Type Locality:

Douglas first used the term Livingstone for strata in the Mount Head map area, "on ridges north of Flat Creek and Highwood River", giving only a generalized description of the beds. He indicated that his Livingstone of the Mount Head area equates to his Rundle Member A, originally established in the Gap Area (Douglas, 1950). In 1950 Beales published an excellent section of Member A from the "north bank of the headwaters of Flat Creek (NE/4, Sec. 6, Twp. 18, Rge. 5W5M). As this is the earliest published detailed section of the unit, it can be considered a type section even though the name is derived from the Livingstone Range of the Rockies.

Distribution:

In the general type area in the southern Rocky Mountains the following thicknesses are reported: Douglas, 306 m (1005 ft); Beales, 358 m (1,173 ft); Gap Area, 240 m (787 ft); Banff Area, 452 m (1482 ft). The Livingstone comprises the lower and major part of the Rundle Group in the southern Alberta Rocky Mountains, creating many of the mountain scarps along the Bow River valley in the Fairholme (Grotto and Pigeon Mountains) and Rundle ranges (Three Sisters and Mount Rundle), Cascade Mountain and the Sawback Range. Fortress Mountain of the Kananaskis Range is also formed of the Livingstone Formation. The Livingstone is absent by post-Mississippian erosion in east-central Alberta.

Lithology:

The Livingstone Formation is dominantly echinoderm-bryozoan (crinoidal) limestone, light grey, pale weathering, coarse- to medium-crystalline, topographically resistant, in thick massive units, interbedded with thinner zones of finer and darker limestone, dolomitic limestone and dolomite. Chert is scarce above the lower 150 m (500 ft), and sandstone is confined to the basal part. Beales (1950) indicated (p. 39) that the Rundle (i.e., Livingstone) Banff contact lies beneath the lowest "Rundle-type crinoidal limestone" but considered the Banff-Rundle relationship to be gradational. The Livingstone-Mount Head contact is emphasized by the marked topographic contrast between the resistant, massive crinoidal sands of the Livingstone and the overlying weak, dark, argillaceous, bituminous limestones of the Mount Head.

Relationship:

The Livingstone rests everywhere conformably on the Banff Formation and is overlain conformably by the Mount Head Formation, except where the latter has been removed by post-Mississippian erosion. West of the first range of the Rocky Mountains (type Livingstone area) the Livingstone expands to include progressively younger strata at the top, as the four lower units of the Mount Head Formation (Wileman, Baril, Salter and Loomis) are lost by facies change to Livingstone Formation lithology. North of Lake Minnewanka, and easterly into the subsurface of the foothills and plains the Livingstone is differentiated by facies change to a lowermost Pekisko, medial Shunda and uppermost Turner Valley sequence, of which only the Pekisko retains the coarse crystalline crinoidal limestone character of the Livingstone. The Livingstone equates to parts of the Debolt and Prophet formations to the northwest, and to the Mission Canyon Formation in Montana.

Other Citations:

Beales, 1950; Douglas, 1950, 1953; Douglas and Harker, 1958; Macauley, 1964; McQueen and Bamber, 1967; Moore, 1958.

References:

Douglas, R.J.W., 1953b. Carboniferous stratigraphy in the southern Foothills of Alberta; Alberta Soc. Petrol. Geol., 3rd Ann. Field Conf. Guidebook, p. 66-88.