Chapter 27

Geological History of the Williston Basin

Authors:
D.M. Kent - University of Regina, Regina
J.E. Christopher - Geological Consultant, Regina

Introduction

The Williston Basin forms the southeastern

extremity of the Western Canada
Sedimentary Basin. It is the archetypal
intracratonic basin, and its significant
reserves of hydrocarbons have made it a
major exploration region. Consequently, more
than 20 000 exploratory boreholes have been
drilled, and these provide a relatively large
subsurface geological database.
Approximately four fifths of these wells have
been drilled in the Canadian part of the basin.
The term "Williston Basin" is arbitrarily
applied to the Phanerozoic succession in
Manitoba, Saskatchewan, the Dakotas and
eastern Montana, but in a structural context
it denotes the ellipsoidal depression centered
in North Dakota, more or less below the
-1500 m contour on the Precambrian
basement (Christopher et al., 1973; see Fig.
5.1, this volume). This configuration is a

consequence of the Laramide Orogeny. So

defined, the basin has a 560 km diameter, an
area of some 250 000 km2, and a 4900 m
maximum stratal thickness. It extends north
into southwestern Manitoba and across
southern Saskatchewan as a broad,
southeasterly plunging trough, some 3200 m
below ground level at the Saskatchewan/U.S.
border near longitude 104 W (see Fig. 3.2,
this volume).
The basin is bordered to the east by the
Sioux Arch of the Dakotas and southeastern
Manitoba, and to the north by the Punnichy
Arch fronting the Saskatchewan monocline.
The latter rises at a rate of 2 to 4 m/km
northeastward onto the Severn Arch of
central Manitoba. The western limit is the
Sweetgrass Arch of northern Montana and
southeastern Alberta. The structural definition
notwithstanding, sedimentary strata of the
Williston Basin were laid down in greatly
expanded versions of the present basin.
These expansions were countered by flanking
uplifts and peripheral stripping of strata,
imprinting the present configuration on the
basin (Fig. 27.1).The net effect is that the

Phanerozoic isopach map resembles the

structural map. The well-log cross section
of Figure 27.2 further illustrates the
destructional/constructional phases of
development of the basin. In particular, it
demonstrates that the basin configuration
seen in isopach maps of lower Paleozoic
strata (Norford et al., this volume, Chapter 9)
is due to peripheral thinning by both erosion
and depositional onlap.
Focus of the Chapter

In this chapter, the arguments bearing on the

origin of the basin are reviewed, as well as its
subsidence history and the impact that basinmargin and intrabasin uplifts have had on its
sedimentary history. The most influential of
these uplifts is the Sweetgrass Arch. Kent
(this volume, Chapter 7) shows that the preforeland basin phase of the Williston Basin
played an integral role in the evolution of the
cratonic platform; therefore the chronology of
depositional events employed here is the
same as that established in Chapter 7.
The early Williston Basin and Sweetgrass
Arch were integral components of the

western margin of the proto-continent. Two

important events in that period were the
Antler and Nevadan- Columbian orogenies.
Each influenced the pattern of sediment
accumulation in the basin. Pre-Antler deposits
extended well beyond the present structural
limits of the basin. By contrast, post-Antler
sedimentation was restricted to the basin and
a relatively narrow shelf surrounding it (Kent,
this volume, Chapter 7). Antler tectonics may
have been responsible for bringing to
prominence an ancestral Sweetgrass Arch,
over which the depositional strike changed
from essentially east-west and parallel to the
Belt-Big Snowy aulacogen, to northnorthwest along the proto-continental margin
(Kent, this volume, Chapter 7). The NevadanColumbian Orogeny changed the depositional
framework on the western cratonic platform
including the Williston Basin (Smith, this
volume, Chapter 17) by providing a source
for thick successions of siliciclastic sediments,
whereas in the pre-Nevadan-Columbian,
autochthonous carbonates were dominant.

Origin of the Williston Basin

There are two main aspects to the origin of

the Williston Basin: 1) the mechanism of
subsidence, and 2) the controls on the
geographic positioning of the basin. Some
thoughts on the former are presented in the
following paragraphs. The latter is considered
in the discussion on the framework of the
Precambrian basement.
Mechanism of Subsidence

Quinlan (1987) evaluated five mechanisms of

subsidence for intracratonic basins,
categorized as: 1) a purely thermal process
in which lithospheric layers expand and are
uplifted during heating, and contract and
subside upon cooling; 2) a variation on (1) in
which the uplifted crustal rocks undergo
erosion prior to the initiation of cooling and
subsidence; 3) a second variation on (1)
resulting in active rifting and thinning of
lithospheric rocks by subcrustal erosion
through the action of convection cells within
the asthenosphere; 4) metamorphic
tranformation of sublithospheric rocks
resulting in their densification; and 5)
horizontal compressive stresses acting upon

pre-existing downwarps, the stresses being

transmitted into the interior of the craton
from convergent plate margins. Quinlan
nonetheless identified deficiencies in each of
the mechanisms, particularly where applied
to the subsidence histories of the
intracratonic basins of North America.
The complex patterns of stratal thickening,
thinning and truncation in the sedimentary
succession of the Williston Basin, as
demonstrated in this and other chapters of
this Atlas, may be responses to a
combination of mechanisms causing basin
subsidence and uplift of the flanking arches.
A brief review of the pertinent geological and
geophysical information may help to explore
this premise. Hajnal et al. (1984) and Morela-L'Hussier et al. (1987) showed that a
relatively thick crust underlies the basin.
Fowler and Nisbet (1985) attributed this
crustal thickening to a gabbroic to eclogitic
phase transformation of the lower crust. They
suggested that the phase change resulted in
densification, loading and downward warping
of the crustal rocks, creating an ellipsoidal

depression. However Morel-a-L'Hussier et al.

(1987) also identified a slight thinning (3-5
km) of the crust beneath the central portion
of the basin. This evidence corroborates the
findings of Crowley et al. (1985) who,
through fission-track analysis of apatite,
concluded that the Williston Basin had
undergone uplift through thermal expansion
followed by subaerial erosion, which resulted
in the removal of at least 3 km of crustal
rocks. This event is dated 572 Ma to 441 Ma
(i.e., Early Cambrian to Late Ordovician), and
thus may have initiated the basin as a
depocentre in North Dakota (Peterson and
MacCary, 1987; Lefever et al., 1987).
Subsequent cooling may have prolonged
basin subsidence through the Ordovician and
Silurian and its sphere of influence extended
by densification of the subcrustal rocks. Later
downwarping may have been perpetuated by
horizontal compressional stresses propagated
through the cratonic crust from convergent
margins (Quinlan, 1987). Doborek et al.
(1991) demonstrated that emplacement of
the Antler allocthon influenced sedimentation
patterns in the Idaho-Montana region as early

as the Givetian, and thus may account for the

increased rate of subsidence in the basin
from Late Devonian through Carboniferous,
as recognized by Kominz and Bond (1991).
One of the areas flanking the Williston Basin
that has undergone marked vertical
fluctuations is the Swift Current Platform.
Collerson and Lewry (1985) identified
probable anorogenic granites in the
Precambrian basement of this area. Klein and
Hsui (1987) proposed that the emplacement
of anorgenic granites at the flanks of
intracratonic downwarps causes thermal
arching of the crustal rocks, thereby
enhancing the arch to downwarp relation.
Emplacement of anorgenic granites in the
basement rocks of the Swift Current Platform
may have been a factor contributing to its
tectonic restlessness.
Controls on the Geographic Positioning of the Basin

Despite the low number of deep wells that

penetrate the basement, various researchers
have speculated on its nature. Meek (1958)
interpreted the basement as being composed
of three structural provinces, the boundaries

of which are not totally in concert with those

accepted today. More recently, Green et al.
(1985) partitioned the basement beneath the
basin and the Sweetgrass Arch into three
Archean provinces, Superior in the east and
Wyoming and Churchill (Hearne) in the west,
with an intervening Lower Proterozoic
collision zone separating the first from the
latter two (Fig. 27.6). They recognized the
collision zone as the southern extension of
Lewry's (1984) Trans-Hudson Orogen, a
continent-to-continent collision suture. Green
et al. (1985) demonstrated that several
lithotectonic belts and juvenile terranes make
up the collision zone. In addition, the northtrending structural grain of the orogen is
mimicked by southern extensions of the
Tabbernor and Thompson Boundary faults of
the exposed Canadian Shield. Hoffman
(1989) interpreted the southwestern part of
Saskatchewan to be underlain by a separate
terrane, the Medicine Hat Block, possibly a
component of the Hearne (Churchill)
Province. This block constitutes a significant
part of the Swift Current Platform.

If indeed the foregoing geological

interpretations are valid, they may be
sufficient reason for the location of the
Williston Basin. The abnormal protrusion of
the crust into the mantle beneath the basin
(Hajnal et al., 1984) may be attributed to the
nature of the convergence that created the
Trans-Hudson Orogen, and that thickened
mass may have been the catalyst for initial
basin subsidence. Thus the east-west
orthogonal fractures of the basin centre
appear to be controlled by the Trans-Hudson
Orogen. Likewise, the north-south orthogonal
fractures may have been determined by the
basin's location at the distal end of the BeltBig Snowy aulacogen (Stewart, 1972), in
which are preserved over 7 km of the
Precambrian Belt Supergroup. Additionally,
periodic reactivation of the aulacogen during
the Phanerozoic, especially in the Cambrian,
Mississippian and Jura-Cretaceous has taken
place (Fig. 27.7). Thus it would appear that
structural features, activated at different
periods in the Proterozoic, played significant
roles in the geographic positioning of the
Williston Basin during the Phanerozoic.

Local Basement Structures

The surface of the Precambrian basement is

far from featureless. Sawatzky et al. (1960)
identified, through seismic and drill-hole
data, ten anomalies, all either proximal to or
located on the Swift Current Platform and
presumed to be positive features on the
Precambrian surface (Fig. 27.8). Most are
dome-like and few are more than 13 km2 in
area. Although some may be simply resistant
erosional remnants, others are probably
reactivated fault blocks that controlled facies
in overlying strata. The Eastend and Swift
Current structures are elongate, and the
Elbow Structure is a complex of domes
enclosed by a moat-like depression. A few
others have been recognized away from the
platform, especially in the vicinity of the
Trans-Hudson Orogen (Fig. 27.5); for
example, near Minton in south-central
Saskatchewan (Osadetz and Haidl, 1989;
Haidl, 1990; Potter and St. Onge, 1991).
Potter and St. Onge (1991) demonstrated
that the Minton structure is basementcontrolled and was reactivated several times
during the Paleozoic. Minton-type structures

are most easily identified seismically, through

a pull-up of lower Paleozoic reflectors over
the structure, particularly those of the
Silurian (Byrd, 1978). Figure 27.9 illustrates
the relief over the Minton structure on a
seismic profile.
The indications are that many of the other
basement structures within the structurally
defined Williston Basin were episodically
activated in the Phanerozoic, including some
recognized as being coincidental with or
proximal to the trend of the Trans-Hudson
Orogen. Most of these basement structures
have been identifed in North Dakota (Byrd,
1978; Wilson et al., 1963), but there is also
one in southeastern Saskatchewan, at the
Workman well 2-34-1-32W1. There, a fault
displaces Ordovician strata, but the exact
timing of reactivation is not ascertainable,
although the Silurian is a good probability. On
the other hand, not all reactivated structures
coincident with the Trans-Hudson Orogen are
found in the structurally defined Williston
Basin. Kent (1981) mapped an antiform over
the western edge of the orogen on the Lower
Cretaceous Mannville coal south of Lac La

Ronge in central Saskatchewan, which is

suggestive of post-Lower Cretaceous
movement in that area. McCabe (1967)
identified the Moose Lake Syncline, which
incorporates anomalously thick lower
Paleozoic strata in proximity to the Thompson
Boundary Fault in southeastern Manitoba. It
should also be noted that some reactivated
structures lie well beyond the orogen. The
Battle Creek Dome in the extreme southwest
of Saskatchewan appears to have been active
in the Late Cretaceous or early Tertiary (Kent,
1968, 1974).
There is also an assortment of orthogonal
lineaments coincident with basement
structural grain. These are northeast- and
northwest-trending in the Churchill (Hearne)
and Wyoming provinces and east-trending in
the Superior. Some have been recognized at
the surface and others as anomalies manifest
on isopach maps, or as trends on structure
contour maps (Mollard, 1957, 1959, 1987;
Christopher 1961, 1964; McCabe, 1967;
Kent, 1973, 1974, 1987; Thomas, 1974;

Gerhard et al., 1982; Brown and Brown,

1987).
Acting along with, and/or activated by
movement of the large structural masses of
the Sweetgrass Arch, Swift Current Platform
and the Thompson Boundary Fault front of
the Superior Province, these subsidiary
structures and lineaments shaped important
sedimentation and erosional patterns in
critical areas. Some of these are as follows.
1. The aforementioned Thompson Boundary
Fault is coincident with the western margin
of the Winnipegosis carbonate shelf and the
present eastern solution edge of the Prairie
Evaporite in southeastern Saskatchewan and
southwestern Manitoba; it is also the site of
the pre-Triassic Birdtail-Waskada structural
high that separates the Watrous Basin from
the Amaranth sub-basin. Thinning of
Paleozoic strata in the same general region
suggests that the structure had a long
history of Phanerozoic reactivation.
2. The Shaunavon Syncline is a north-south
graben that demarcates the eastern flank of
the Sweetgrass Arch in southwestern
Saskatchewan from the Swift Current

Platform to the east, and likewise terminates

the Middle Jurassic Shaunavon sandstone
facies to the east and the Upper Jurassic
Roseray sandstones to the west.
3. The east-west Kindersley Arch, is a
western counterpart of the Punnichy Arch
and was down-set during an early Laramide
foundering of the Swift Current Platform. A
Jura-Cretaceous structural and topographic
high, its draped structures contain Bakken,
Success, basal Mannville and Viking oil and
gas fields.
4. The Hummingbird-Avonlea northnortheasterly-trending fault group marks the
site of multi-stage salt solution structures
and the location of oil-bearing upper
Paleozoic reservoirs.
5. The Elbow-Weyburn lineation is a
northwesterly trending element fronting the
the Swift Current Platform to the east, along
which lies not only the eastern margin of the
Middle Devonian Winnipegosis carbonate
shelf but also the southwestern edge of the
overlying Prairie Evaporite salt mass. The
surface expression of the lineament is
apparently the Missouri Coteau.

6. The Punnichy Arch is an eastsoutheasterly trending monoclinal flexure

along which Phanerozoic strata are sharply
downwarped toward the Williston Basin. Like
the Kindersley Arch, it forms the erosional
front of the Mississippian carbonates, as well
as the northern solution front of the Prairie
Evaporite salt beds in eastern Saskatchewan.
Up-arching associated with the Early
Cretaceous downwarp of the Swift Current
Platform caused severe truncation of the
Mannville across it. The Punnichy Arch is
offset from the Kindersley structural terrace
by the Elbow-Weyburn lineation.
Structural Control of Phanerozoic Sedimentation

Temporal configuration of the Williston Basin

seems to have followed cycles of contraction
and expansion since the beginning of its
sedimentary record in the Middle Cambrian.
These are depicted by the sedimentation and
isopachous patterns of Sloss's (1963)
unconformity-bounded sequences (Fig.
27.10), and are coincident in part with the
major Phanerozoic orogenic and epeirogenic
events of the continent. These events are the
Middle to Late Ordovician Taconian, Late
Silurian to Early Devonian Acadian and

Permo-Pennsylvanian Alleghanian orogenies

of the eastern and southeastern continental
margin; the Late Devonian to Mississippian
Antler Orogeny to the southwest, and the
Jura-Cretaceous Nevadan-Columbian
Orogeny; and the Late Cretaceous-Cenozoic
Laramide Orogeny of the western margin.
Early Paleozoic events in the Williston Basin
appeared to have paralleled those of the
Hudson Bay Basin (Sanford, 1987).
Each event appears to have affected the
region in the following manner (Christopher,
1990):
1. an antecedent downwarp and expansion
of the Williston Basin and opening of the
Belt-Big Snowy aulacogen at a rate
exceeding sediment supply;
2. uplift of the elements of the flanking
extended Sweetgrass Arch and a
concomitant basinward infill by
progradational sediments;
3. epeirogenic uplift with erosional cycles
spreading from the uplifted blocks to the
basin;

4. tectonic relaxation and encroachment of

basin fill onto the flanks of the uplifts as part
of a regional transgression.
Cambrian Interval

Although Cambrian sandstones and shales

are the first of the Phanerozoic strata to
reflect the existence of the Williston Basin by
curvature of its isopachs (Slind et al., this
volume, Chapter 8; Lefever et al., 1987;
Peterson and MacCary, 1987), the formations
thicken westward across a submerged
Sweetgrass Arch toward a major depocenter
in the Rocky Mountain geosyncline. Apart
from sandstones reflecting a Precambrian
shield source, Cambrian facies form northerly
oriented belts from eastern Saskatchewan to
the western geosyncline, and typically grade
from nearshore sandstone bodies in the east
to shallow-water shelf carbonates in the west
(Kent, this volume, Chapter 7). The system is
capped by an unconformity
(Figs. 27.1, 27.10) representing a global
drop in sea level.
Ordovician-Silurian Interval

The Middle Ordovician Winnipeg Formation

also thickens into the Williston Basin but its

distribution is opposite to that of the

Cambrian in that it wedges out westward
from Manitoba along an irregular, northerly
oriented edge overlapping the Deadwood in
western Saskatchewan (Norford et al., this
volume, Chapter 9). Vigrass (1971)
suggested that the Winnipeg Formation is an
infill of a topographic depression on an
eroded Deadwood Formation.
The isopachs of the succeeding Ordovician
and Silurian carbonates and subsidiary
anhydrites mirror the form of the Williston
Basin (Norford et al., this volume, Chapter 9).
However, none of these formations feature
facies patterns that reflect paleobathymetry
(Kent, 1987 and this volume, Chapter 7);
although the evaporites, found at various
stratigraphic levels, imply a basin-centre
location. Each evaporitic unit is part of a
"brining-upward" sequence idealized
in Figure 27.11. On the other hand,
Jamieson (1973) showed that in the Silurian
Interlake Group there is a facies change from
tidal-flat deposits along the eastern and
northern margins of an enlarged Williston

Basin to subtidal carbonates in the central

part. Progradation of peritidal facies toward
the centre of the basin and eventual
emergence are indicated (Magathan, 1987).
Devonian-Mississipian Interval

A hiatus involving nearly the whole continent

(Figs. 27.1, 27.10) spanned the Middle
Silurian and Early Devonian. Middle Devonian
sediments were laid down in a northwesterly
elongated Elk Point Basin that extended from
northwestern Alberta to the Williston Basin in
the Dakotas. The presence of accreted
carbonate wedges along the margins and
deep-basin deposits enclosing carbonate
buildups toward the centre, indicate typical
basin control (Kent, this volume, Chapter 7).
Basin infill was completed with the deposition
of halite and potassium salts.
The seaway expanded onto the the
Sweetgrass Arch during the Middle and Late
Devonian and sedimentation during that time
was characterized by cyclic carbonates and
evaporites. Although axes of maximum
sedimentation similar in trend to that of the
Middle Devonian are evident (Fig. 27.7),

basin control of the sedimentary facies is not.

Thus Upper Devonian sediments, from the
Williston Basin to eastern and southern
Alberta, were deposited in a shallow seaway,
in which the shelf break was at the Killam
marginal reef complex of central Alberta.
Cyclic ordering of stratal types from shelf
carbonates to evaporites, identifiable as
shallowing-upward and "brining- upward"
parasequences (Fig. 27.12), are the norm
south and east of that complex. By the end of
the Devonian, sedimentary types became
dolomitic-evaporitic with included redbeds,
succeeded by argillaceous and sandy strata
transitional into strata of the Mississippian
(Christopher, 1961). These strata may reflect
initiation of the Antler Orogeny.
The last of the Paleozoic transgressions began
with the spread of Kinderhookian and
Osagian carbonates across the Sweetgrass
Arch and waned in a series of shallowingupward parasequences (Fig. 27.10), marked
by gradual retreat of Meremecian and
Chesterian strand plains annular to the
Williston Basin and the Belt-Big Snowy

Aulacogen of Montana. The Mississippian

strata best display the control of carbonate
facies distribution by Williston Basin
paleobathymetry. The peritidal and shelf
facies are annular to the basin and flank both
sides of the Belt-Big Snowy Trough. The
deeper water carbonates are basin centred
and lie along the axis of the trough.
In general the Mississippian isopachytes (Fig.
27.13) mirror the configuration of the
depositional floor. Kinderhookian carbonates
once extended farther to the north of their
present edge. Basin geometry is indicated by
broadly spaced isopachytes, between 0 and
300 m of shelf limestones extending from
Manitoba across the antiform of the
Sweetgrass Arch, and to the Swift Current
Platform of southwestern Saskatchewan, and
by the annular configuration resembling the
post-Laramide structural basin.
The sequence closes with Pennsylvanian
sediments, restricted to the central area of
the basin. Apparently none of these were
deposited on the arch or on the flanks of the

present basin in southern Saskatchewan and

southwestern Manitoba.
On the crest of the Sweetgrass Arch in
Alberta and western Montana Mississippian
strata are overlain by those of the Middle
Jurassic. On the flank in Saskatchewan, and
extending into Manitoba, Triassic redbeds
intervene. However in the east, on the
Severn-Sioux Arch of Manitoba and the
Dakotas, the erosional hiatus was greater,
and the entire Paleozoic section is absent
from the arch. In places the redbeds of the
Triassic Amaranth Formation of Manitoba rest
directly on Precambrian rocks (McCabe,
1971). Deeper into the basin, in North Dakota
and eastern Montana, the hiatus below the
Triassic was not so extensive, and 500 m of
Upper Mississippian, Pennsylvanian and
Permian carbonates, evaporites, black shale,
channelled sandstones and redbeds are
present. Upwarp of the Saskatchewan shelf
and Sweetgrass Arch had by then eliminated
the Elk Point Basin, even as concomitant
downwarp accentuated the Williston Basin
and the Belt-Big Snowy Aulacogen. A

measure of the tectonic relief between arch

and basin is given by the maximum amount
of eroded sediment; that is, about 600 m
(Christopher, 1984a).
Triassic Interval

The Triassic terrain differed sharply from its

predecessors. Sediments are redbeds in
Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and redbeds,
carbonates and evaporites in the Dakotas and
the extreme east of Montana. The basin
featured two main elements (Fig. 27.14):
1. a northeasterly trending rectangular
trough extending from northern Wyoming
across the center of the structural Williston
Basin to southwestern Manitoba, where it
formed the Amaranth embayment;
2. a similar but broader trough projecting
northwest from the Williston Basin center
into Saskatchewan.
The orthogonal fractures, dominated by
northwest and northeast sets, with subsidiary
east and north sets, indicate a static
tensional control. The east-west Belt-Big
Snowy Aulacogen was closed and tectonic
mobility is indicated only south of latitude 46

, where the Spearfish thickens markedly into

Wyoming.
Widespread erosion of the Sweetgrass Arch
resulting from Permo-Triassic Alleghanian
uplift sculptured the resistant, basinwarddipping Mississippian and Devonian
carbonates into cuestas, breached by wind
and water gaps (Martin, 1966). Uplift of the
arch also facilitated the selective removal of
halite from the Devonian evaporitic beds lying
at depth, and thereby contributed to
structural depressions on the Triassic
depositional terrain. First-cycle erosion
inverted the topography, so that structural
domes became Watrous-infilled topographic
basins and structural depressions became
topographic domes with only a veneer of
Watrous sediments or none (Christopher,
1961, 1984a). An example of this
phenomenon is provided by the Watrous
embayment of the Punnichy Arch, and is
suggested in Figure 27.14 by the northerly
protrusion of Watrous deposits across the
southerly arc of the Mississippian erosional
front. A similar cuesta, wind and water gap

topography was developed in Mississippian

carbonates on the western slope of the
Severn-Sioux Arch in Manitoba. In addition, a
major east-west valley called the Dominion
City Embayment and filled with Amaranth
redbeds, traverses the entire Paleozoic
subcrop of south-central Manitoba (McCabe,
pers. comm.).
The crest of the Sweetgrass Arch in
southeastern Alberta was similarly breached
by an eastward-flowing drainage system, the
eastern half of which crossed the Shaunavon
Shelf of Saskatchewan as the Adams Creek
re-entrant (Christopher, 1964). The upper
reaches of the valley were not fully
transgressed until late in the Middle Jurassic.
This is true also of other valleys on the Arch,
such as that on the saddle in the Medicine
River area of southern Alberta (Hopkins,
1981). The eastern flank of the Arch across
the Shaunavon Shelf featured monoclinal
terraces that downstepped toward a
depressed Swift Current Platform. This
combination of topographic and structural
elements exercised a strong influence on local

and regional depositional formats in the

succeeding Jurassic basins.
Jurassic Interval

Middle Jurassic strata feature a stratigraphic

transition from the restricted-basin evaporites
of the Upper Watrous to the more openmarine, dark green fossiliferous shales and
buff limestones of the Gravelbourg and
Shaunavon formations (Reston and Lower
Melita of Manitoba). The Middle Jurassic
Williston Basin resembled the Triassic in the
retention of northeasterly and northwesterly
trends, but much of the earlier relief was
infilled, leaving a nearly flat floor on the
upper units. The depositional centre
apparently shifted east of the Swift Current
Platform in Saskatchewan, where the Middle
Jurassic is some 150 m thick (Poulton, et al.,
this volume, Chapter 18). On the other hand,
relief on the arch and the central Montana
Platform is strongly delineated by virtue of
incomplete onlap.
The Callovian and Oxfordian seas completed
the onlap of the southern part of the
Sweetgrass Arch. Shales and sandstones

were laid down as prograding sediments in a

basin that underwent episodic deepening and
expansion at a rate exceeding initial sediment
supply. A concurrent uplift of the Swift
Current Platform accompanied a shift of the
Williston Basin centre from southern
Saskatchewan to western North Dakota and
eastern Montana, and its shape and position
approximated more nearly the Laramide
structural form.
Reformatting of the Williston Basin is
coincident with the beginning of the NevadanColumbian Orogeny, in a manner similar to
that of the Early Mississippian basin that
heralded the Antler-Alleghenian events.
Likewise, as before, the Belt-Big Snowy
Aulacogen reopened to accommodate an
extra thickness of Upper Jurassic marine
Swift to continental Morrison sediments.
Jura-Cretaceous Subinterval

Termination of the marine Jurassic basin

came in the Late Jurassic and the pre-Aptian
Cretaceous by progressive uplift of the
Precambrian Shield (Christopher, 1984b).
Erosional stripping of the terrain from north

to south in the manner initiated in the Triassic

resumed. The humid climate of that time
deeply weathered the bordering Precambrian
granitic and syenitic terrains and introduced a
quartz-kaolin component to the renewed,
dominantly fluviatile, sedimentary influx.
Chemical weathering also attacked the cherty
Mississippian limestones exposed on the
arches, releasing tripolitic debris for
accumulation in topographic depressions of
the breached anticlinal uplifts.
Cretaceous Interval

Neocomian uplift and dissection of the Swift

Current Platform and the Sweetgrass Arch
ensued. The resulting highlands were
dissected to depths greater than 120 m and
master streams radiated off to the sea in
northern Alberta (see Hayes et al. this
volume, Chapter 19). Albian tectonic
relaxation led to subsidence of the extended
Sweetgrass Arch and burial under a
southwestern-sourced fluviatile influx from
the rising Rocky Mountain uplifts, which
encroached upon a Mannville seaway and
estuarine basin reminescent in geographic
layout of the Middle Devonian Elk Point Basin.

The massive drowning of the Williston Basin

region by the Cretaceous seas recalls those of
the early and middle Paleozoic. As in the
Devonian, events were multi-cyclic, except
that the sedimentary influx was clastic and
directly related to events in the flanking
Rocky Mountain Foreland Basin. This history
is treated in the chapters on the Cretaceous
(Hayes, et al. and Smith, this volume,
Chapters 17, 19). However it is worth noting
that the depositional center of the Williston
Basin region during the Early Cretaceous had
shifted to southwestern Saskatchewan and
adjacent Montana; that is, over the
depressed Swift Current and Central Montana
platforms.
Like its orogenic predecessors, the Laramide
Orogeny restored the semi-elliptical form of
the Williston Basin and its centre to western
North Dakota. The present post- orogenic
landscape exhibits much of the same
landform distribution as those of the Early
Cretaceous and the Triassic, and the major
streams follow many of the courses of their
distant ancestors. Conversely, the respective

shoreline deposits do not coincide spatially. A

new factor was Laramide intrusive activity on
the southern part of the Sweetgrass Arch and
Central Montana Platform, which reflected
encroachment of the western orogen onto the
arch.
Local Structures and Sedimentation Patterns

The influence of local structures is reflected

primarily in the thickening and thinning and
facies differentiation of strata. The activity of
such structures is identifiable because they
were positive or negative during specific
periods of sedimentation.
For instance, in southeastern Saskatchewan,
oolite accumulations of the Ordovician Red
River Formation (Kent,1960; Andrichuck,
1959; Kendall, 1976) apparently reflect the
influence of the Thompson Boundary Fault
(Green et al., 1985; McCabe, 1967).
Moreover, this structural element appears to
have been active during 1) deposition of the
Middle Devonian Winnipegosis, causing the
separation of an eastern shelf of shallowwater carbonates and reefs from a central
basin of deeper water deposits with only

isolated reefs and banks; and 2) Early

Mississippian deposition of the Middle Bakken
when north-south-aligned shoreline sands
were deposited along its western flank
(Christopher, 1961).
Brown and Brown (1987) identified a number
of linear elements in the American part of the
basin that controlled Phanerozoic sediment
accumulation. Specifically, they considered
some blocks bounded by conjugate lineations
as sites of carbonate grainstone accumulation
in the Mississippian. Local structures, such as
that at Minton, can also be sites of
structurally controlled facies development.
According to Potter and St.Onge (1991)
Winnipegosis coral-stromatoporoid patch
reefs within the accreted shelf carbonates are
found on the Minton structure. Indorf and
Norwood (1983) also have demonstrated
structurally controlled facies in the Medicine
Lake field immediately south of Minton in
northeastern Montana.
Salt Solution Tectonics

Most sites of negative bathymetry are

situated where Middle and Upper Devonian

salt beds are anomalously absent or thin.

These appear in the isopachs of overlying
strata as corresponding thicks. In the Upper
Devonian Duperow Formation Kent (1968,
1973, 1974) noted that northwesterly
oriented isopach thicks in the present saltfree area of western Saskatchewan end at
seismically delineated circular positive
structures, and concluded that both of these
originated in the basement. Some of the
linear salt solution trends have been
identified as sites of multistage salt removal
(Christopher, 1961; Wilson et al. 1963;
Anderson and Hunt, 1964; Parker, 1967;
Smith and Pullen, 1967; Swenson, 1967;
Holter, 1969). These are recognizable in the
stratigraphic section by offsets of isopachous
thickening from one horizon to another, and
by stratigraphic inversion of thicks and thins.
Thus a thinned bed may drape a structural
high formed by a subjacent thick.
The simplest large-scale expression of
structure related to the presence or absence
of a salt mass is the drape of younger strata
over the Prairie Evaporite outlier forming the

Roncott high in extreme southern

Saskatchewan and the stratal depression of
the Elbow sub-basin at the apex of the "No
Salt" area southwest of Saskatoon
(Christopher, 1961). Another type is the
drape of superjacent strata over the crest of
the northern front of the salt solution scarp of
the Prairie Evaporite at the Punnichy Arch.
Whereas facies changes across salt solution
sinks are not commonly recorded, these have
been also observed; for example, at the
Tidewater Birsay 13-4-25-8W3 well, where in
the Upper Devonian Birdbear Formation an
anomalous thickness of laminated carbonate
and kerogenous mudstone replaces the
regional shelf carbonate. Likewise, Hartling et
al. (1982) showed that the Mississippian
Ratcliffe beds in the Hummingbird sink are
more micritic than outside. Another type of
solution-controlled sedimentary pattern is the
coincidence of basal Mannville deposits with
valleys on the sub-Cretaceous unconformity
that link lacustrine depressions associated
with salt sinks (Christopher, 1984b).

Facies, Structure and the Economic Mineral Deposits

Hydrocarbon accumulations in preMississipian rocks are associated with 1) local

basement flexures, 2) Middle Devonian reefs,
and 3) multistage salt-solution structures.
Deeper in the basin of North Dakota and
Montana, structures originating in the
basement can be quite large; for example,
the Nesson and Cedar Creek anticlines, which
are 45 km or more long, and support an
array of oil fields. The smaller structures
known to exist on the Canadian side of the
basin facilitate the formation of reservoirs in
the overlying carbonates through the creation
of fracture-controlled porosity, enhanced
dolomitization (e.g., the Hummingbird FieldNichols, 1970) or the development of
grainstone or reef reservoirs on structurally
induced paleobathymetric highs.
The major oil-producing region of
southeastern Saskatchewan is an integral
product of Williston Basin tectonics. Lying at
the updip end of the annular facies laid down
in the Mississippian basin, these reservoirs
are sourced from bituminous basal
carbonates below the oil window, which were

deposited in the depocentre when it was

subsiding at a rate exceeding sediment
supply. Stratigraphic traps owe their presence
to intertonguing of evaporites and skeletal
and nonskeletal calcarenites and lime
mudstones. The southerly dipping anhydrites
form top and bottom seals and have acted as
baffles channelling migrating hydrocarbonbearing fluids toward the updip sub-Triassic
unconformity (Christopher, et al., 1973).
Lateral limits of individual reservoirs are set
by permeability decreases along strike, and
by paleotopographic relief on the erosion
surface. Paleotopographic hills may also
coincide with structural highs.
The Shaunavon graben, or more properly
half-graben, separating the Shaunavon
monocline on the eastern flank of the
Sweetgrass Arch from the Swift Current
Platform, is pivotal to the oil and gas district
of southwestern Saskatchewan. It is the site
of the Middle Jurassic Shaunavon oilfields
perched on the terraced walls of its
southwestern flank, and Upper Jurassic and
Lower Cretaceous reservoirs offset to the

north at higher elevations and stratigraphic

levels. The graben occupies a zone of
weakness controlled by a pronounced
northwest-trending fracture system.
The Upper Shaunavon west-to-east facies
transition from coastal sandstones and
carbonates, comprising the reservoirs, to
offshore nonreservoir mudstones and
marlstones traps the Shaunavon oil reserves
downdip along a north-trending belt. The
Upper Jurassic Roseray sandstone-shale
transition is again north-south-trending and
oriented along the graben, but from east to
west. Hydrocarbons are trapped at the updip
end of the Roseray sandstones, where they
have been uptilted toward the graben by
Jura-Cretaceous uplift of the Swift Current
Platform. Pre-Cantuar erosional agents,
following the zone of weakness along the
graben, carved out buttes, mesas and
promontories from the general mass of
Roseray sandstones to the east. These were
sealed by Cantuar infill of wacke sandstones
and mudstones of low permeability. Oil
source beds for both families of reservoirs are

believed to be the Mississippian basal

bituminous beds, with migration through the
fracture system of the graben (Christopher,
1984a).
Higher on the Sweetgrass Arch of southern
Alberta and, as well, the Kindersley structural
terrace of west-central Saskatchewan,
smaller oil fields occur in the Jurassic
Sawtooth and the Lower Cretaceous
Mannville as a result of updip migration from
the adjacent or underlying Mississippian
subcrops. Compaction effects over hills on the
Madison limestone may extend up into the
Lower Colorado Group, where the
combination of permeable sandstone in the
casement of black, shale-draped domes
accommodates both oil and gas fields (Jones,
1961).
On an extended basin scale, the Middle
Devonian salt beds dwarf all other mineral
deposits. These, including the commercial
potash deposits, delineate the Williston Basin
at its greatest extent. At the other end of the
scale, the outcropping Tertiary EstevanWillowbunch lignite deposits are basin

centred, similar to the Mississippian oilfield

complex at depth. The deep erosion of the
Sioux-Severn Arch has resulted in the
exposure of lower Paleozoic and Devonian
rocks at the surface in Manitoba. These are
the major sources of high-calcium limestone
for cement-rock and Tyndall Stone. The latter,
from the Ordovician Red River Formation, is
probably the best known ornamental stone in
Canada.
Conclusions

We have tried to demonstrate in this chapter

that the geological history of the Williston
Basin is recorded in the complex patterns of
stratal thickening, thinning and truncation of
its sedimentary succession. The complexities
may be responses to a combination of
mechanisms causing basin subsidence and
uplift of the flanking arches. Porter et al.
(1982) also recognized the effects of these
processes but found no satisfactory answers
as to their origins; nor have we. However, in
writing this chapter, we have been able to
refer to an assortment of tectonic models of
basin subsidence and flanking arch uplift that
have been proposed in the geological

literature in the past decade and we believe

that the solution may lie in one of them (for
example, Cloetingh et al., 1985).
Acknowledgements

The writers acknowledge with thanks many

fruitful discussions with Fran Haidl, the
drafting skills of Paul Kent whose original line
drawings make up many of the electronically
generated illustrations of this chapter, and
others, too numerous to list, who have
contributed through the years to our
understanding of the geology of the Williston
Basin. We also appreciate the helpful
comments of reviewers Hugh McCabe and
Kirk Osadetz.
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