Colorado Group

History of exploration

• In 1862, F.B. Meek and F.V. Hayden described their “Upper Missouri River” series; Dakota, Benton, Pierre, Niobrara, and Fox Hills.

• In 1871, Hayden crossed Kansas and Colorado on the recently completed Kansas Pacific Railway, and between Abilene and Limon confirmed the whole series within the two states.

• Hayden proposed term "Colorado Group" in 1876 to embrace the Benton, Niobrara, and Pierre units for their collective exposures in the dramatic hogbacks and incised plateaus facing the Rocky Mountain front ranges of Colorado. The group was described by A. Hague and S.E. Emmons in 1877.

• However, by 1878, C. A. White restricted the Colorado Group to the Benton and Niobrara, which are the formations found within the flatirons and secondary hogbacks on the east flank of the Dakota Hogback.

• During the last decade of the 19th Century, Cretaceous rocks in Colorado and western Kansas were a focus of considerable study. The Benton and Niobrara were particularly associated in the Smoky Hills of Kansas, the Arkansas River valley across southeastern Colorado, and the Colorado Front Range. G. K. Gilbert observed that of Meek and Hayden's five Cretaceous units, only the Benton and Niobrara (incidentally the Colorado Group) were chalky; moreover, the chalkiness was expressed as curiously rhythmic bedding. A well-known glaciologist, Gilbert correctly theorized that the reason for these peculiar rhythmites was periodic astronomical solar forcing, and that these rhythms were absent in the Pierre only because there was no source of carbonate in the Pierre environment. His theory was confirmed with later recognitions that Milankovitch cycles can be expressed in conditions of total global absence of glaciers. Gilbert subsequently replaced the Benton with five formations based on the changes he observed in the chalkiness; non-chalky Graneros, chalky Greenhorn, non-chalky Carlile, massively chalky Timpas (later abandoned in favor of Fort Hays), and chalky Apishapa (later abandoned in favor of Smoky Hill).

• The Colorado Classification was initially adopted throughout the extent of the Western Interior Seaway, including Canada. However, in the 21st Century, some states, such as Wyoming and Montana, are abandoning the term. Donald E. Hattin advised that the Colorado Group should not be used in Kansas because he considered its units to be "too lithologically diverse"; yet, Colorado Group remains listed in the geologic succession in Kansas.

Lithology

The Colorado Group consists primarily of chalky and non-chalky shale, and incorporates conglomerate, sandstone and siltstone, rhythmite beds of chalk, chalky limestone, coquinas, phosphorite, recurring beds of bentonite, massive septatians, and concretionary beds including calcite, siderite, and pyrite.

The Canadian distribution presents with more sandstone. The lower part includes the following sandstone members: Phillips Sandstone (below the Second White Speckled Shale), Bowdoin Sandstone and Cardium Sandstone in the non-calcareous shale unit. The upper part includes the Martin Sandy Zone and Medicine Hat Sandstone.

Oil/gas production

Gas is produced from the sandstone members in southern Alberta, southern Saskatchewan and in Montana, such as in the Bowdoin gas field.

Distribution

Shales of middle Albian to Santonian age are distributed throughout much of the former extent of the Western Interior Seaway, including broadly from Arizona, to Iowa and Alberta. The Greenhorn-Carlile contact represents the maximum extent of the seaway of that sequence, perhaps of the entire time of the seaway; and, so, coupled with the Graneros Shale, the "old Benton" shales are the widest durable remnant of the Western Interior Seaway. Older literature may use the term Colorado Group in this extent, but several states outside of Colorado no longer use the term in current publications; nevertheless, the evidence of correlated seaway sequences and fossil patterns remains, regardless of current names.

From Iowa to Arizona, the lithology is remarkably consistent and the bentonites and rhythmic chalk beds of the upper Greenhorn especially are geologic events that can be traced over that distance. Beyond the historic western extent of the Colorado Group usage into the Mancos Shale, the chalky beds of the group can be identified and are named accordingly, e.g, Smoky Hill, Fort Hays, Bridge Creek, Greenhorn. However, northwest of the Transcontinental Arch where western sediment sources are more dominant, altering the lithology, these names have less current use.

The Canadian Colorado Group occurs in the sub-surface throughout southern and central Alberta, western and central Saskatchewan. It is found in outcrops along the south-western edge of the Canadian Shield. The sediments of the Colorado group exceed 1000 m in thickness in central Alberta. In central Saskatchewan, it thins to 150 m.

Relationship to other units

The rocks of Colorado Group age are overlain by the Montana Group and underlain by the Dakota Group in the Denver Basin, Powder River Basin, and Williston Basin of the western Great Plains. In Western Canada, they are unconformably overlain by the Lea Park Formation shale and unconformably underlain by the Blairmore, Mannville or Swan River Group.

The lower part is equivalent with the Ashville Formation in eastern Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba, with the upper part corresponding to the Vermillion River Formation and Favel Formation. It is equivalent to the sum of Crowsnest Formation, Blackstone Formation, Cardium Formation, and the lower Wapiabi Formation of the Alberta Group in the Canadian Rockies foothills. It correlates with the upper Smoky Group, Dunvegan Formation, Shaftesbury Formation, Paddy Member and Labiche Formation in northern Alberta. The Canadian Colorado Group was previously named Lloydminster Shale in the Lloydminster region, but the term is now obsolete.

Sub-units

United States sub-unit classifications have generally derived from the related Colorado and Kansas classifications, from top to bottom:

The Colorado Group in Canada, which retains the Santonian-time Pierre Shale correlations, is divided into an upper part which is calcareous, and a lower part, which is non-calcareous. The sub-units are defined at the base of two regional markers, called First and Second White Speckled Shale characterized by coccolithic debris.

The Canadian Geological Survey classification of the Colorado Group includes the following sub-units, from top to bottom:

References

References

1. [https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Geolex/Units/Colorado_7668.html Geologic Unit: Colorado], Geolex.
2. "Unit Name: Colorado Group". Weblex : Lexicon of Canadian Geologic Units.
3. [[Fielding Bradford Meek. (1862). "Descriptions of new Lower Silurian, (Primordial), Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary fossils, collected in Nebraska, by the exploring expedition under the command of Capt. Wm F. Reynolds, U.S. Top. Engineers, with some remarks on the rocks from which they were obtained". Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia Proceedings.
4. [[Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. (1871). "Final Reports of the United States Geological Survey of Nebraska and Portions of the Adjacent Territories". Government Printing Office.
5. [[Donald E. Hattin]]. (1982). "Stratigraphy and Depositional Environment of Smoky Hill Chalk Member, Niobrara Chalk (Upper Cretaceous) of the Type Area, Western Kansas". [[Kansas Geological Survey]].
6. Hague, A. and Emmons, S.E., 1877. Descriptive geology. U.S. geological exploration of the fortieth parallel, v.2.
7. Donald E. Hattin. (1965). "Stratigraphy of the Graneros Shale (Upper Cretaceous) in Central Kansas, Kansas Geological Survey, Bulletin 178". University of Kansas Publications, State Geological Survey of Kansas.
8. White, C. A., 1878, Report on the geology of a portion of northwestern Colorado: U.S. Geol. and Geog. Surv. Territories, Ann. Rept, 10, p. 5-60.
9. W. G. Pierce and C. B. Hunt. (1937). "Geology and Mineral resources of North-Central Chouteau, Western Hill, and Eastern Liberty Counties". U.S. Government Printing Office.
10. Donald E. Hattin and Charles T. Siemers. (1978). "Upper Cretaceous Stratigraphy and Depositional Environments of Western Kansas". Kansas Geological Survey.
11. [[Grove Karl Gilbert. (February–March 1895). "Sedimentary Measurement of Cretaceous Time". [[University of Chicago Press]].
12. Sageman, B. B.. (1997). "Evidence for Milankovitch periodicities in Cenomanian-Turonian lithologic and geochemical cycles, Western Interior U.S.A.". Journal of Sedimentary Research, Section A.
13. (1896). "The underground water of the Arkansas Valley in eastern Colorado". U.S. Geological Survey Annual Report.
14. "Colorado".
15. Alan F. Arbogast, William C. Johnson. (1996). "Surficial geology and stratigraphy of Russell County, Kansas".
16. (2018). "Classification of Rocks in Kansas (Kansas Stratigraphic Chart)". [[Kansas Geological Survey]].
17. Geological Atlas of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin - Chapter 20. "Cretaceous Colorado / Alberta Group of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin".
18. Donald E. Hattin. (1975). "Stratigraphy and Depositional Environment of Greenhorn Limestone (Upper Cretaceous) of Kansas, Kansas Geological Survey, Bulletin 209". University of Kansas Publications, State Geological Survey of Kansas.
19. Khalifa Elderbak. (2015). "Paleocirculation and foraminiferal assemblages of the Cenomanian–Turonian Bridge Creek Limestone bedding couplets: Productivity vs. dilution during OAE2".
20. Molenaar, C.M.. (2002). "Regional stratigraphic cross sections of Cretaceous rocks from east-central Arizona to the Oklahoma Panhandle". [[United States Geological Survey.
21. (2020). "Corridor Assessment Report Appendix F. Geological Hazard Assessment Santa Fe Drive - I-25 to C-470". Shannon & Wilson.
22. Robert J. Raynolds. (2022). "Cretaceous Stratigraphy of Colorado". Colorado Geological Survey.
23. (2018). "Classification of Rocks in Kansas (Kansas Stratigraphic Chart)". [[Kansas Geological Survey]].
24. Donald E. Hattin. (1975). "Stratigraphy and Depositional Environment of Greenhorn Limestone (Upper Cretaceous) of Kansas, Kansas Geological Survey, Bulletin 209". University of Kansas Publications, State Geological Survey of Kansas.
25. Glass, D.J. (editor) 1997. Lexicon of Canadian Stratigraphy, vol. 4, Western Canada including eastern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba, p. 452. Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Calgary, 1423 p. on CD-ROM. {{ISBN. 0-920230-23-7.
26. Lexicon of Canadian Geologic Units. "Medicine Hat Sandstone".
27. Lexicon of Canadian Geologic Units. "Martin Sandy Zone".
28. Lexicon of Canadian Geologic Units. "Cardium Sandstone".
29. Lexicon of Canadian Geologic Units. "Bowdoin Sandstone".
30. Glass, D.J. (editor) 1997. Lexicon of Canadian Stratigraphy, vol. 4, Western Canada including eastern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba, p. 1052. Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Calgary, 1423 p. on CD-ROM. {{ISBN. 0-920230-23-7.
31. Lexicon of Canadian Geologic Units. "Phillips Sandstone".