Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The upcoming proposal will be a follow-up of the previous, which was dedicated to the study of upper Mississippian continental clastic rocks and phreatic calcretes that are marginal to the marine Windsor Group of southeastern Canada. The study also involved the subsequent deformation of these rocks in Pennsylvanian times (Jutras et al., 2003a, GSA Bull. 115: 1538-1551; Jutras et al., 2003b, Atl. Geol. 39: 201-211). The recent discovery of an oil reservoir hosted by Pennsylvanian fault breccia in eastern Gaspésie, QC (Well Galt #3, presently exploited by JUNEX and Petrolia) calls for greater emphasis to be placed on the post-sedimentary deformation of the late Mississippian basins of southeastern Canada, although the main emphasis of the ongoing study will remain on the sedimentology, stratigraphy and diagenesis of their marginal marine/continental clastic units. The study will eventually involve correlations with age equivalent rocks of Europe in order to obtain a greater picture of the pre-rifting paleogeography of upper Paleozoic successor basins in the Appalachian/Caledonian orogenic belt. In a nutshell, the ongoing research aims at obtaining a better understanding of the tectonic controls on the Windsor Sea invasion and paleogeographic evolution through the study of near coast, continental and shallow marine deposits. It also aims at obtaining a better definition of late Mississippian basin architectures and stratigraphic relationships in marginal marine areas in order to facilitate eventual oil and gas exploration in these units.