The eastern Cordilleran foldbelt and foreland of Canada north of lat. 60°N lies between the Tintina trench and the Canadian shield. It includes part of the southern rim of Canada basin and the junction between the Cordilleran and Innuitian orogenes. The sedimentary succession rests with profound unconformity on the westward continuation of the crystalline rocks of the shield, tapering eastward to a zero edge against the shield but truncated northward at the outer edge of the continental shelf. Widespread unconformities within and beneath the succession attest to regionally episodic orogeny and epeirogeny from the Proterozoic into the Tertiary.

In contrast to the tectonic style of equivalent thrust-faulted parts of the southern Canadian Cordillera, the region is characterized by bundles of right- and left-hand en echelon folds cut by two major, right-lateral strike-slip fault systems, the Richardson fault array bordering upon the foreland, and the Kaltag fault zone transecting the foldbelt. Laramide horizontal shortening with concomitant vertical thickening of the sedimentary succession is roughly one-fourth that at the 49th Parallel.

Known reservoir rocks for hydrocarbons include lower Paleozoic platformal carbonate rocks just north of lat. 60°N in both the foreland (Rabbit Lake) and eastern margin of the foldbelt (Beaver River and Pointed Mountain); Middle Devonian reefs (Norman Wells) and lower Carboniferous sandstone traps (Chance) within the foldbelt; and most recently, shale-cored anticlines and growth-fault structures in the Tertiary clastic sequence on the continental shelf at the junction of the Cordilleran and Innuitian Orogens.

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