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Digital Atlas

Geological Atlas of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin

WE WANT YOU TO HELP US BUILD THE NEXT ATLAS!

That's right folks; the CSPG and the Alberta Geologic Survey (AGS) are working together to create an on-line digital version of the Geological Atlas of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, and our vision for this edition is huge.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this book, it is an atlas of the subsurface geology of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. The atlas is not just a text, but also has a wealth of maps and schematics. With 19 chapters on designated stratigraphic divisions and 16 chapters that address aspects of the general geological, geophysical, geochemical, and geotechnical character of the strata, the atlas is an incredible resource.

In fact, according to the Geological Survey of Canada, the atlas is still used by industry resource explorers, academics and students, environmental analysts, and government scientists and planners as a reference tool. Originally published in 1994 by the CSPG and Alberta Research Council, this reference book has long been unavailable in bookstores.

The atlas, though out of print, is still accessible to any internet user. The AGS has the full text and all the atlas figures on their website for the public's use (Geological Atlas of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin). This was a wonderful advancement, as browsers can peruse the atlas with greater ease; one can use the search engine to look up key words. Also, anyone who has seen the book would agree with me when I say that it would be slightly cumbersome to bring to and from the office.

However, the CSPG and the AGS both believe that the atlas can be improved. The Digital Atlas Committee, made up of members from industry, the government, and the education sector, wants to create an atlas that captures new ideas and modified geologic models that have developed since the last edition of the atlas.

Some of the basic functionality we hope to build into this new version includes:

• Geo-referenced high-resolution maps;
• The ability to view all spatially referenced horizons as layers and the ability to turn layers on/off;
• The ability to download maps as ArcGIS shape files – fully attributed;
• High-resolution cross-sections and schematics;
• Geo-referenced base map with hyperlinked cross-sections on any filtered interval;
• Images of type well logs for specific member/formation;
• Links to lexicon descriptions for any filtered formation name;
• And the ability to download formation tops in ASCII format of the control wells.

A few extra perks we would like to provide on this site include:

• High-level descriptions of historic pools from filtered formation names;
• Cross-sections linked to public regional seismic lines illustrating the interpretation;
• Links to recent models of plate reconstructions;
• Links to models of environments of deposition for a specified paleogeography;
• Links to modern-day analogs;
• Links to gravity and magnetic maps;
• Links to current research groups, consortiums, and recent literature on specified topics;
• And search of publications based on maplink to AAPG, CSPG, GSW, etc.

This is the vision of the Digital Atlas Committee. But this is also an evolving product and we are still in the infancy stage. The list of items above is only some of the points on the committee's wish list.

We want to know what you think. We would like to poll the geosciences community for more ideas or additional functions that should be included. We have created a survey with a list of functions that could be available, so you (our geoscientists) can tell us what is important to you. The survey is designed so we can assess specific functionality and available data to be used to create this digital atlas.

-Heather Tyminski and Dawn Hodgins

For more information, please contact:

Dawn Hodgins, Imperial Oil Resources
Tel: (403) 232-5931, dawn.c.hodgins@exxonmobil.com