrestrial depositional environment for the Vaughn Member of the Cretaceous Blackleaf Formation.

The dominant structural features in the study area are a series of broadly northwest-southeast-trending thrust faults, which have created folding and secondary faulting. There is an antiformal stack in the center of the area, which has formed a localized region of folding and a klippen to the east. Two mountain belts converge in the study area, creating a pronounced deflection in the trend of the structural features, from north-south to east-west.