Correlation of the Upper Cretaceous Montana Group between southern

Alberta and Montana

S . RUSSELL
LORIS
Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen's Park, Toronto 5 , Ontario
Received January 29, 1970.
Accepted for publication April 8, 1970
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Critical comparisons of Montanan sequences in southern Alberta and various parts of Mon-
tana permit some conclusions on north-south, as well as east-west, correlation. The Lower
Milk River sandstone of Alberta is the equivalent of the Lower Eagle sandstone of north-
western Montana but both differ from the type Virgelle Sandstone, with which they have been
equated. The Pakowki Formation of Alberta represents the Claggett of Montana plus lower
parts of the Judith River Formation. The remainder of the Judith River Formation is equiv-
alent to the Foremost and Oldman Formations of Alberta. The Bearpaw Formation thins
markedly from east to west, and uppermost shales pass into marine sandstones and these in
turn into non-marine formations. Of the various formational boundaries, the top of the Lower
Milk River and Lower Eagle sandstone, the base of the Pakonki and Claggett Shale, and the
top of the Oldman and Judith River Formations, are also time boundaries throughout large
parts of the region.

Introduction taneously, i.e., that they were transgressive and

More than a century of geological field work regressive in time, but in practice this was
For personal use only.

in the northern Great Plains has revealed many
details of the Late Cretaceous interior sea.
From Cenomanian time to almost the close of
the Cretaceous Period the western interior was
inundated, at times all the way from the Gulf
of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. This inland sea
fluctuated repeatedly, especially along its west-
ern margin, leaving a succession of alternating
marine deposits, mostly dark shales, and non-
marine sediments, mostly sandstones. As the
alternation was repeated several times, it was
inevitable that the early investigators should
confuse the cycles, incorrectly correlating
groups of formations that show the same se-
quence but which are of different ages. This
kind of error was made in both Montana and
Alberta, but in different ways. The story of
these errors and the way that they were recog-
nized and corrected is an interesting chapter
in the history of North American geology, but
somewhat outside the scope of the present
paper. By the early 1900's the major mistakes
had been eliminated, mostly as a result of the
fieId work of T. W. Stanton and J. B. Hatcher
( 1905) in Montana and D. B. Dowling (1917)
in Alberta.
Unfortunately, another source of error re-
mained to be recognized. No doubt all stratig-
raphers would have agreed that the alternation
of sea and land did not take place instan-
ignored, and homotaxial correlations were
treated as if they were time correlations. It has
taken over 30 years of detailed research in
stratigraphy and stratigraphic paleontology,
helped recently by potassium-argon dating, to
show fully the profound effects that shifting
shore lines have had on the stratigraphy.
Two aspects of correlation in the Montana
Group still require rigorous examination. One
is the north-south relationships. Stratigraphers
in the United States and their Canadian col-
leagues have worked independently, and have
depended on each other's published reports as
the basis for international correlation. The
present writer has long held that this was not
good enough, and the same idea occurred inde-
pendently to W. A. Cobban and J. R. Gill of
the United States Geological Survey. In 1962
they examined a number of Cretaceous sections
in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan. Cobban
and Russell joined in 1965 to re-examine sec-
tions in Alberta, from Oldman River on the
west to the Cypress Hills on the east. Par-
ticular attention was paid to the Milk River
area. In 1967 Cobban and Gill conducted
Russell on a tour of critical sections in Mon-
tana, from Porcupine dome on the east to the
Two Medicine Valley on the west. Various
localities in Chouteau County, Montana, were
visited by Russell in 1968, and sections mea-

Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 7, 1099 (1970)

 IlMl CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES. VOL. 7, 1970
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For personal use only.

114' 11 2O lloO 108' lob0 104*

FIG.1. Outline map of Montana and parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan showing locations
of stratigraphic sections: 1, Toole and Pondera Counties, Montana; 2, southwestern Alberta;
3, southeastern Alberta; 4, Chouteau, Fergus and Blaine Counties, Montana; 5, Petroleum and
Garfield Counties, Montana.
sured. This was in addition to critical re- of some characteristic feature that permits
examination of parts of the section along Milk certain identification, to make it acceptable as
River, Alberta. a datum plane of time. Other physical evidence,
These international excursions have pro- such as thickness of formations or analogous
vided an understanding of the physical correla- succession, are not reliable by themselves as
tion between the Montanan formations of the basis for time correlation, but deserve to be
southern Alberta and north-central Montana. considered as supplementary evidence. Potas-
The second requirement remained, a more pre- sium-argon age determinations, derived in
cise establishment of time boundaries within most cases from minerals in the bentonite beds,
the region. The fossil succession, particularly are not as yet precise enough to provide real
that of the ammonites, remains the most prac- time boundaries, but with a little interpolation
tical means of time correlation, because it is they make possible the construction of a time
applicable to sections that are widely separated scale into which the physical and biological
geographically and very different lithologically. events can be fitted.
A more precise time boundary, under certain
circumstances, is provided by beds of bentonite.
It may be assumed that a continuous bed of Stratigraphic Sections
bentonite in marine deposits represents a single Southeastern Alberta (Fig. 2 , Section 3 )
fall of volcanic dust, that is, an instant of The Montana Group in this area is exposed
geological time. It is only necessary, therefore, in an almost continuous sequence along Milk
to establish the continuity of a particular ben- River and on the southwest flank of the Cypress
tonite bed, either by visual tracing, or by means Hills. Colorado shale appears on the Inter-
 RUSSELL: UPPER CRETACEOUS MONTANA GROUP
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mostly
sandstone

mostly
feet shale

SCALE LEGEND
For personal use only.

I
FIG. 2. Columnar Sections of Montanan formations in parts of southern Alberta and
Montana, showing physical correlation. Section 1: Toole and Pondera Counties, Montana
(Stebinger 1914). Section 2 : southwestern Alberta (Russell 1940). Section 3 : southeastern
Alberta (Russell 1940). Section 4: Chouteau, Fergus and Blaine Counties, Montana (Stanton
and Hatcher 1905; Pierce and Hunt 1937; Hearn et al. 1964). Section 5: Petroleum and
Garfield Counties, Montana (Johnson and Smith 1964; Jensen and Varnes 1964).

national Boundary (Russell 1940; Wall 1967),
but the transition to the overlying Milk River
Formation is concealed. The lowest Milk River
beds exposed are shaly, passing upward into
massive, cliff-forming sandstone, with a ten-
dency to castellated weathering. This presumed
deltaic deposit, the Lower Milk River beds, is
overlain abruptly by the Upper Milk River
beds, soft sandstones, and clays with impure
lignite.
It has been proposed (Meyboom 1960) that
the term Milk River sandstone be restricted to
the lower, massive sandstone, on the grounds
that this was the original usage of Dowling
( 1917), and that the name Eagle Formation
be extended from Montana as the inclusive
term for "the stratigraphic interval between the
top of the Colorado formation . . . and the
base of the Pakowki formation." These pro-
posals are based on a misreading of Dowling's
text and a misunderstanding of the section in
Fergus County, Montana. It is true that Dow-
ling's discussion of the "Milk River Sandstone"
is a little ambiguous, because he concentrated
on the massive sandstone with its importance
as a structural marker and an aquifer. But he
also mentioned "a series of transition beds at
the top of the castellated sandstone" and com-
pared these with what we now call the Oldman
Formation, an obvious reference to the Upper
Milk River beds. The thicknesses given by
Dowling for the formation would have to in-
clude both Upper and Lower divisions. The
mention of plant impressions and fresh-water
mollusks confirms that he was discussing Upper
as well as Lower Milk River beds. Finally,
 1102 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES. VOL. 7, 1970
Map 187 A which accompanies Dowling's re-
port, shows the area of outcrop of the "Milk
River Sandstone" as approximately the same
as that shown by more recent surveys for the
combined upper and lower parts of the Milk
River Formation.
In the description of the sequence in north-
central Montana (see below) it is shown that
the type section of the Eagle Formation in
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Fergus County is different from that of the
Milk River Formation of Alberta. In contrast,
the Eagle beds of northwestern Montana are
closely comparable with the Milk River beds
of Alberta. One might make a case for extend-
ing the name "Milk River" into northwestern
Montana, rather than bringing "Eagle" into
Alberta.
The contact of the Milk River Formation
with the overlying Pakowki Shale is marked
by a bed of small black chert pebbles. This
widespread marker is thought by some to be
detritus from the marine erosion of the under-
For personal use only.
lying Milk River sandstones. The Pakowki
Formation consists of dark gray shale in the
lower half, with some bentonite beds near the
base. Higher in the formation there are dis-
tinct sandstone members, with shale between,
and then the upper part which is mostly silty
shale. The contact with the overlying Foremost
Formation is transitional, and regressive from
west to east. The Foremost beds are sombre
sands and clays, with coal seams and thick
oyster beds, and occasional fresh-water shells
and dinosaur bones. Above the highest coal
the rocks change to light gray sandy clays with
beds of sandstone; these make up the Oldman
Formation. The shells of fresh-water and land
mollusks, and the bones of vertebrates, are
common in places. At the top of the formation
is a series of coal seams with the shells of
oysters and other brackish water fossils; this is
known as the Lethbridge Coal Member.
The overlying Bearpaw Formation is made
up almost entirely of dark gray shale, like the
lower part of the Pakowki Formation. Shells
of marine mollusks are numerous in the Bear-
paw beds, especially in the ironstone concre-
tions. A number of thin, well-spaced bentonite
beds are present. At the top of the formation
there are several thick sandstone members
formerly included in the overlying Eastend
Formation, but they contain marine fossils, and
eastward they pass over into dark gray shale.
For these reasons they are regarded as part of
the Bearpaw Formation (Furnival 1946; Rus-
sell 1948). The term Eastend Formation is
now restricted to the sandstone between the
uppermost marine shale and the Whitemud
Formation; in Alberta there are sandy shales
and coal seams inter-bedded with the sand-
stones.
North-central Montana (Fig.2, Section 4)
The key section in Montana is along Mis-
souri River and its tributaries, in Chouteau and
Fergus Counties. This is the classical section
of F. V. Hayden and of Stanton and Hatcher
(1 905). In many respects it is similar to the
section on Milk River, but there are significant
differences, and some of the resemblances are
deceptive.
The lowest Montanan formation here con-
sists of drab, silty shales, transitional below to
the dark gray shales of the Colorado group.
Two names have been applied to these beds,
depending on the section of reference: Tele-
graph Creek from the south and Gammon from
the east. The characteristic marine mollusks of
these shales have not been found in the Col-
orado - Milk River transition in Alberta. Above
the Telegraph Creek beds is a massive white
sandstone, the typical Virgelle Sandstone
(Bowen 1915, p. 97). This is overlain in turn
by shales and sandstones with coal, a thick
bed of massive sandstone, and soft sandy clays.
The sequence from base of the Virgelle Sand-
stone to top of the sandy clays makes up the
Eagle Formation (Stanton and Hatcher 1905,
p. 12; Pierce and Hunt 1937, pp. 242-245).
It is homotaxial with the Milk River Forma-
tion but only the upper massive sandstone and
the sandy clays are comparable lithologically,
and the latter lack the impure lignitic layers
so characteristic of the Upper Milk River beds.
At the top of the Eagle Formation is a thin
layer of black chert pebbles, seemingly identical
with those found at the top of the Upper Milk
River beds in Alberta. The rocks above, pre-
dominantly dark gray shale, make up the
Claggett Formation (Stanton and Hatcher
1905, p. 13; Pierce and Hunt 1937, pp. 236-
242). There is a 2-ft (0.6-m) bentonite bed
 RUSSELL: UPPER CRETACEOUS MONTANA GROUP
about 5 ft (1.5 m ) above the chert pebbles,
and another 2.5 ft (0.8 m) thick, about 60 ft
( 18 m) higher in the section. Above the shale
there are two conspicuous sandstone members,
similar in lithology and fossil content to the
two sandstones in the middle of the Pakowki
Formation of Alberta. Stanton and Hatcher
(1905, p. 44) included these sandstones in
their Claggett Formation, presumably because
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of the abundant marine mollusks. These fossils
are of some historical interest, because it was
their confusion with the Fox Hills fauna of the
Dakotas that led to the misinterpretation of the
stratigraphy by Hayden and his successors in
north-central Montana.
The overlying Judith River Formation is a
thick series of sandy clays and lenticular sand-
stones, light gray to grayish-brown in color in
contrast to the sombre grays and browns of the
Claggett. As noted above, the base of the for-
mation was originally defined as the fresh-water
beds overlying the marine sandstones. How-
For personal use only.
ever, Bowen (1914, p. 362; 1915, p. 100)
argued that the sandstones placed by Stanton
and Hatcher in the top of the Claggett con-
tained fresh-water and brackish water fossils
in other areas, and should be considered as the
lower part of the Judith River Formation. This
proposal has been followed by Pierce and Hunt
(1937, p. 237), and appears to be accepted
practice of the United States Geological Sur-
vey. But Bowen's argument works both ways,
and in Alberta the equivalent sandstones and
the marine shales above are included in the
Pakowki Formation, even though they are
known to pass into non-marine beds farther
west. Such arbitrary decisions are characteris-
tically necessary in dealing with the stratigraphy
of regressive deposits.
The top of the Judith River Formation con-
sists of a sequence of lignitic shales and coal
seams, with beds of oyster shells in places
(Hearn et al. 1964, p. 17). This closely re-
sembles the Lethbridge Coal Member in Al-
berta, and permits stratigraphic correlation of
the top of the Judith River Formation with
the top of the Oldman Formation. As to the
I
lower Judith River beds, it is certain that they
include equivalents of the Foremost Forma-
tion and some upper part of the Pakowki
Formation, but a more precise correlation is
1103
not feasible, especially as the Pakowki-Fore-
most and Foremost-Oldman contacts vary
stratigraphically between different parts of
southern Alberta.
The overlying Bearpaw Formation (Stanton
and Hatcher 1905, p. 13) is not fully exposed
in Fergus County, but in Blaine County to the
northeast thicknesses of 1070 to 1330 ft have
been measured (Hearn et al. 1964, p. 19).
Here, the formation is divisible into lower
shale with numerous bentonite beds, middle
shale with little bentonite, and upper transition
beds of sandstone and shale. This last portion
is analogous to, and probably the extension of,
the sandstone and shale sequence at the top of
the Bearpaw Formation in southeastern Al-
berta and adjacent Saskatchewan (Russell
1948).
The Bearpaw Formation is overlain by the
Fox Hills Sandstone (Hearn et al. 1964, p.
20). This is homotaxial with the Eastend For-
mation of southeastern Alberta but may also
include equivalents of uppermost Bearpaw
sandstone in that area.
Eastern Montana (Fig. 2, Section 5 )
In going east from Fergus County one is
moving seaward, so to speak, and may expect
to find marine deposits replacing non-marine
deposits. A good section is exposed in Garfield
and Petroleum Counties, on the north side of the
Mosby anticline (Johnson and Smith 1964).
Here the dark gray Carlile Shale of the Col-
orado Group is overlain by brown silty shales
that have been correlated with the Gammon
Ferruginous Member of the Pierre Shale in the
Black Hills region (Gill and Cobban 1966,
pl. 3 ) . But there are also sandy beds that mark
the eastern extension of the Eagle sandstones.
The pebble bed is present at the contact with
the overlying Claggett Formation, but phos-
phatic nodules as well as chert pebbles are
included. There are bentonite beds in the lower
part of the Claggett Shale, presumably includ-
ing the equivalent of the Ardmore Bentonite
of South Dakota (Spivey 1940). The Claggett
grades at the top into the Judith River beds,
which are partly marine below but which in the
upper part are similar to those of the badlands
in Fergus County.
An equivalent section is exposed farther
 1104 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF E:ARTH SCIENCES. VOL. 7, 1970

east, in Rosebud County on the north side of ing to the Lower Milk River sandstone in
the Porcupine dome. Here the drab Gammon southern Alberta. The Montana development
shales are without recognizable Eagle equiv- is usually called the Virgelle Sandstone (Steb-
alents. The contact with the overlying Claggett inger 1914), and this usage has been extended
Formation is again marked by a bed with chert by some to Alberta. However, the type Virgelle,
pebbles, but there is great variation in pebble as developed in Chouteau and Fergus Counties,
size and phosphatic nodules are rare. As in the is a very different sandstone, and occurs at the
Mosby anticline, there are conspicuous ben- bottom of the Eagle sequence. A higher sand-
tonite beds in the lower 60 ft (18 m ) of the stone in the Eagle Formation here is much
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Claggett Shale, and the two lowest of these more like the "Virgelle" of northwestern Mon-
are correlated with the Ardmore Bentonite of tana. The latter is the southwestward extension
South Dakota (Gill and Cobban 1966, p. 1 1 ) . of the Lower Milk River sandstone of southern
Above the Claggett Shale the Judith River A1berta.l Above the sandstone the Upper Eagle
Formation has conspicuous sandstone beds, clays and sandstones can be differentiated as
and is of marine deposition throughout (Bowen far as the Claggett Shale persists, but that
1919, p. 15). formation wedges out in the vicinity of Cut
Bank. Farther west, however, there is still a
Southwestern Alberta (Fig. 2 , Section 2 ) conglomerate with chert pebbles, and a distinct
The Montana formations of southwestern tuff deposit which has been correlated with the
Alberta lie on the west side of the Sweetgrass Ardmore Bentonite (Cobban and Gill) .2
Arch. The Milk River Formation outcrops as Recognizable Bearpaw shale extends farther
a continuous belt around the nose of the arch west than the Claggett but disappears west of
For personal use only.

and there is little difference between the west- Augusta. Beyond this there are oyster beds that
ern and eastern developments. The Pakowki may mark the littoral of the Bearpaw sea
and Foremost Formations are poorly exposed. (Cobban and But the entire sequence
The Oldman Formation shows the same light from the top of the Lower Eagle sandstone to
gray bentonitic sands and occasional massive the base of the St. Mary River Formation is
sandstones as on the east. The Lethbridge Coal essentially non-marine, and is grouped together
Member at the top is widely developed and in as the Two Medicine Formation (Stebinger
places includes seams of commercial thickness 1914, p. 63). Even the Horsethief Sandstone,
and quality. The Bearpaw Formation is not as the southern extension of the Blood Reserve
thick as on the east, and includes several con- Sandstone, disappears as a recognizable unit
spicuous sandy members well below the top. in this area. In its westernmost development
Above the Bearpaw Shale is a very massive, the Two Medicine Formation includes large
cliff-forming sandstone called the Blood Re- amounts of volcanic detritus, especially in the
serve Formation. Intercalated shale beds con- upper part (Schmidt 1966), and grades west-
tain fossils that occur well down in the ward into the Elkhorn Mountain Volcanics.
Bearpaw farther east. There is usually an
oyster bed at the top of the Blood Reserve Time Boundaries
Sandstone, but the overlying sandstones and (Fig. 3)
shales of the St. Mary River Formation have
yielded only fresh-water and terrestrial fossils. The Telegraph Creek fauna, characterized
especially by Desmoscaphites bassleri Reeside,
has not been found in Alberta, although it
Northwestern Montana (Fig. 2 , Section 1 )
should be present in the transitional beds below
Northwestward from Chouteau County the
the Milk River sandstone. The term Alberta
marine formations thin rapidly and lose their Shale was originally proposed (Hume 1930)
characteristics, so that the succession becomes to include the rocks of the Colorado Group
very different. The Telegraph Creek Formation ("Benton") plus similar beds containing an
is recognized in Toole County (Cobban 1950)
and west to Glacier National Park. It passes
transitionally above into massive sandstone 'Personal observation.
identical in appearance and mode of weather- 2Personal communication.
 RUSSELL: UPPER CRETACEOUS MONTANA GROUP

1 2 3 4 5

Fox Hills
St. M a r y St. M a r y Fox Hills
Eastend
River River
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Horsethief - Blood Reserve

Bearpaw Bearpaw Bearpaw

Bearpaw Bearpaw
For personal use only.

Oldman
Judith

Two
River
Medicine Foremost

Pakowki
Claggett Claggett

-
Upper M i l k River Upper Eagle

Lower Eagle Lower M i l k River ' Virgelle Gammon

Telegraph Creek
Alberta
Colorado Colorado Colorado

FIG.3. Time correlation between Montanan formations in southern Alberta and Montana.
Column 1: Toole and Pondera Counties, Montana. Column 2: southwestern Alberta. Column
3: southeastern Alberta. Column 4: Chouteau, Fergus and Blaine Counties, Montana.
Column 5: Petroleum and Garfield Counties, Montana.

early Montanan marine fauna. In the absence
of this faunal marker in southern Alberta, the
lowest horizon that may have time significance
is the top of the Lower Milk River sandstone.
This is an indurated "cap rock", darker than
the sandstone below, and containing titanifer-
ous magnetite in places. It may represent a
recessive littoral zone, and if so, would be
younger from west to east. However, the
absence of channelling at the contact, and of
residual material in the Upper Milk River beds
immediately above the contact suggest that this
 1106 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EiARTH SCIENCES. VOL. 7, 1970
represents a subaerial surface developed on
top of the Milk River delta and on which the
flood-plain and swamp deposits of the Upper
Milk River were subsequently deposited. In
this interpretation the surface itself would be
of about the same age over a wide area, even
though the age of the uppermost sandstone
bed on which the surface developed might
vary somewhat from place to place.
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The next level of possible time correlation
is at the base of the Pakowki and Claggett
Formations. The widespread chert pebble bed
at the contact is believed to represent detritus
on a subaerial surface of Upper Eagle or Upper
Milk River sediments, over which the Claggett/
Pakowki sea transgressed. If this marine ad-
vance had been slow, the pebble bed, even if
continuous, would have been progressively
younger from east to west. However, the oc-
currence of bentonite beds in the lower 60 ft
(18 m) of the Claggett and Pakowki Forma-
tions (Ardmore Bentonite, etc.) and their
For personal use only.
absence higher in these formations makes it
almost certain that the base with its pebble bed
is of about the same age everywhere. If so,
the marine transgression was rapid, and was
followed soon after by a number of heavy tuff
falls from eruptions farther west. A sanlple
collected by the writer from the uppermost of
these Claggett bentonites in Chouteau County
has yielded a potassium-argon. age of 87.4
(k2.9) m . ~ . ~
The lower shales of the Pakowki Formation
have yielded ammonite species of diagnostic
value (Landes 1940), especially Baculites
ohtusus Meek and B. mclearni Landes. These
also occur in the Claggett Shale of Montana
and in equivalent beds as far as the Sharon
Springs Member of the Pierre Shale in eastern
Wyoming (Gill and Cobban 1966). The sand-
stones in the middle of the Pakowki Formation
and their counterparts in the top of the Clag-
gett or base of the Judith River Formations
contain a rich fauna of marine pelecypods and
gastropods, with widespread species such as
Tancredia americana (Meek and Hayden) and
Ostrea russelli Landes. The latter seems to have
a restricted stratigraphic range, and on this
3Geochron Laboratories, Cambridge, Mass., De-
cember 31, 1969.
basis, as well as the close similarity of the
faunas in general, a similar age for these sand-
stones is highly probable. This correlation is
valid whether we regard their development in
Montana as the upper part of the Claggett
Formation or the lower part of the Judith
River Formation.
The long time interval represented by the
upper part of the Pakowki Formation and the
Foremost and Oldman Formations in Alberta,
and by most of the Judith River Formation in
Montana, does not seem to be divisible on any
stratigraphic basis. However, the beds at the
top of this sequence (Lethbridge Coal Mem-
ber) and the contact with the overlying Bear-
paw Shale have some claim to be regarded as
of isochronous deposition. Potassium-argon
dates on the lowermost bentonites in the Bear-
paw Formation of southern Alberta indicate
little difference in time from east to west
(72-73 m.y.; Folinsbee et al. 1966). Also the
guide fossil Baculites compressus say occurs
almost to the bottom of the formation on both
sides of the Sweetgrass Arch. The Lethbridge
Coal Member appears to be present in Mon-
tana at the top of the Judith River Formation
on both the north and south sides of the Bear-
paw Mountains (Stanton and Hatcher 1950,
pp. 42, 49; Hearn et al. 1964, p. 17). Farther
to the east and southeast the coaly beds at the
top of the Judith River Formation are absent,
and two or more ammonite zones are inter-
calated in the marine shales below the Baculites
compressus zone (Jensen and Varnes 1964).
From this it would appear that the Judith
River - Bearpaw contact is a time boundary
in southern Alberta and central Montana, but
not in eastern Montana.
The top of the Bearpaw Formation is an
excellent example of a regressive boundary.
Shale beds in the Blood Reserve Sandstone in
southwestern Alberta have yielded Baculites
compressus, the typical Bearpaw species. On
the east side of the Sweetgrass Arch the Oxarart
Sandstone of southwestern Saskatchewan has
been equated with the Blood Reserve Sand-
stone (Folinsbee et al. 1966, p. 169), and
there are about 190 ft (58 m ) of Bearpaw
beds above this member (Russell 1948, p. 18).
Similarly in Montana the upper part of the
Bearpaw Formation on the east includes at
1 RUSSELL: UPPER CRETACEOUS MONTANA GROUP 1107

1 least three ammonite zones that are replaced which has the same name in both countries,
by the Horsethief Sandstone and the St. Mary there are sufficient differences in lithology and
! River beds on the west. time range to justify retention of the local
The decrease in age of the uppermost Bear- names at present. Where these differences are
paw beds from west to east has a corollary; not great, and it is desirable to have a term
the overlying transitional beds are also pro- that is applicable in both Alberta and Mon-
gressively younger eastward. In southeastern tana, compound names such as Eagle/Mik
Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan the River and Claggett/Pakowki oould be used.
fine-grained sandstones of the Eastend Forma- The desirable end is that the physical and
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tion pass upward into the white sands and chronological relationships be clearly under-
clays of the Whitemud Formation and they in stood. This is all that is needed for the recon-
turn into the dark gray clays of the Battle struction of the geological history for this part
Formation. This sequence resembles that of of the Cretaceous Period in this part of North
eastern Montana and the Dakotas, where the America.
fine-grained sands and silty clays of the "typ-
ical" Fox Hills Formation are overlain by the Acknowledgments
white, clayey Colgate Sandstone. Recent work To W. A. Cobban and J. R. Gill of the
by Waage (1968) has shown that the Colgate United States Geological Survey I am indebted
Sandstone is a lithofacies rather than a distinct not only for the opportunity to see critical
stratigraphic unit, so that correlation between sections in Montana under expert guidance,
the Colgate and the Whitemud Formation is but also for consultation in person and by cor-
uncertain. But this problem lies outside the respondence, and for the provision of maps
For personal use only.

scope of the present paper. and stratigraphic and paleogeographic data.

II Conclusions
While acknowledging gratefully this generous
help, I hasten to assume full responsibility for
the conclusions of the present paper, with some
The Montanan formations of southern Al- of which my American colleagues may dis-
berta and various parts of Montana make up agree. During the three seasons of field work,
a series of alternations of marine and non- 1967 to 1969, I was assisted by Mrs. Russell
marine deposits that are deceptively similar. and by John E. Storer. In 1968 I also had the
The more obvious differences are along east- help of Paul Ramaekers. This investigation
west alignments and are mainly the results of was part of a broad project for Cretaceous
slow and oscillatory regressions of the sea. and Tertiary correlation, made possible by
North-south differences are less pronounced National Research Council of Canada Grant
and represent irregularities in the advancing NO. A-2685.
or retreating shore line, or local deltaic deposi-
tion.
By combining the evidence of ammonite BOWEN, C. F. 1914. The Big Sandy coal field,
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throughout much or all of the region. Applica- and age of the Judith River Formation in north-
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Paper 90-1, pp. 95-153.
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transgressions followed by slow and oscillatory conditions of deposition in central Montana
regressions (Russell 1939). during the Eagle and Judith River epochs. United
Reform of the stratigraphic nomenclature to States Geol. Surv. Prof. Paper 12544 pp. 11-21.
achieve a uniform terminology for the Mon- COBBAN, W. A. 1950. Telegraph Creek Formation of
Sweetgrass Arch, north-central Montana. Bull.
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tional Boundary does not appear justified at DOWLING, D. B. 1917. The southern plains of Al-
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