The Muskiki Formation is a

stratigraphic unit A stratigraphic unit is a volume of rock of identifiable origin and relative age range that is defined by the distinctive and dominant, easily mapped and recognizable petrographic, lithologic or paleontologic features ( facies) that characteriz ...

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...

age Age or AGE may refer to: Time and its effects * Age, the amount of time someone has been alive or something has existed ** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1 * Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older ...

in the

Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin The Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) underlies of Western Canada including southwestern Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan, Alberta, northeastern British Columbia and the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories. This vast sedimentary b ...

. The formation is named after Muskiki Lake and Muskiki Creek, a tributary of the Cardinal River, and was first described in an outcrop along the Thistle Creek, north of Muskiki Lake, in the Bighorn Range, by D.F. Stott in 1963. The name is of

Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...

origin ("maskihkîy"), meaning ''medicine''.

Lithology

The Muskiki Formation is composed of

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

with pebbly

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from ''shale'' by its lack of fissility.Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology.'' New York, New York, ...

. Poorly sorted

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 ...

and concretionary beds also occur. In the western areal it becomes more

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...

Distribution

The Muskiki Formation is thick at its type locality at Thistle Creek. It thins out towards the south and east. It occurs in the

Canadian Rockies The Canadian Rockies () or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part of the Canadian Cordillera, w ...

foothills from the

Highwood River The Highwood River is a tributary of the Bow River in southwestern Alberta, Canada. Course The Highwood originates in the Canadian Rockies in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, in the Highwood Pass below Mount Arethusa. It flows south and is paral ...

in the south to the Berland River, north of the

Athabasca River The Athabasca River (French: ''Rivière Athabasca'') in Alberta, Canada, originates at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park and flows more than before emptying into Lake Athabasca. Much of the land along its banks is protected in nationa ...

and into north-eastern

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Relationship to other units

The Muskiki Formationis is part of the Smoky Group. It is conformably underlain by the

Cardium Formation The Cardium Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Late Cretaceous age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. It takes the name from the fossilized heart-shaped cockle shells in the family Cardiidae (from Greek ''kardiā'', "heart") present. It ...

and conformably overlain by the

Bad Heart Formation The Smoky Group is a stratigraphic unit of Late Cretaceous Geochronology, age in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. It takes the name from the Smoky River and was first described in outcrops along the banks of the Smoky River, Spirit River a ...

. The

Kaskapau Formation The Kaskapau Formation is a geological formation in North America whose strata date back to the Late Cretaceous. The name derives from ''kaskapahtew'' (ᑲᐢᑲᐸᐦᑌᐤ), the Cree word for "smoky". It was first described on the banks of the ...

northern Alberta Northern Alberta is a geographic region located in the Canadian province of Alberta. An informally defined cultural region, the boundaries of Northern Alberta are not fixed. Under some schemes, the region encompasses everything north of the ce ...

replaces the upper Blackstone Formation, the

, and the Muskiki Formation. Where the Kaskapau Formation includes post Cardium beds, the Muskiki is considered a member of the

Wapiabi Formation The Alberta Group is a stratigraphic unit of Cenomanian to early Campanian Geochronology, age in the Lewis Overthrust, Lewis overthrust in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. It takes the name from the province of Alberta, and was first descr ...

References

{{Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, Northwest_Plains=yes Geologic formations of Alberta Cretaceous Alberta Shale formations of Canada Sandstone formations of Canada Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin