NO. 5 PRE-DEVONIAN PALEOZOIC FORMATIONS 22/ 



first, those west of the position of the present Continental Divide' 

 which inckide the Goodsir, Ottertail, and Chancellor formations that 

 were deposited in the Goodsir Trough of the Cordilleran Geosyn- 

 cline ; second, those deposited in the Bow and Sawback Troughs 

 mainly east of the Continental Divide ; these include the Sherbrook, 

 Paget, Lyell, Bosworth, and Arctomys formations in areas adjoining 

 the Bow Valley. Allan mentions the occurrence of limestones be- 

 neath the Chancellor formation northwest of Mount Hunter in the 

 Van Horn Range ' which he referred to the Sherbrook, and I found 

 a limestone similar in character and stratigraphic position to that of 

 the Lyell formation in the Stanford Range,' which was deposited in 

 the Beaverfoot Trough west of the Goodsir Trough in which the 

 Goodsir, Ottertail, and Chancellor formations were deposited. The 

 Arctomys formation is beneath the Lyell in the Sawback Range sec- 

 tion in Ranger Canyon, also to the northwest in the Tilted Mountain 

 and Oyster Mountain section (pp. 291, 285). The Sabine and Lyell 

 are the two Upper Cambrian formations that are now known to 

 occur east of the Continental Divide in the Glacier Lake and Sawback 

 Troughs and west of it in the Beaverfoot Trough ; otherwise the 

 Upper Cambrian formations of the eastern and western areas of the 

 Cordilleran Geosyncline have little, if anything in common. 



Sabine Formation. Schofield, 1920* 



I was greatly puzzled, when examining the section at the south end 

 of Sabine Mountain in 1923, to find a fauna of apparently Upper 

 Cambrian age in a formation occupying the stratigraphic position of 

 the Ozarkian Mons formation as the latter occurs in the Sinclair 

 Canyon section, 34 miles (54.7 km.) to the north. I had previously 

 identified this fauna as of Upper Cambrian age from a collection 

 sent me by Professor S. J. Schofield, but in the lower portion of the 

 Mons formation in Stoddart and Sinclair Canyons there was a some- 

 what similar fauna that might be referred either to the Mons or the 

 Upper Cambrian, depending on the genera and species present in the 

 particular bed and locality. This led me, when publishing a prelimi- 



* It is not assumed that the present Continental Divide was in existence, or 

 had any influence on the distribution or characters of the various formations in 

 pre-Devonian time. It is merely a convenient topographic feature by which 

 to locate the present position of the outcrops of the various pre-Devonian 

 formations of the Cordilleran Trough. 



^ Geol. Surv. Canada, Mem. No. 55, 1914, p. 84. 



' Smithsonian Misc. Coll., Vol. 75, No. i, 1924, p. 20. 



* Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, 3d ser., Vol. 14, Sec. IV, 1920, p. 76. 



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