Type Locality:

The ridge known as Kee Scarp on the southwest flank of the Norman (Discovery) Range, 9.3 km (5.8 mi) east-northeast of Norman Wells, lower Mackenzie River valley, District of Mackenzie, Northwest Territories.

Distribution:

Known mainly from the segment of the Mackenzie River valley around Norman Wells, where the member is the producing rock of the small Norman Wells oil field. Con-sidering the member in its original conceptual form, as a lens of reef limestone enclosed by shales of the Fort Creek Fm, its distribution may be fairly limited. However, considering it, as do some, an integral (upper) part of the Ramparts Fm, or, as do others, an integral part of the Beavertail Fm, its distribution may be much more widespread - comparable, indeed, to the distribution of these formations themselves. Limestone outliers, attributed to the Kee Scarp, have been reported in western part of the upper Mackenzie River valley (Hume, 1954; Law, 1971). In type section, the member is 50 m (164 ft) thick; in the Norman Wells oil field, it ranges from 0-150 m (0-450 ft); and beyond the oil field, thicknesses approaching 180 m (591 ft) have been reported. The last figure approaches closely that of some of the thicker sections of the upper Ramparts Fm.

Lithology:

Lower beds of the type and other sections are composed mainly of distinctly, if regularly, bedded, fine- to medium-grained, brownish-grey, slightly argillaceous, compact, bioclastic limestones with partings of shale. The base is not exposed at the type locality. Upper beds which compose most of the type outcrop, but which are more thickly developed at other localities, are com-posed of thick-bedded to massive, medium- to coarse-grained, light-grey, more porous, stromatoporoidal reef limestone.

Relationship:

Together with the Beavertail Fm and the Ramparts Fm, to either of which it well may belong, the Kee Scarp Member has had a confusing classificatory history. It was established originally as a lenticular reef-limestone member of the shales grouped as the Upper Devonian Fort Creek Fm. Bassett (1961) proposed that the accepted, generalized, stratigraphic column of Middle and Upper Devonian rocks in the Norman Wells district (Hume and Link, 1945; E.M. Kindle and T.O. Bosworth, 1921) repeated certain mappable sequences of limestone and shale. He not only agreed with Hume and Link (1945) that the Beavertail Limestone and the Ramparts Limestone basically were one formation, but concluded that the Kee Scarp Limestone (Member) was no more than an upper part of that same formation which he named Kee Scarp and considered to be of Middle Devonian (Givetian) age. His revision was based also on the perception that the shales of the lower Fort Creek Fm which had been regarded as underlying the Kee Scarp Member, belonged to the same stratigraphic unit as the shales of the Hare India Fm of Middle Devonian (Givetian) age, and that only the shales of the upper Fort Creek Fm, which had been regarded as overlying the Kee Scarp Member, constituted a valid shale formation between his new Kee Scarp Fm and the Imperial Fm of Hume and Link ( 1945). The shales of the upper Fort Creek Fm, Late Devonian (Frasnian) in age, were renamed the Canol Fm by Bassett (1961). Although Bassett's reclassification may have been warranted stratigraphically (it has been widely accepted), there was no real justification for some of his nomenclatural changes. The validity of the old name Ram-parts Fm for Bassett's Kee Scarp Fm was argued by Caldwell (1964), and this too has been widely recognized. Some workers who accept Bassett's basic stratigraphy, now have begun to use Kee Scarp Member again, applying the name to the upper (reef) part of the Ramparts Fm (for example, Braun, 1977). Although Bassett's stratigraphic revision has been widely accepted, some workers have not endorsed the unity of the original Ramparts Fm, Beavertail Fm, and Kee Scarp Member of the Fort Creek Fm, or their Middle Devonian (Givetian) age. For example, Lenz (1961) used Kee Scarp Limestone in the original sense; Pedder (1963) described it as a discrete reef (presumably within shales); House and Pedder (1963) failed to distinguish a Ramparts Limestone, considering them underlain by shales of the Hare Indian Fm and overlain by shales of the Fort Creek Fm; and Crickmay (1970) equated Beavertail Limestone and Kee Scarp Limestone, but proposed that the largely Late Devonian (Frasnian) Beavertail Fm lies unconformably on the Middle Devonian (Givetian) Ramparts Fm and oversteps beds of the Ramparts Fm from Carcajou Rock northwards to the Ramparts of Mackenzie and southwards into the Norman Wells oil field. Thus, the Kee Scarp Limestone may be a member of the Upper Devonian (Frasnian) Fort Creek Fm, conformably overlain and underlain by, and laterally equivalent to, shales of that formation; it may be the upper (reef) member of the Middle Devonian (Givetian) Ramparts Fm, conformably or disconformably succeeding the lower (platform) member and disconformably succeeded by the Upper Devonian (Frasnian) "unnamed beds" of Braun (1966) of "allochthonous beds" of MacKenzie (1970), only the Canol Fm and Imperial Fm; or it may be part of a largely Upper Devonian (Frasnian) Beavertail Fm, conformably succeeding the Middle Devonian (Givetian) Hare Indian Fm or disconformably succeeding the Middle Devonian (Givetian) Ramparts Fm.

Remark:

May belong to both the Beavertail Formation or the Ramparts Formation

Other Citations:

Bassett, 1961; Braun, 1966, 1977; Caldwell, 1964, Crickmay, 1970; House and Pedder, 1963, Hume 1954, Hume and Link 1945; E.M. Kindle and T.O. Bosworth, 1921; Law, 1971; Lenz, 1961; MacKenzie, 1970; Pedder, 1963; Stelck, 1942; Warren and Stelck, 1956, 1962.