Geoscience Knowledge Synthesis: Peel Plateau and Plain, a prospective hydrocarbon province in the Northern Mackenzie Corridor

This report is a synthesis of geoscience knowledge and data from Peel Plateau and Plain (Peel Region). Peel Region lies north of the Mackenzie Mountains, south of the Mackenzie Delta, and east of the Richardson Mountains in the Northwest Territories and Yukon. The region has moderate to high hydrocarbon potential and is a high priority area of the Mackenzie Corridor where improved and updated geoscience knowledge can stimulate petroleum exploration, industry investment, and economic development for the benefit of Northerners. More than 70 wells in Peel Region have been drilled through strata correlative with deformed strata that outcrop along the eastern flank of the Richardson Mountains and northern front of the Mackenzie Mountains. Cambrian to Middle Devonian strata represent sedimentation on the continental margin of ancestral North America. Upper Devonian to Carboniferous and Cretaceous successions resulted from deposition in foreland basins of the Ellesmerian and Columbian/Laramide orogenies, respectively. Summaries of interpreted tectonic and paleogeographic histories, stratigraphy and sedimentology, biostratigraphy, petroleum geology, and mineral potential and occurrences indicate that several areas of research are needed to improve understanding of stratigraphy and correlation, depositional and tectonic histories, basin evolution, and petroleum geology and potential in Peel Region.