The Muskwa 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 ...

Frasnian The Frasnian is one of two faunal stages in the Late Devonian Period. It lasted from million years ago to million years ago. It was preceded by the Givetian Stage and followed by the Famennian Stage. Major reef-building was under way during ...

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 ...

. It takes the name from Muskwa River, and was first described in the Western National Gas Fort Nelson a-95-J/94-J-10 well by F.F. Gray and J.R. Kassube, in 1963.

Lithology

The Muskwa Formation is composed of

bituminous Bitumen ( , ) is an immensely viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition, it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American English, the m ...

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 ...

Pyrite The mineral pyrite ( ), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue ...

is a common accessory mineral.

Gas production

Gas Gas is a state of matter that has neither a fixed volume nor a fixed shape and is a compressible fluid. A ''pure gas'' is made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon) or molecules of either a single type of atom ( elements such as ...

is produced from the Muskwa Formation

s in the Horn River Basin in the Greater Sierra oil field in 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 ...

. Horizontal drilling and fracturing techniques are used to extract the gas from the low permeability shales (see ''

Shale gas Shale gas is an unconventional natural gas that is found trapped within shale formations. Since the 1990s, a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has made large volumes of shale gas more economical to produce, and ...

'').

Distribution

The Muskwa Formation occurs in

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 ...

, north-eastern

and in the southern part of the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

, and typically has a thickness of .

Relationship to other units

The Muskwa Formation is a sub-unit of the

Horn River Formation The Horn River Formation (also ''Horn River Shale'') is a stratigraphic unit of Devonian (early Givetian to late Frasnian) age in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. It is a thick sequence of marine sediments that was first described in outc ...

; it is conformably overlain by the Fort Simpson Formation and conformably underlain by the Otter Park Member.

References

{{Shale gas Geologic formations of Alberta Oil-bearing shales in Canada Natural gas fields in Canada Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin Devonian System of North America Upper Devonian Series Devonian Alberta Devonian British Columbia Devonian Northwest Territories Peace River Country Frasnian Stage

Lithology

Gas production

Distribution

Relationship to other units

See also

References