6 
RELATIONSHIP OF THE GALTON SERIES (BELTIAN) TO THE 
LOWER CAMBRIAN AT ELKO, B.C. 
The section at Elko was described in 1914 1 and represented the first 
description of the Cambrian-Precambrian contact in southeastern British 
Columbia. 
The mountains to the north of Elk River valley at Elko, B.C., form 
the most westerly part of the Rockies system. The structure of these 
mountains is of the nature of a syncline striking northwest-southeast. 
The western limb of the syncline is cut off by a northwest-southeast fault, 
which brings the Devono-Carboniferous limestone in contact with the 
Roosville formation. The strata forming the western face of the Rocky 
mountains dip on an average 45 degrees to the northeast. Elko, a station 
on the Crowsnest branch of the Canadian Pacific railway, is situated on 
the western slope of the Rockies system, at the Elk River portal to the 
Kootenay valley or Rocky Mountain trench. 2 
The section exposed at Elko can be most easily expressed in a strati- 
graphical column. 
Devonian 
. . . .Jefferson limestone 
Feet 
300 
Middle Cambrian 
Disconformity 
. . ./Elko formation 
90 
Lower Cambrian 
\Burton formation (upper part) 
Burton formation (lower part) 
Precambrian 
Disconformity 
.... Roosville formation 
1,000 
(Beltian) 
Phillips formation 
500 
Gateway formation 
1,000 
Base unexposed. 
The Gateway, Phillips, and Roosville belong to the Galton series of 
Daly. 3 
Gateway Formation 
The lower part of the formation consists of alternating bands of 
massive, concretionary, siliceous dolomite and limestone weathering buff; 
and massive grey quartzites. These are succeeded by thin-bedded, sandy 
argillites and greenish grey, siliceous argillites. The sandy argillites 
weather a light buff and contain abundant casts of salt crystals and ripple- 
marks. 
Phillips Formation 
The Gateway formation passes gradually into the overlying Phillips 
formation which consists mainly of dark purplish and red metargillites, 
sandy argillites, sandstones, and quartzites. At several horizons are 
intercalated thin laminae of green siliceous argillite. These rocks are 
exposed in a rock-cut on the Great Northern railway, 1| miles east of 
Elko, from which point they rise to the east in the hill to the north of the 
track. 
1 Schofield, S. J., Geol. Surv., Can., Mus. Bull. No. 2, 1914, p. 3. 
* Schofield, S. J., Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., vol. 14, sec. 4, p. 61, 1920. 
* Daly, R. A., Geol. Surv., Can., Mem. 38, p. 97. 
