Type Locality:

St. Mary River, Secs. 23 and 24, Twp. 6, Rge. 23W4M, Blood Indian Reserve, southwestern Alberta.

Distribution:

The formation forms a narrow outcrop belt extending northward from the International Boundary, where it is about 30m (100 ft) thick, to the Monarch Fault Zone on the Oldman River (Sec. 31, Twp. 9, Rge. 23W4M, Alberta), where it is approximately 12 m (40 h) thick (Irish, 1968b). It is interpreted as part of a barrier beach-tidal inlet sequence by Young and Reinson (1975) and Reinson (1979).

Lithology:

Massive, hard to soft, cliff forming to castellated, medium-grained, light grey or grey-buff sandstone weathering to a buff, yellow or greenish tinge; cement varies from calcareous to argillaceous; cross-bedding and irregular concretions commonly developed.

Relationship:

The upper and lower contacts were said to be usually sharp by the author ( in: Russell and Landes, 1940, p. 82), but they appear conformable. The formation overlies arenaceous shales and sandstone beds of the Bearpaw and is overlain by soft sandy shales of the St. Mary River Formation. The formation is the extension of the Horsethief Sandstone of northern Montana and is also correlated with the Black Eagle Member of the Bearpaw in the Cypress Hills of southeastern Alberta by Russell (1950b, p. 36), and with the basal Edmonton Formation (Horseshoe Canyon) by Russell (1932c, p. 130). Although it is older, the Blood Reserve is the westward lithostratigraphic equivalent of the Fox Hills Formation, which is recognized in the northern United States as the diachronous (becoming younger eastward) sequence of sandy strata occurring between the Bearpaw or Pierre Shale below and the dominantly continental clastics of the Hell Creek Formation above.

History:

The name Blood Reserve Sandstone was proposed by Russell (op. cit.) for a thick sandstone bed overlying the shales of the Bearpaw Formation in southwestern Alberta which had previously been referred to as the Fox Hills Sandstone by various authors, including Williams and Dyer (1930), Sanderson (1931) and Link and Childerhose (1931). On the basis of both stratigraphic and paleontological evidence the author (in: Russell and Landes, 1940, p. 84) stated that the Blood Reserve Formation is older than the Fox Hills Formation of northwestern United States.

Other Citations:

Irish, 1968b; Link and Childerhose, 1931; Reinson, 1979; Russell, 1932a, 1932b, 1950; Russell and Landes, 1940; Sanderson, 1931; Williams and Dyer, 1930; Young and Reinson, 1975.

References:

Reinson, G.E., 1979. Facies models 14. Barrier island systems; Geoscience Canada, vol. 6, pp. 51-68.

Russell, L.S. and Landes, R.W., 1940. Geology of the southern Alberta Plains; Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir 221.

Russell, L.S., 1932b. Stratigraphy and Structure of the Eastern Portion of the Blood Indian Reserve, Alberta; Geological Survey of Canada, Summary Report 1931, Part B, pp. 26-38.

Russell, L.S., 1932c. The Cretaceous-Tertiary transition of Alberta. Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, Ser 3, v. 26, s. 4, p. 121-156.

Russell, Loris Shano, 1950b. "Correlation of the Cretaceous-Tertiary transition in Saskatchewan and Alberta"; Geological Society of America (GSA), GSA Bulletin, vol. 61, no. 1 (January), pp. 27-42.

Williams, M.Y. and Dyer, W.S., 1930. Geology of southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan; Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir 163.

Young, F.G. and Reinson, G.E., 1975. "Sedimentology of Blood Reserve and adjacent formations (Upper Cretaceous), St. Mary River, southern Alberta", in, Guidebook to selected sedimentary environments in southwestern Alberta, Canada, Shawa, M.S. (Ed.); Can. Soc. Petrol. Geol., Field Conf., p. 10-20.