Geological Atlas of the Northern Canadian Mainland Sedimentary Basin

Increasing energy demand has led to an urgent need for easily accessible geoscience information for less explored areas of North America including the northern mainland region of Canada. The heavily explored regions of Mackenzie Delta north of 70EN and of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin south of 60E are covered by well-known geological atlas compilations. There is no comparable atlas-style source document for the relatively unexplored northern Canadian mainland part of the Western Sedimentary Basin. The "Geological Atlas of the Northern Canadian Sedimentary Basin" is intended to address the need for publicly accessible geoscience information across the northern Canadian mainland including the "Mackenzie Corridor" route for the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline. This will be a digital GIS-based atlas.The intent is to provide a common geoscience reference for territorial and aboriginal groups, for resource exploration and for pipeline companies engaged in resource development activities. The standard base map for the northern mainland atlas has same scale as that for the CSPG Atlas of Western Canada with a common junction along the 60th parallel and extending from 110EW longitude westward to the international boundary with Alaska. Like the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin Atlas, this Northern Mainland Atlas will include a series of time-stratigraphic chapters (e.g. "Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary Stratigraphy") and theme chapters (e.g. "Resources and Infrastructure") and are being published initially as a series of GSC Open File Reports. The atlas chapter concerning surficial geology, which is in preparation, outlines the geology of surficial deposits across the entire atlas area and particularly along the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline route. It represents a summary of the rich heritage of the extensive surficial geology mapping conducted by the Geological Survey of Canada across the Northern Interior Plains in the previous several decades. This chapter will also provide a synopsis of terrain-related geotechnical hazards.