Unit Name: Belloy Formation
Unit Type: Lithostratigraphic
Rank: Formation
Status: Formal
Usage: Currently in use
Age Interval: Permian (299 - 251 ma)
Age Justification: Contains spores, foraminifera, ammonoids and brachiopods of Permian age (Naqvi, 1972, pi 78, 80 and 82). Conodonts have also recently been recovered (C.M.H., unpublished).
Province/Territory: Alberta; British Columbia

Originator: Halbertsma, 1959.

Type Locality:
Imperial Belloy 12-14-78-1W6M Alberta, between 1,246 and 1,294 m (4,087 and 4,246 ft)

Distribution:
Zero to 274 m (900 ft) (Halbertsma, 1959). Zero edge in the east, increasing to more than 183 m (600 ft) near the foothills south of Fort St. John (Naqvi, 1972). Present in most of the subsurface of the Peace River area and in adjoining foothills of northeastern British Columbia.

Lithology:
Sandy dolostones and sandstones with spicular cherts, calcareous, glauconitic and quartz sandstones, phosphorites, siltstones and phosphatic chert conglomerates within the formation and at the base.

Relationship:
Unconformably overlies various Carboniferous horizons (Naqvi, 1972 Fig. 4). Overlain disconformably by Lower Triassic shales and siltstones. Homotaxial with Mount Greene Beds, Belcourt and Kindle formations of central and southern Rocky Mountains, northeastern British Columbia and Alberta. It is presently thought that correlatives of the Fantasque and Ranger Canyon formations are not represented in the Belloy, although they may be preserved locally (Henderson et al., in press; Henderson, 1989).

History:
Halbertsma (1959) divided the Belloy Formation into three members, a lower carbonate member, a middle sand member and an upper carbonate member. Sikabonyi (1959) included consideration of sedimentation, depositional trends, thickness and correlation of the Belloy Formation in his paper on Paleozoic sedimentation in the northern half of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Naqvi (1972) studied the Belloy Formation of the Peace River subsurface. He related the Belloy Formation to part of the Ishbel Group, including the Mount Greene beds, but could not recognize consistently mappable members. Naqvi believed that diagenesis and lithification took place in a chemically active phosphate and evaporite producing environment, following Rapson-McGugan (1970).

Other Citations:
Bamber and Macqueen, 1971; Bamber, Taylor and Procter, 1968; Halbertsma, 1959; Henderson, 1989; Henderson et al., in press; Naqvi, 1972; Nassichuk, 1969; Rapson-McGugan, 1970; Sikabonyi, 1959; Taylor and Bamber, 1970.

References:
Halbertsma, Henk Leendert, 1959. Nomenclature of Upper Carboniferous and Permian strata in the subsurface of the Peace River area; Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Journal of the Alberta Society of Petroleum Geologists, vol. 7, no. 5 (May), pp.109-118.
Henderson, C.M., 1989. Lower Absaroka sequence: Upper Carooniferous and Permian, Chapter 10. In: Basin analysis - The western Canada Sedimentary Basin; Ricketts, B.D. (Ed.). Can. Sac. Petrol. Geol.
Naqvi, I.H., 1972. "The Belloy Formation (Permian), Peace River area, northern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia"; Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists (CSPG), Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, vol. 20, no. 1 (March), pp. 58-88.

Source: CSPG Lexicon of Canadian Stratigraphy, Volume 4, western Canada, including eastern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba; D.J. Glass (editor)
Contributor: C.M. Henderson; A. McGugan
Entry Reviewed: Yes
Name Set: Lithostratigraphic Lexicon
LastChange: 24 Mar 2009