34

PERMIAN
Peace River Valley

Permian beds are mapped by Beach and Spivak (1944) on the south
side of Peace River Valley at the west boundary of the Dunlevy-Portage
Mountain map-area. A section measured in a canyon just west of Stott
Creek is as follows:

Top of Section Thickness
Feet,
Sandstone, fine, grey-buff, with carbonate Cenieniiee re eit) 275
Sandstone, soft, very light grey, calcareous, fossiliferous........ 50
Limestone, dark grey, ERENCES ooo ppousopcaavadgooDuRGOboS 25
Limestone, black, phosphatic, thin-bedded...................- 10
Sandstone, fine, with calcareous cement............--.20e+005 55
Total:thicknesssss-ederatc aes ee eee 415

The uppermost sandstone contains vugs filled with quartz, calcite,
and small amounts of pyrobitumen. The upper contact is unknown, but
these beds rest on dark grey limestone.

Alice E. Wilson has identified the following fossils from Beach and
Spivak’s collection: Dielasma, Spirifer, Notothyris, Edmondia, Solemya,
Shizodus, Aviculopecten, Pteriidae, Pernidae, Allorisma, Aviculopinna,
and Myalina. This fauna is tentively dated Permian by Miss Wilson.

TRIASSIC
GENERAL STATEMENT

Triassic rocks have long been known in northeastern British Columbia.
As early as 1875, Alfred R. C. Selwyn of the Geological Survey of Canada
found them on upper Peace River, in the western part of the Foothills.
Four years later, G. M. Dawson discovered Triassic beds in Pine River
Valley. In 1887, R. G. McConnell, while making his hazardous descent
of Liard River, recognized Triassic strata in ledges and in walls of the
canyon from the Rapids of the Drowned to Hades (Hell) Gate. Later,
and for more than a quarter of a century, beginning in 1917, the Geological
Survey has, from time to time, given special attention to the Triassic
stratigraphy of northeastern British Columbia, and in particular to that
of the Peace River Foothills. Field parties of the Pacific and Great
Eastern Railway Survey, in 1929 and 1930, included the Triassic in their
program of field studies, as have also geologists of the British Columbia
Department of Mines and of various private companies exploring for
petroleum.

The formational classification of the Triassic of northeastern British
Columbia is not yet completed. A few formation names have been pro-
posed, but pending more experience in mapping, and as a precautionary
measure, temporary lithological units have been segregated and given
mere lithological names, for example, ‘Grey beds’ and ‘Dark siltstones’.
When these, or more satisfactory lithological units, are established as good
mapping units they can be recognized as formations and given the usual
geographic names.

It is doubtful if Schooler Creek, proposed by McLearn in 1921, will
survive either as a formation or group name. It was given to beds in the