Abstract

The Upper Triassic Baldonnel and Pardonet formations in northeastern British Columbia are hosts for the biggest gas play in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB, Fig. 1), centred on the Monkman Pass-Bullmoose-Sukunka trend in the Foothills, south of the Peace River Arch. North of the Arch, particularly north of the Hay River Fault Zone (as defined by aeromagnetics), the Baldonnel is the principal carbonate reservoir in a series of north-northwest to south-southeast trending gas-dominant fields in the Laprise-Jedney-Bubbles area. In addition to the overall contribution to British Columbia reserves by all Triassic reservoirs (82% of B.C. total initial established reserves of oil, and 40% of similar gas reserves; Dec. 1990 data), the Baldonnel and Pardonet in the Monkman Pass trend contain an estimated additional 6 Tcf (169 × 10⁹ m³) of gas in-place (Cooper and others, 1992).

Carbonate facies and reservoir types in the Upper Triassic of British Columbia are the product of the interplay of paleotectonics, paleoclimate, paleo-oceanography, mass extinctions and other factors including diagenesis that produce carbonates that differ from many Devonian and other Paleozoic carbonates reservoir facies in the WCSB. This core display exhibits typical lithofacies and reservoir types from the Baldonnel and Pardonet formations in northeastern British Columbia, and includes some examples of the underlying Charlie Lake-Baldonnel boundary.