Targeted Energy Resource Studies in the Bowser and Sustut Interior Basins of British Columbia

August 2, 2006 - This report is the product of a collaborative project between Geoscience BC and the Geological Survey of Canada called "Targeted Energy Resource Studies in the Bowser and Sustut Interior Basins of British Columbia". The targeted study augments a broader 4 year collaborative project between the Geological Survey of Canada and the British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines initiated in 2003. The broader collaborative project, called "Integrated Petroleum Resource Potential and Geoscience Studies of the Bowser and Sustut Basins", is multidisciplinary in scope and broad in geographic coverage, including the length and breadth of both the Bowser and Sustut basins. Primary activities of the broader project include geological framework studies, energy resource studies, thermal history, thermal state, and petroleum resource assessment. The Geoscience BC project focuses on the following themes: thermochronology of the southern Bowser Basin through apatite fission-track chronology (AFT); stratigraphic studies of the early Bowser Basin history; and digital compilation and publication of field data. This 2 year project began in the spring of 2005.

This report presents an explanation of the geological context, purpose, and sampling strategy of the AFT study of the Geoscience BC project followed by a report of data from 29 samples submitted to Apatite to Zircon Inc. of Viola, Idaho, USA, for analysis in September 2005. The latter is reproduced from Apatite to Zircon Inc. Report Number 709, and comprises a summary of the data, an explanation of laboratory and modeling procedures, and the results of modeling. Changes to Apatite to Zircon Report 709 are limited to renumbering of chapters, sections, figures and tables to accommodate an introduction chapter, the addition of references cited in the introduction, and correcting several errors of sample numbers in the original report.