The Sedimentary Basin area of Western Canada which lies between the Pre-Cambrian Shield and the Cordilleran Mountain area, covers approximately 800,000 square miles. Sediments ranging from Cambrian to Tertiary are present, and of these the Upper and Lower Cretaceous, Jurassic, Mississippian, and Devonian have yielded commercial oil and gas fields. Producing zones in the Cretaceous and Jurassic are sandstones, while all of those of the Paleozoic are carbonate rocks such as reef limestones or dolomites (bioherms). Shows of oil and gas have also been encountered in the Cambrian and Triassic sediments.

The broad structural features of this vast expanse of sedimentary rocks are the Moose Jaw syncline, Sweet Grass-Battle River arch, Alberta syncline, the Foothills belt, the Rocky and Mackenzie mountains, the Great Bear-Slave Lake Basin and the Mackenzie Delta Basin area. This contribution is a brief outline of these data with examples of producing oil-field structures and stratigraphic traps.

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