Type Locality:

Mount Wilson (52 deg 00'N, 116 deg 45'W), southwestern Alberta.

Distribution:

The Owen Creek is widespread in the carbonate facies of the southern Rocky Mountains [Kananaskis Lakes, Golden and Brazeau map-areas (82J, N; 83C)] where its observed thicknesses are between 46 and 199 m (150 and 652 ft). Westwards its place is taken by part of the Glenogle shales of the graptolitic facies. Northwards and eastwards the Owen Creek is cut out beneath the sub-Devonian unconformity, but it can be recognized in the McBride and Monkman Pass map-areas of the central Rocky Mountains (93H, I; Norford, unpublished). Farther north the Owen Creek may be represented within carbonates mapped as the Skoki Formation in the Pine Pass, Halfway River, Trutch and Ware map-areas (93O; 94B, F, G).

Lithology:

Well-bedded, aphanitic dolomites that weather colorful shades of yellowish grey, light grey, very pale orange and light olive grey. Quartz silt and very fine sand are components of most beds and sparse, well-rounded, coarse quartz sand grains are present in many beds, apparently floating in aphanitic matrices. Minor interbeds of dolomitic mudstone present in the lower part of the Owen Creek weather reddish brown, greyish red and pale greenish yellow and show rare mud cracks. The upper beds include dolomitic quartz sandstones and siltstones.

Relationship:

Paraconformable with underlying Skoki Formation, but channel fillings and indications of karst topography are present at some outcrops. Erosion surfaces are locally developed at the contact with the overlying Mount Wilson Formation and, at a single locality a deeply incised karst topography. Probably the Owen Creek-Mount Wilson contact represents an important hiatus, but paleontological control is inadequate to document the break.

Other Citations:

Cecile and Norford, 1979; Norford, 1969; Slind and Perkins, 1967.