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| Title | 3D hydrostatigraphic model of Milk River Transboundary Aquifer | ||||||||||||||||
| Date | 2015-01-01 ( publication)
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| Date | 2015-01-01 ( creation)
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| Presentation form | modelDigital |
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| Series | Other | ||||||||||||||||
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| Type | place |
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| Term | Milk River | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Type | theme |
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| Term | Groundwater | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Type | product |
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| Term | 3D Model | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spatial representation | grid |
| Language | eng; CAN |
| Character encoding | utf8 |
| Thematic category | geoscientificInformation |
| Extent | -113.083000000,48.167000000;-109.917000000,50.333000000 |
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| Format | |
| Name | ASCII GRID |
| Version | not applicable |
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dataset
Date lineage
Lineage is the description of the sources and steps used to create the current dataset.
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| The geological data corresponding to equivalent layers in Alberta and Montana needed to be standardised. In particular, specific work on the equivalent members of the Milk River Formation was needed to represent the Milk River Aquifer (i.e., Virgelle Member) in its entirety. The geological units represented in the model are the following (in ascending order): 1) Colorado Group It underlies the entire study area. The Colorado Group consists mainly of dark grey to black bentonitic marine shale. Regional aquitard. 2) Milk River Formation - Telegraph Creek Member The Telegraph Creek Member consists of thinly interbedded sandy shale, siltstone, and fine-grained shaly sandstone. 3) Milk River Formation - Virgelle Member It consists of thick bedded, fine- to medium-grained sandstone with thinly bedded siltstone. The Virgelle Member is not present in southwestern Saskatchewan or central Alberta because it is truncated by the regional unconformity surface separating the Milk River Formation and the Alderson Member. The Virgelle Member massive sandstone is the most important aquifer part of the Milk River Formation and therefore constitutes the Milk River Aquifer. 4) Milk River Formation - Deadhorse Coulee Member This well-defined unit consists predominantly of interbedded shale, siltstone, and fine-grained sandstone with coal seams. 5) Alderson Member In southern Alberta, the Alderson Member is present northeast of the depositional limit of the Virgelle Sandstone. Alderson Member consists of interbedded very fine-grained sandstone, siltstone and mudstone. The Alderson Member is younger than the Telegraph Creek, Virgelle, and Deadhorse Coulee members of the Milk River Formation and is separated from them by a regional unconformity representing a large time gap. It therefore physically overlies and overlaps the erosional edges of the other three members. The upper part of the Alderson Member contains two distinct large sand bodies that form a regional aquifer in southern Alberta. 6) Pakowki Formation/Claggett Shale The Pakowki and Claggett formations consist of thinly bedded, black marine shales, with few sandstone beds. The marine shales progressively thins to zero westward. Where the Claggett/Pakowki Formation pinches out, the Milk River Formation is directly overlain by the Judith River Formation/Belly River Group. Regional aquitard. 7) Belly River Group/Judith river Formation The Belly River Group (or equivalent Judith River Formation) outcrops in a large part of the study area. The dark shale, sandstone, and coal seams of the Foremost Formation are overlain by yellow and grey sandstone of the Oldman Formation and thick sandstones and siltstones of the Dinosaur Park Formation. The Belly River Group/Judith River Formation constitutes an aquifer. 8) Bearpaw Formation and surficial sediments The Bearpaw is made up of dark grey shale. The Bearpaw Formation constitutes a regional aquitard. |
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| The various sets of geological data on both sides of the border were standardised (same format, spatial reference and units). The next stage was to unify these data, since the main goal of the 3D geological model is to represent the geology of the study area in a unified way. Thus, the geological data corresponding to equivalent layers in Alberta and Montana needed to be merged. The regional unconformity between the Milk River Formation and the Alderson Member is also represented in the 3D model. In the north, northeast, and east of the study area, the Telegraph Creek, Virgelle, and Deadhorse Coulee members are progressively overlapped by the Alderson Member. The two sand bodies that make up the upper part of the Alderson Member are not represented separately, but they are included in the Alderson Member. Finally, it was decided that the Bearpaw Formation and the surficial sediments would be grouped in one layer in the geological model, between the top of the Belly River/Judith River and the ground level. The 3D geological model was then built with the geological data on both sides of the border harmonized and the stratigraphy unified. The software chosen to build the 3D geological model is Leapfrog Hydro. The approach to build the 3D geological model was to use location data (x, y, z) representing the top of the geological units. Contact surfaces were first created from these data. Then, volumes were obtained from the surfaces for which a chronology had been determined. An initial geological model was built as a reference and for the purpose of comparison before and after unification of the geological datasets from both sides of the international boundary. The two datasets are placed alongside in this reference model, so the geological layers are obviously abruptly separated at the international border. In a subsequent geological model, the integration of detailed logs and the formulation of working hypothesis on the equivalent layers allowed the building of the unified 3D geological model of the study area. The datasets in the four zones of the study area were finally merged to represent each geological unit. Furthermore, the model was adjusted with the help of existing cross-sections for the study area. The cross sections served as a guide and allowed adjustments of the geological surfaces by manual editing within Leapfrog Hydro. |
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| File identifier | 97047660-f096-a3c7-59a0-2b1d36ffc2ff |
| Language | eng; CAN |
| Character encoding | utf8 |
| Hierarchical classification | dataset |
| Date | 2017-03-21 |
| Metadata standard | North American Profile of ISO 19115:2003 - Geographic information - Metadata |
| Version | CAN/CGSB-171.100-2009 |
| Constraints | |
| Update frequency | asNeeded |
| Reference System code | EPSG:26912 |
| Register | http://www.epsg-registry.org/ |
| Version | 6.14 |
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| Name | Francois Letourneau | ||||||
| Organisation | Government of Canada; Natural Resources Canada; Geological Survey of Canada - GSC Quebec | ||||||
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| Organisation | Government of Canada; Natural Resources Canada; Geological Survey of Canada | ||||||
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Groundwater Information Network
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