Field Trip 1

Petroleum systems of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic basins of Atlantic Canada

• Professor Grant Wach — Dalhousie University
• Professor David Keighley — University of New Brunswick
• Dr. Ricardo Silva — Dalhousie University

Overview — The field trip will provide an overview of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic basins of the Maritimes of Atlantic Canada. We will begin in the Carboniferous Cumberland Basin; a salt withdrawal basin where rates of accommodation were so rapid that trees of the Carboniferous forest were preserved upright. Syndepositional collapse structures, fluvial successions, channel bodies and coal deposits of the interval are exposed spectacularly along the cliffs at the Joggins UNESCO World Heritage site.

The trip will then continue to examine the rift succession of the late Triassic to early Jurassic Fundy Basin at Five Islands. We will study the Triassic succession starting in the basal alluvial and fluvial sediments that transition into a 34 m thick eolian interval with stacked 5 m dune sets. These are overlain by deposits of cyclic playa-lacustrine strata, and then by latest Triassic flood basalts of the failed Fundy rift. Earliest Jurassic fine grained fluvial sediments cap the succession.

The petroleum systems inherent to each basin will be demonstrated and their relationships to the offshore conjugate basins.

Duration — Saturday, August 18, & Sunday, August 19, 2018: 2 days, one night in the Holiday Inn, Truro, Nova Scotia.

Note: This field trip is fully subscribed and registrations are no longer being accepted.

• The trip begins Saturday, departing Halifax at 7 am and returns Sunday to Halifax by 7 pm.
• Participants must arrange their own flights to and from Halifax. Flights are NOT included in the field trip costs.
• Cost: $350 (CDN) including most meals (lobster/steak dinner, two lunches, one breakfast, field trip guidebook), one night accommodation and ground transport.

The Paleozoic and Mesozoic basins including the Maritimes Basin (dashed line) (from Pothier Wach and Zentilli, 2010)

Channel body with syndepositional slumping attributed to salt withdrawal in the Cumberland Basin at Joggins (Photo: G. Wach, 2014)

Lypcopsid fossilized tree 70 cm in diameter at the base at Joggins UNESCO World Heritage site (Photo: G. Wach 2014).

Fundy Basin at 5 Islands showing the Lower Jurassic McCoy Brook Formation to the left, the North Mountain Basalt (201–202 ma) at center and the Late Triassic Blomidon Formation to the right. The tidal range along the coast is 15 m (Photo: C. Wong).

Aeolian sandstones of the Triassic at Red Head (Photo: O’Connor, 2013).