The Mount Whyte Formation was deposited during Middle Cambrian time in shallow water at the western margin of the North American Craton.[3][4][5] It consists mainly of shale interbedded with other siliciclastic rock types and limestone. In the Mount Whyte area it can be subdivided into three units:[1]
Upper member: Shale interbedded with oolitic limestone.
Middle member: Shale with thin beds of sandstones and conglomerates, grading into impure limestones at the top.
Basal member: Thin-bedded limestones and sandy limestones with lenticular beds of pebbly sandstone and shale partings.[1]
Distribution and stratigraphic relationships
The Mount Whyte Formation outcrops in the southern Rocky Mountains of southwestern Alberta and southeastern British Columbia, and is present in the subsurface beneath the southwestern Alberta plains where it grades onto the Earlie Formation. It grades into the Snake Indian Formation to the north and Naiset Formation to the west. It disconformably overlies the Lower Cambrian Gog Group and is conformably overlain by the Cathedral Formation.[3][6]
Paleontology
The Mount Whyte Formation includes Olenellus and other fossil trilobites that establish its Middle Cambrian age by biostratigraphy.[1][7][8]
^ abcdeGlass, D.J. (editor) 1997. Lexicon of Canadian Stratigraphy, vol. 4, Western Canada including eastern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba. Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Calgary, 1423 p. on CD-ROM. ISBN0-920230-23-7.
^Walcott, C.D. 1908. Nomenclature of some Cambrian Cordilleran formations. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 53, no. 1, 14 pp.
^Aitken, J.D. 1971. Control of lower Paleozoic sedimentary facies by the Kicking Horse Rim, southern Rocky Mountains, Canada. Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, vol. 19, no. 3, p. 557-569.
^Aitken, J.D. 1997. Stratigraphy of the Middle Cambrian platformal succession, southern Rocky Mountains. Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 398, 322 p.
^Walcott, C.D. 1917. Geology and paleontology IV. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 67, no. 3, p. 61-115.
^Rasetti, F. 1951. Middle Cambrian stratigraphy and faunas of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 116, no. 5, 277 p.
