Unit Name: Smoking Hills Formation
Unit Type: Lithostratigraphic
Rank: Formation
Status: Formal
Usage: Currently in use
Age Interval: Coniacian - Campanian (89.3 - 70.6 ma)
Age Justification: Biostratigraphy.
Province/Territory: Northwest Territories
Originator: Yorath et al., 1975.
Type Locality:
On the west side of the Horton River in the Franklin Bay map-area at 69 deg 27'30"N, 127 deg 00'W.
Distribution:
The thickness ranges from 30.5 to 50.9 m (100-167 ft), however, measurements at some localities may be in error because of slumping. It is 30.5 to 50.9 m (100-167 ft) in the Stanton map-area. It is exposed widely in the Franklin Bay and Stanton (107D) map-areas and occurs in the sea cliffs adjacent to and north of Malloch Hill in the Malloch Hill map-area.
Locality Data:
Thickness(m): Minimum 30.5, Maximum 50.9.
Lithology:
Interbedded black to medium grey, soft commonly fissile, bituminous shale and white to dark yellow and orange weathering waxy to crumbly very thin- to thin-bedded jarosite. Selenite crystals are common on the bedding plane surfaces. A basal conglomerate with pebbles of chert, quartzite, carbonate and black angular shale chips occurs locally.
Fossils:
Sponge spicules, radiolaria, palynomorphs and vertebrates.
Relationship:
The Smoking Hills Fm disconformably overlies the Horton River Fm and is gradationally overlain by the Mason River Fm. The Smoking Hills Fm corresponds to the informal "Bituminous Zone" of earlier literature (Yorath and Balkwill, 1970). Plauchut and Jutard (1976) correlated the "Bituminous Zone" with the lower part of the Kanguk Fm on Banks Island. Westward it grades into the Boundary Creek Fm.
Other Citations:
Doerenkamp et al., 1976; Plauchut and Jutard, 1976; Yorath and Balkwill 1970; Yorath and Cook, in press; Yorath et al., 1975.
References:
Plauchut, B.P. and Jutard, G.G., 1976. Cretaceous and Tertiary stratigraphy, Banks and Eglinton Islands and Anderson Plain (N.W.T.): Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists (CSPG), Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, vol. 24, no. 3 (September), pp. 321-371.
Yorath, C.J. and Balkwill, H.R., 1970. Stanton map-area, Northwest Territories (107D): Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 69-9, 7 p.
Yorath, C.J., Balkwill, H.R., and Klassen, R.W., 1975. Franklin Bay and Malloch Hill map-areas, District of Mackenzie; Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 74-36, 35 p.
Source: CSPG Lexicon of Canadian Stratigraphy, Volume 2, Yukon Territory and District of Mackenzie; L.V. Hills, E.V. Sangster and L.B. Suneby (editor)
Contributor: L.V. Hills; D.G. Cook
Entry Reviewed: Yes
Name Set: Lithostratigraphic Lexicon
LastChange: 14 Apr 2009