Paleogeographic reconstruction of an evolving foreland basin: developing a high-resolution perspective of the initial uplift of the Canadian rocky mountains

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One of the classic foreland basins of the world is the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in Alberta and British Columbia. As foreland basins are topographic depressions formed by the loading of a craton during elevation of an adjacent mountain range, by analyzing their sedimentary rock layers, the history of mountain formation can be deduced. In western Canada, although general relationships between stratigraphic changes and mountain uplift are established, the detailed correlations of sedimentary features and initial uplift are not well studied and offer significant potential to understand the timing of mountain uplift, stratigraphic changes associated with uplift, and the relationship of uplift to mineral deposit formation (e.g., hydrocarbons). Accordingly, this research aims to unravel the record of initial topographic development of the Rocky Mountains in the Jurassic Period, 146-200 million years ago. Geographic landscape reconstructions illustrating how the region evolved as mountains rose and began contributing significant sediment volumes to the foreland will be produced.