Type Locality:

Near Nordegg, Alberta, in Box Canyon Creek, a south branch of Shunda Creek. An alternate subsurface type section is completely cored at the Hudson's Bay - Oilwell Operators Westward Ho 15-5 well, in Lsd. 5, Sec. 5, Twp. 33, Rge. 4W5M (Penner, 1958a).

Distribution:

The Shunda is 71 m (232 ft) thick at the type section near Nordegg, 49 m (160 ft) at the Westward Ho well location and more than 122 m (400 ft) in the Peace River area. The unit is present in the foothills and in the western part of the plains area, from Twp. 15 in the south to the Peace River area in the north.

Lithology:

The Shunda consists of interbedded limestone and dolomite, argillaceous limestone, silty and argillaceous dolomite, siltstone, sandstone, shale and breccias. Anhydrite and red beds are present in the subsurface at isolated locations. The limestones and dolomites are commonly fine-grained or crystalline, predominantly mudstones, with minor skeletal (crinoidal) debris. In the Peace River area the Shunda is interbedded limestone and shale, with shale increasing northerly.

Relationship:

The Shunda conformably overlies the Pekisko Formation and conformably underlies the Turner Valley Formation in the south, and the Debolt Formation in the north in the northerly part of the Peace River area the Shunda occupies the total Shunda-Pekisko interval (Macauley et al., 1964). The Shunda is equivalent to part of the lower Mission Canyon Formation of Montana and southern Saskatchewan.

History:

Beach (1947) introduced the name Shunda for the Middle Clastic unit of his threefold subdivision (Dyson, Shunda and Tunnel Mountain) of the Rundle in the front ranges of the Bow Valley area. His type locality of the Shunda was in the vicinity of Carrot Creek, in the Fairholme Range near Canmore (as stated by Beach), although he believed the unit to correlate with a clastic section lying between carbonate strata in the Nordegg area, on Shunda Mountain. Eastward from Carrot Creek, into the subsurface the unit was correlated with the "Black Lime" of the Turner Valley field section (Clark, 1949; Gallup, 1951). In 1954 a Carboniferous Study Committee showed that the Shunda of the Carrot Creek section is Meramecian in age, and the Shunda of Nordegg and Turner Valley is Osage. In view of the mis-correlation the term Shunda was replaced by the Mount Head for the Carrot Creek section (Moore, 1958). Stearn described and measured the type section of the Shunda near Nordegg in 1956. Subsequently, the top of Steam's Shunda was raised 10 m (33 ft) by the Carboniferous Study Committee (Penner, 1958a).

Other Citations:

Brady, 1958.

References:

Beach, H.H., 1947. Mississippian and later Paleozoic stratigraphy of the Rocky Mountain Front Ranges Unpub. paper presented before the Alberta Society of Petroleum Geologists.

Brady, W.B., 1958. Mississippian stratigraphy of the central Foothills and eastern ranges of the Nordegg area, Alberta; Alberta Soc. Petrol. Geol., 8th Ann Field Conf. Guidebook, p. 50-63.

Clark, Leslie M., 1949. Geology of Rocky Mountain Front Ranges near Bow River, Alberta; American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), AAPG Bulletin, vol. 33, no. 4 (April), pp. 614-633.

Gallup, William B., 1951. Geology of the Turner Valley oil and gas field, Alberta, Canada; American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), AAPG Bulletin, vol. 35, no. 4 (April), pp. 797-821.

Macauley, G., Penner, D.G., Procter, R.M., and Tisdall, W.H., 1964. Carboniferous; In: Geological history of western Canada, McCrossan, R.G. and Glaister, R.P. (Eds.), p. 89-102. Alberta Soc. Petrol. Geol.

Moore, P.F., 1958. Late Paleozoic stratigraphy in the Rocky Mountains and foothills of Alberta - a critical historical review; in, Jurassic and Carbonifenous of western Canada; Goodman, A.J. (Ed.). Amer. Assoc. Petrol Geol., p. 145-176.

Penner, D.G., 1958a. Shunda Formation; Alberta Society of Petroleum Geologists with the co-operation of the Edmonton Geological Society, Eighth Annual Field Conference, Nordegg, AB, August, 1958, Guidebook, pp. 64-68.

Stearn, C.W., 1956a. Type section of the Shunda Formation; J. Alberta Soc. Petrol. Geol., v. 4, p. 237-239.