The perimeter of the Archean Precambrian Wyoming province can be generally defined. A Proterozoic suture belt separates the province from the Archean Superior province to the east. The western margin lies under the Western Overthrust belt and extends at least as far west as southwest Montana and southeast Idaho. The province is bounded on the north and south by more regionally extensive Proterozoic mobile belts. In the northern belt, Archean rocks have been incorporated into the Proterozoic rocks, but the southern belt does not appear to contain rocks as old as Archean. The tectonic response of these Precambrian terranes to cratonic and continental margin vertical and horizontal forces has exerted a profound influence on Phanerozoic sedimentation and stratigraphic facies istributions. Petroleum source rock and reservoir rock stratigraphy of the northern Rocky Mountain region can be correlated with this structural history. In particular, the Devonian, Permian, and Jurassic sedimentation patterns can be shown to have been influenced by articulation among the different terranes comprising the ancient substructure. Depositional patterns in the Chester-Morrow carbonate and clastic sequence in the Central Montana trough are also related to this substructure. Further, a correlation between these tectonic terranes and the localization of regional hydrocarbon accumulations has been observed and has been useful in basin analyses for exploration planning.

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