The Albert Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Early Mississippian (

Tournaisian The Tournaisian is in the ICS geologic timescale the lowest stage or oldest age of the Mississippian, the oldest subsystem of the Carboniferous. The Tournaisian age lasted from Ma to Ma. It is preceded by the Famennian (the uppermost st ...

) age in the Moncton Subbasin of southeastern

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

. It was deposited in a lacustrine environment and includes

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s of fish and land plants, as well as

trace fossil A trace fossil, also called an ichnofossil (; ), is a fossil record of biological activity by lifeforms, but not the preserved remains of the organism itself. Trace fossils contrast with body fossils, which are the fossilized remains of part ...

s. It also includes significant deposits of

oil shale Oil shale is an organic-rich Granularity, fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of Organic compound, organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general compos ...

. The oil shale beds are the source rocks for the

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...

and

natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...

that has been produced from Albert Formation reservoirs at the Stoney Creek and McCully fields. In addition, the solid asphalt-like

hydrocarbon In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons are examples of group 14 hydrides. Hydrocarbons are generally colourless and Hydrophobe, hydrophobic; their odor is usually fain ...

albertite Albertite is a variety of Bitumen, asphalt found in the Albert Formation in Albert County, New Brunswick, and in a deposit at Dingwall, in the north-east of Scotland. It is a type of solid hydrocarbon. Albertite has a black colour, a resinous lu ...

was mined from the Albert Formation at

Albert Mines Albert Mines is a community in the southeastern cornerMap of the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of New Brunswick, Canada. It is due south of the Hillsborough, New Brunswick, Village of Hillsborough and bordered by the communitie ...

between 1854 and 1884.

Lithology and mineralogy

The Albert Formation includes

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

, siltstone, mudstone, and

, with minor

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

and conglomerate. The oil shale beds are primarily kerogen-rich calcareous to dolomitic marlstones, clay marlstones, and laminated marlstones.Macauley, G., Ball, F.D. and Powell, T.G. 1984. A review of the Carboniferous Albert Formation oil shales of New Brunswick. Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, vol. 32, no. 1, p. 27-37. The formation also includes local deposits of the evaporite minerals halite (rock salt), gypsum, anhydrite, and glauberite. The solid hydrocarbon

occurs as veins filling fissures in some of the beds, and is derived from the hydrocarbons in the oil shales.

Environment of deposition

The Albert Formation has been interpreted as a composite

alluvial fan An alluvial fan is an accumulation of sediments that fans outwards from a concentrated source of sediments, such as a narrow canyon emerging from an escarpment. They are characteristic of mountainous terrain in arid to Semi-arid climate, semiar ...

, fluvial-deltaic, and lacustrine sequence. The coarser-grained lithologies are nearshore deposits, while the finer-grained rocks, including the oil shale beds, are an offshore, deeper-water assemblage. Fossils of whole fish preserved in the laminated oil shales indicate very low energy, anoxic conditions.

Paleontology

The Albert Formation is known for its complete, articulated specimens of lower actinopterygian (palaeoniscoid) fishes, including the

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

'' Rhadinichthys'', '' Elonichthys'', and '' Canobius''.Mickle, K.E. 2017. The lower actinopterygian fauna from the Lower Carboniferous Albert shale formation of New Brunswick Canada – A review of previously described taxa and a description of a new genus and species. College of Science, Health and the Liberal Arts Faculty Papers, paper 1. https://jdc.jefferson.edu/jchsfp/1; doi:10.5194/fr-20-47-2017. There are remains of land plants such as '' Lepidodendrales'' and '' Sphenopteris'',Bell, W.A. 1960. Mississippian Horton Group of type Windsor-Horton District, Nova Scotia. Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir 314, 112 p. as well as palynomorphs.Utting, J. 1987. Palynostratigraphic investigation of the Albert Formation (Lower Carboniferous) of New Brunswick, Canada. Palynology, vol. 11, no. 1, p. 73-96. Trace fossils include '' Paleodictyon'', '' Helminthopsis'', and '' Planolites''.Pickerill, R.K. 1990. Nonmarine ''Paleodictyon'' from the Carboniferous Albert Formation of southern New Brunswick. Atlantic Geology, vol. 26, p. 157-163.

Economic resources

Oil and gas

The Albert Formation hosts the only two commercial onshore oil and gas fields in Canada's Maritime Provinces. The Stoney Creek field produced from sandstone reservoirs in the Albert Formation between 1909 and 1991, and estimates suggest that significant oil remains in place there. The McCully field, which was discovered in 2000, produces from tight gas sandstones in the upper part of the Albert Formation, above the main organic mudstone (oil shale) source rocks.Keighley, D. 2008. A lacustrine shoreface succession in the Albert Formation, Moncton Basin, New Brunswick. Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, vol. 56, no. 4, p. 235-258.

Albertite

Veins of the solid black hydrocarbon that was subsequently named

were first noted in the Albert Formation in 1820. In 1846, Abraham Gesner used albertite in developing the first method for distilling

kerosene Kerosene, or paraffin, is a combustibility, combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in Aviation fuel, aviation as well as households. Its name derives from the Greek (''kērós'') meaning " ...

, and between 1854 and 1884 albertite was mined by underground methods at

for use in the production of kerosene and illuminating gas.

References

* {{cite web, title= Fossilworks: Gateway to the Paleobiology Database, author= ((Various Contributors to the Paleobiology Database)), url= https://www.fossilworks.org, access-date= 17 December 2021 Geologic formations of New Brunswick Fossiliferous stratigraphic units of North America Carboniferous New Brunswick Oil shale in Canada Oil shale formations Carboniferous southern paleotropical deposits Sandstone formations of Canada Mudstone formations of Canada Limestone formations of Canada Conglomerate formations