Unit Name: Survey Peak Formation
Unit Type: Lithostratigraphic
Rank: Formation
Status: Formal
Usage: Currently in use
Age Interval: Late Cambrian - Early Ordovician (499 - 471.8 ma)
Age Justification: Trilobites, brachiopods, conodonts, gastropods, echinoderm debris and extremely rare graptolites allow recognition of the uppermost Cambrian Saukia trilobite zone and Ordovician trilobite zones A, B, D, E and, probably F. The Survey Peak Formation provides one of the best exposed and accessible fossiliferous successions in Canada across the Cambrian-Ordovician Boundary.
Province/Territory: Alberta; British Columbia

Originator: Aitken and Norford, 1967

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

Distribution:
Widespread in the shallow water carbonate shelf facies of southwestern Alberta and adjacent British Columbia [Fernie, Kananaskis Lakes, Calgary, Golden, Brazeau map-areas (82G, J, N, O; 83E)]. The formation and its members all thicken towards the west; the formation from 322 m (easterly) to 519 m (westerly) (1,055 to 1,702 ft), the basal silty member from 14 to 82 m (46 to 270 ft), the putty shale member from 12 to 137 m (38 to 448 ft), the middle member from 248 m (815 ft) at the type section, thinner to the east and thicker to the west, and the upper massive member from 60 to 113 m (190 to 370 ft).

Lithology:
Calcareous shales and mudstones, siltstones, microcrystalline limestone, calcisiltites, limestone-pebble conglomerates, biocalcarenites, cryptalgal limestones and oolitic limestones. Most of the rock types are present in all four informal members, but in different proportions: upper massive member; middle member; putty shale member; and basal silty member.

Fossils:
Trilobites, brachiopods, conodonts, gastropods, echinoderm debris and extremely rare graptolites

Relationship:
The basal contact with the Mistaya Formation is concordant but abrupt; an erosion surface and channelling are present at one locality. The upper contact is gradational with the Outram Formation. Westward the Survey Peak Formation can be mapped into the upper part of the McKay Group and the putty shale member can be clearly recognized within that rock unit. Northwestward the Chushina Formation of the Jasper region appears to represent the bulk of the lower two members of the Survey Peak; further away, the putty shale and basal silty members apparently are present within the easterly, shallow water facies of the Kechika Group in the Trutch and Ware map-areas (94F, G) of the northern Rocky Mountains.

References:
Aitken, J.D. and Norford, B.S., 1967. Lower Ordovician Survey Peak and Outram formations, southern Rocky Mountains of Alberta; Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, vol. 15, no. 2 (June), pp. 150-207.

Source: CSPG Lexicon of Canadian Stratigraphy, Volume 4, western Canada, including eastern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba; D.J. Glass (editor)
Contributor: B.S. Norford
Entry Reviewed: Yes
Name Set: Lithostratigraphic Lexicon
LastChange: 28 Mar 2014