The Base of the Cambrian System in the Southeastern Cordillera of Canada

CIM Bulletin, 1956

R. A. PRICE

The base of the biozone cf OleneLlus is accepted as the most universally applicable criterion for defining the base of the Cambrian System. The use of this definitive criterion is restricted by important practical considerations. In the southeastern Canadian Cordillera this Zone appears to truncate the basal ortho-quartzite of a west to east marine -transgression. This transgression began in Interior British Columbia in the Late Proterozoic and terminated in the region of the present Rockies in the Late Waucobian. Most of the material deposited by the transgressing sea originated in the eastern positive element 'Laurentia' and was transported over the intervening low Proterozoic-Windermere erosion surface. The configuration of the advancing shGreline and the distribution of the sediments were controlled by the tectonic activity of positive elements in northwestern Montana (Montania) and in the Fairmont Hot Springs-Radium area of British Columbia.

Keywords: Alberta, biozone, British Columbia, Cambrian Beds, Proterozoic, quartzite, British Columbia, Canada, formation, geology, Proterozoic, Quartzites, Rock, Systems