STRATIGRAPHY AND DEPOSITIONAL HISTORY OF THE BURNT TIMBER EMBAYMENT, FAIRHOLME COMPLEX, ALBERTA

The upper Devonian (Frasnian) Burnt Timber embayment forms an eight-km wide re-entrant along the northeastern margin of the Fairholme reef c omplex. It is bounded to the northwest and southeast by buildup margin s assigned to the upper Cairn and Peechee members of the Cairn and Sou thesk formations, respectively. The northwestern buildup margin appear s to have been localized by the underlying accumulation of carbonate d ebris within the Maligne and lowermost basin-filling Perdrix formation s, while the southeastern buildup margin developed above thick accumul ations of carbonate detritus within the lowermost shales of the Perdri x Formation. Thick deposits of buildup-derived carbonate sediments wit hin the shaly Perdrix Formation attest to the presence of adjacent bas al upper Cairn buildup margins farther to the northwest and southeast, outside the study area. Within the field area, retrograding middle an d upper Cairn and Peechee buildup margins shed debris flows and abunda nt carbonate detritus into the restricted embayment, and thereby reduc ed buildup-basin relief. In addition, the embayment received silicicla stic sediments of the Perdrix and Mount Hawk formations that were prob ably transported by regional southwest-directed paleocurrents. Sedimen ts of the upper Mount Hawk Formation buried the uppermost Peechee buil dup margins along both margins of the embayment and filled in much of the intervening depression. The carbonate sands of the overlying Arcs Member (Southesk Formation) continued to fill the embayment. The Arcs Member is unconformably overlain by silty, shallow water carbonates of the Ronde Member, which are, in turn, unconformably overlain by quart zose sands of the Famennian Sassenach Formation.