Type Locality:

Ridge on east side of small, unnamed tributary of Toad River, about 1.4 km (0.9 mi) southwest of mouth of Nonda Creek and 0.8 km (0.5 mi) south of mile post 428 (689 km) on Alaska Highway; 58 deg 50'21"N, 125 deg 21'25"W; NTS 94K/14; Muskwa Ranges, eastern Rocky Mountains, northeastern British Columbia (Laudon and Chronic, 1949, p. 193).

Distribution:

The Kindle Formation, preserved in the eastern Cordillera and subsurface of the northwestern Interior Platform is locally exposed in the mountains and foothills from southwestern District of Mackenzie to Mountain Creek south of Pine Pass, east-central British Columbia (Bamber, et al., 1968; McMechan, 1987; Henderson et al., in press). It ranges from 90 to (295 ft) to more than 200 m (610 ft) in the Racing River synclinorium and Cariboo Range of the eastern Rocky Mountains. In the Western foothills north of Tuchodi River the formation is commonly more than 100 m (328 ft) thick. South of Tuchodi River it is generally between 15 to 75 m (49 and 246 ft) thick. The eastward thinning Kindle is truncated by the sub-Fantasque and sub-Triassic unconformities at several localities in the eastern foothills and western plains (Bamber et al., 1968; Henderson et al., in press).

Lithology:

The thin to medium bedded Kindle is dominated by rhythmically interbedded, calcareous silt shale and medium to dark grey calcareous to dolomitic, sandy siltstone and silty limestone. Containing locally abundant brachiopods and pelmatozoan ossicles. Conglomerate is commonly present at the base of the anomalously radioactive basal facies. Coarsening-upward sequences of shale, siltstone and cross-bedded sandstone are widely present in the northeast. The deposits are slightly glauconitic and commonly contain phosphate nodules and pellets. Shale becomes less abundant upward and northeastward as the proportion of sandstone and siltstone increases. Beds in the lower and western Kindle are commonly sharp based and show planar laminae and small to medium scale cross-bedding (McMechan, 1987; Henderson et al., in press). Three units constitute the Kindle Formation in the Racing River synclinorium and the Cariboo Range (Laudon and Chronic, 1949; Bamber et al., 1968). The lower unit consists of dark grey siltstone with thin shale interbeds and some lenticular beds of calcareous siltstone. Between the Liard River and the Caribou Range this lower unit also contains beds of calcareous sandstone and sandy limestone. The banded middle unit comprises alternating dark grey argillaceous siltstone and orange weathering, calcareous and dolomitic, pyritic siltstone. Lenses of silty limestone lie within the middle unit in some sections. The upper unit comprises dark grey, siliceous mudstone, shale and chert. A sequence of siltstone, sandstone, shale and brachiopod-bearing limestones correlative with the lower and middle units is widespread in the foothills from the Toad River south to the Pine Pass.

Relationship:

The Kindle unconformably overlies the Lower Carboniferous Mattson Formation in the northwest and the Lower Carboniferous Stoddart Group or underlying Prophet Formation to the southeast. The Kindle closely resembles the upper Stoddart, and much of what has been mapped as Kindle is probably assignable to the Stoddart. Triassic siltstone locally overlies the Kindle in the foothills and eastern Rocky Mountains, but the Permian Fantasque Formation unconformably overlies the Kindle in most areas. The upper Kindle of the type area may pass eastward into the Fantasque Formation. The Kindle, homotaxial with the subsurface Belloy Formation of Peace River Embayment, is partly coeval with the Belcourt Formation of east-central British Columbia (Bamber and Macqueen, 1979), but the nature of the contact with the latter is uncertain.

History:

Originally defined (Laudon and Chronic, 1949, p. 210) to include the entire interval between the Besa River Formation and the Triassic in the Racing River synclinorium; restricted by Sutherland (1958, p. 31) to exclude bedded chert and black shale of the Permian Fantasque Formation in the Tetsa River Valley to the east. McGugan (1967) included the Kindle in the Mount Greene beds of the Pine Pass/Peace River region, eastern Rocky Mountains, northeastern British Columbia.

Remark:

Part of Ishbel Group

Other Citations:

Bamber and Macqueen, 1979; Henderson et al., in press; Laudon and Chronic, 1949; McMechan, 1987; McGugan, 1967; Sutherland, 1958; Taylor and Stott, 1973.