Oil in Manitoba: Geology, Exploration and Production
Introduction
Knowledge of the geological history of our Province is critical for understanding where oil is generated, its migration path and its accumulations and trapping mechanisms. This knowledge infrastructure allows geologists to predict where this important resource can be found and to inform sustainable development practices for years to come.
Manitoba’s Geological Framework
The bedrock geology of Manitoba consists of Precambrian-age rocks partially covered by two Phanerozoic-age sedimentary basins (Figure 1). The Precambrian terranes are host to a variety of mineral deposits including, but not limited to, gold, diamonds, zinc, nickel, copper, cesium and lithium. The sedimentary basins are host to important resources including oil, natural gas, salt, potash, bentonite, gypsum and limestone.
The landscape seen today was shaped by advancing and retreating glaciers and large glacial and freshwater lakes. Quaternary-age glacial and surficial sediments, deposited over the last 2.6 million years, cover the bedrock with a mostly unconsolidated sedimentary veneer. These sediments are important to our economy as sources for aggregate, including sand and gravel.
Manitoba’s two sedimentary basins—Western Canada Sedimentary Basin and Hudson Bay Basin—are known as intracratonic basins which are formed when seawater rises and floods the continent allowing sediment to accumulate within areas of subsidence or depression in the crustal Precambrian basement rocks. The Western Canada Sedimentary Basin occurs in the southwest corner of Manitoba containing Paleozoic-to-Cretaceous-age sedimentary rocks. The Hudson Bay Basin, located in the northeast, consists of early Paleozoic-age sedimentary rocks. During the Paleozoic, these two basins were connected and part of a continuous, continent-wide interior seaway that extended from modern-day Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. During the Silurian Period, upwelling (bulging) of the Precambrian bedrock formed a broad northwest-southeast trending arch called the Severn Arch that separated the two into distinct basins.
Hudson Bay Basin
The Hudson Bay Basin covers an area similar in size and shape to the modern-day Hudson Bay. The basin is located in the Hudson Bay Lowland region of northeastern Manitoba and represents the southwestern edge of the basin itself. The Hudson Bay Basin consists of a sequence of carbonate, evaporite and siliciclastic Paleozoic-age sedimentary rocks overlying Precambrian rocks. This sequence forms a basinward-thickening (i.e., toward the northeast), northeasterly sloping wedge that exceeds 2 km thick in the centre of the basin. In Manitoba, the sedimentary rocks reach a thickness of 896 m and occur where the Kaskattama River reaches Hudson Bay. Exposures of these rocks are visible only along river and creek banks and the Hudson Bay shoreline, with excellent exposures along the Churchill River and the shoreline near the town of Churchill.
The Western Canada Sedimentary Basin—A Brief History
The Western Canada Sedimentary Basin is a large sedimentary basin that covers much of western Canada. In Manitoba, the term Western Canada Sedimentary Basin is an all-encompassing term including sedimentary packages of various ages. These include the sub-basin southeastern portion of the Elk Point Basin and the northwestern edge of the Williston Basin, which is host to Manitoba’s oil field.
In Manitoba, the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin is made up of stacked formations—formations are a named rock unit of a particular age and rock type—consisting of a sequence of carbonate, evaporite and siliciclastic Cambrian-to-Cretaceous-age sedimentary rocks (Figure 2). This sequence forms a basinward-thickening, southwest-trending, southwesterly sloping wedge that reaches a thickness of 2.3 km in the extreme southwestern corner of Manitoba. The centre of the Willison Basin is located in North Dakota where the sediments occur to a depth of more than 4 km below surface.
The beginning of the Paleozoic, in what is Manitoba today, is marked by an initial transgression of sea water resulting in the deposition of sand and shale. As the sea level rose and the basin further subsided, the deposition was dominated by limestone and dolostone, with periodic organic-rich, argillaceous and sandy influxes of sediment. These limestone and dolostone rocks would eventually become potential oil reservoirs with the organic-rich layers having potential to transform into oil and gas. During the Paleozoic, Manitoba was located much closer to the equator than it is today; the climate was warm and tropical. Normal marine conditions provided the perfect environment for life to flourish and coral reefs to thrive and grow. This abundance of life is reflected in the fossils seen in many limestone outcrops in Manitoba, including the Tyndall Stone® found on buildings locally and around the world. Beautiful and diverse fossils can be seen along the western shores of Lake Winnipegosis where the Winnipegosis Formation outcrops as large platform and pinnacle reefs, some reaching up to 80 m high. The gently undulating topography in the Lake Manitoba Narrows area is a testament to the buried reefs below.
Throughout the Paleozoic Era, sea level was constantly changing due to global sea level fluctuations and continental tectonics. Throughout the Devonian Period these fluctuations resulted in the formation of the Elk Point Basin with normal marine conditions being interspersed with more restricted marine conditions. These fluctuations gave rise to limestone rocks with abundant reef buildups and other fossils, to rocks with few or no fossils, and the deposition of evaporitic rocks such as gypsum and anhydrite. Of significance during this time is that the basin became restricted with no outlet for the seawater to flow. The dry, arid conditions at the time resulted in evaporation of the seawater resulting in deposition of thick evaporite deposits called the Prairie Evaporite; at the time the basin resembled the modern-day Dead Sea. The Prairie Evaporite is up to 200 m thick and consists of a sequence of salt deposits, including gypsum, anhydrite, halite, and sylvite. It is this rock formation from which potash is mined in Saskatchewan.
The end of the Devonian Period saw the rise of the Willison Basin. As the Devonian Period came to an end and the Mississippian Period began, clastic rocks dominated, with the deposition of a sequence of siltstone and sandstone capped with an extremely organic-rich shale. This sandstone and shale is referred to as the Bakken Formation; these shales would become the dominant source of Manitoba’s oil. After the deposition of the Bakken Formation, normal marine conditions returned with the deposition of porous and fossiliferous limestone rocks. It was during this time that the Lodgepole and Mission Canyon formations, important oil reservoir rocks, were deposited.
Throughout the Paleozoic, during the Mississippian period, the size of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin as a whole had been steadily shrinking and at an accelerated pace. The erosional configuration of the different rock formations , which resemble a ring around a slowly draining bathtub, can be observed today. The formations form roughly concentric bands, shrinking to the southwest, where Manitoba falls on the northeastern corner of the basin (Figure 1). By the end of the Paleozoic the basin became more restricted. In Manitoba, the end of Paleozoic deposition is marked by the Charles Formation, comprising a thick layer of anhydrite (evaporitic deposit).
During the Mesozoic Era, the depositional environment for the sediments in Manitoba consisted mostly of shale-dominated siliciclastic rocks. The rise of the Cordilleran in the west, which included the Rocky Mountains, provided a large sediment supply to the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in the east. The mountain-building process, and associated volcanic eruptions, had a tremendous effect on the basin’s configuration, sediment supply and depositional pattern. Up to 100 individual bentonite beds—each representing an individual volcanic event—have been counted in southwestern Manitoba (Nicolas, 2016). Rock formations deposited during this time include the Jurassic-age Amaranth Formation, and the Cretaceous-age Swan River, Ashville, Favel, Carlile and Pierre Shale formations. The shales deposited were often high in organic matter, particularly in the Favel and Carlile formations. Due to its extremely high organic content, the Favel Formation is considered an oil shale in outcrop and is a potential biogenic gas reservoir in the subsurface (biogenic gas is formed in place in the rock by the natural breakdown of the organic matter by bacteria in the shale). The Swan River Formation—dominated by thick sandstone beds, with occasional shale and coal—is equivalent in deposition and time to the oil sands of the McMurray Formation in Alberta.
The Cenozoic Era marks a time of erosion and terrestrial deposition, mostly as siltstone and sandstone.
Exploration History
1873–1950: Early Exploration
In the late 1870s, the Geological Survey of Canada started a regional geological mapping and drilling program in search of resources including groundwater, coal, oil and gas and other mineral deposits. These efforts included the drilling of two wells near a proposed rail line in southwest Manitoba and mapping along the shores of Hudson Bay.
Exploration for oil and gas in southwestern Manitoba started in 1877 with the Manitoba Oil Company receiving a charter to explore for oil; although two wells were drilled, neither had signs of oil or gas.
Between 1900 and 1930 multiple companies were granted charters to search for oil and gas in southern Manitoba. However, after drilling several unsuccessful, mostly shallow wells, the charters were eventually cancelled. In 1912, a few local residents of the Waskada-Melita area drilled four shallow wells on their properties and encountered low-pressure gas pockets. These were to become the first producing natural gas wells in the province and they supplied enough gas to be used locally for domestic lighting and cooking purposes.
In the early 1900s, the Geological Survey of Canada renewed mapping efforts in the Hudson Bay area and inland along its tributaries. This updated mapping resulted in sporadic exploration efforts in 1923, culminating in two shallow onshore wells drilled in the 1940s (Hamblin, 2008). No signs of oil or gas were encountered in these wells, thus stifling petroleum exploration in this northern region until the 1960s.
In 1947, the California Standard Company established the Brandon Exploration Company as a subsidiary and began the first large-scale oil and gas exploration program in southern Manitoba. Soon after, nine oil and natural gas reservations were issued by the province to the company. These covered several thousand hectares and included Manitoba’s first detailed geophysical survey covering almost all of the southwestern portion of the Province.
In 1949 the Souris Valley Oil Company drilled two dry wells in southern Manitoba. Although no oil or gas was encountered, the Gordon White No. 1 well was the deepest well ever drilled, penetrating the Devonian Winnipegosis Formation and reaching a depth of 1573 m. This well provided important geological information with the discovery of Mississippian limestone rocks—soon to become Manitoba’s first producing oil reservoirs.
The year 1950 saw an increase in exploration with eight geophysical programs operating in southern Manitoba; unfortunately, these programs resulted in the drilling of eight dry wells. However, new prolific oil discoveries in western Canada resulted in the construction of the first interprovincial/international crude oil pipeline from Edmonton, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin.
1951: First Oil Discovery
In November of 1950, after six years of exploration, the California Standard Oil Company made the first economical oil discovery in Manitoba. On February 1, 1951, the California Standard Daly well at Legal Subdivision 15, Section 18, Township 10, Range 27 west of the first meridian (abbreviated 15-18-10-27 W1), located 15 km west of Virden, had the first oil production from the Mississippian Lodgepole Formation at a depth of 760 m. This was the first commercial oil discovery in the Williston Basin.
This breakthrough well was eventually deemed uneconomic and abandoned, but further development drilling in the area resulted in the Daly Field, Manitoba’s first oil field. The province’s oldest producing oil well was drilled in this field in 1952 and has been producing for over 67 years.
1950s: The First Oil Boom
The discovery of the Daly Field marked the beginning of Manitoba’s first oil boom, which resulted in a surge of drilling activity that continued throughout the 1950s. Six of the 18 wells drilled in 1951 were completed as potential oil wells. These drilling results created a rush to lease oil and gas rights extending from southwestern Manitoba to the Saskatchewan border and north to Portage la Prairie.
Continued exploration led to the discovery of three new oil fields in 1952: Tilston, Waskada and Lulu Lake. In 1953, the Virden and Whitewater fields were discovered followed by the Pierson Field in 1954. At this time, the town of Virden had 16 producing wells, and was proclaimed “the Oil Capital of Manitoba”.
As the decade wore on, oil production rates in the new fields began to decline. In an attempt to slow this decline and improve the efficiency of oil recovery, Canada’s first waterflood pressure maintenance project was started in the Daly Field in 1953. Waterflooding of an oil reservoir is the process of injecting water into the reservoir to increase fluid pressure to push the oil towards a nearby producing oil well.
In 1954, the success in Manitoba’s oil patch saw the construction of the first crude oil pipeline and gathering system by the Northern Development Company. The pipeline transported crude oil from the Daly Field to the Interprovincial Pipeline pumping station at Cromer, Manitoba.
1960 to 1979: Slow but Steady
By the 1960s, the development of Manitoba’s oil fields was in full swing. Continued exploration led to the discovery of the Souris Hartney Field in 1962 and waterflood pressure maintenance projects were being used in the Virden Field, increasing the oil production to peak levels by 1968.
The first half of the 1970s saw little activity in Manitoba’s oil patch. In 1973, the oil embargo, the resultant rise in oil prices introduced by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as well as technological advancements in exploration led industry to look at new areas of interest. By the end of the decade, renewed interest in Manitoba resulted in a wave of freehold leasing of oil and gas rights, geophysical programming and steady drilling activity. This renewed activity resulted in the discovery of the Kirkella Field in 1978.
Meanwhile, the 1960s saw renewed interest in the Hudson Bay area of northeastern Manitoba. Sogepet Limited resumed oil exploration in the early 1960s with geological mapping and geophysical surveys. In 1964, the first deep onshore exploratory well—Sogepet Aquitaine Kaskattama Prov. No.1—was drilled by a partnership between Sogepet Limited and Aquitaine Company of Canada. The well, located along the Kaskattama River, had a total drilled depth of 896 m and was the first well drilled in the Hudson Bay area to penetrate the entire sedimentary section. Eventually, two more onshore wells were drilled: the Houston Oils et al. Comeault Prov. No. 1 well in 1968, followed by the Merland et al. Whitebear Creek Prov. well in 1970. In 1969, the first offshore well—Aquitaine et al. Walrus A-71—was drilled in the middle of the bay. During this time industry and the federal government conducted extensive offshore seismic programs.
1980s: The Second Oil Boom
The success of the end of the last decade continued into the 1980s with Omega Hydrocarbons Ltd. discovering the first oil in the Jurassic-age Amaranth Formation. This marked Manitoba’s first commercial oil production from a non-Mississippian-age formation and Canada’s first oil production from this formation. Subsequent development drilling resulted in a significant enlargement of the Waskada Field. High oil prices fuelled further development drilling throughout Manitoba increasing the size of all oil fields in the province and, in 1982, resulting in the discovery of the Mountainside Field.
Increased production in the Waskada Field led to the construction of Manitoba’s first and only gas plant, designed to recover natural gas liquids (propane, butane and condensate) from the produced gas. The plant operated from 1984 to 1996 when declining production volumes made it uneconomic.
Additionally, the increase in oil production from the Waskada Field resulted in the construction of a 90-km crude oil pipeline from a terminal at Waskada to the pipeline pumping station at Cromer, which was put into service in 1985. The year also marked the first oil discovery in the Mississippian Bakken Formation in the Daly Field. The discovery prompted an increase of development drilling as well as deepening of existing wells to produce from this formation; this was the deepest producing formation at the time. In contrast, the shallowest production was first discovered in the St. Lazare area from the Jurassic-age Melita Formation.
In the second half of the decade, oil prices significantly decreased, severely reducing oil industry activity.
In 1985 in the Hudson Bay region, the last exploration well was drilled. By this time a total of nine wells had been drilled in search of oil and gas, with only three onshore in Manitoba. Despite oil and gas shows in two offshore wells, exploration efforts ceased as the geological understanding at the time suggested that the Hudson Bay area did not have the right conditions for economical oil and gas accumulations.
1990s: Technological Rebirth
With the 1990s came two significant technological advancements that have had a profound effect on Manitoba’s petroleum industry: horizontal drilling and the use of 3D seismic surveying.
The province’s first horizontal well was drilled in 1991 by Tundra Oil and Gas Ltd. in the Daly Field. Stimulated by provincial incentives providing royalty and tax relief for horizontal wells, this technology was subsequently used with success in most of the province’s oil fields and producing areas.
The first 3D seismic program in Manitoba was run by Osprey Energy Ltd. in the Tilston Field in 1994. 3D seismic is a process whereby seismic data is collected from a closely spaced grid of seismic source and seismic receiver lines producing a detailed and accurate picture of the structure of underground formations. The technology is invaluable in the selection of optimal drilling locations and thus minimizes the risk of drilling a dry hole. In 1994, the Manitoba legislature passed The Oil and Gas Act, a comprehensive piece of legislation that governs all aspects of the upstream oil industry in the province.
In 1996, an oil discovery in the Mississippian Bakken Formation led to the establishment of the Birdtail Field, the most northerly producing field in the province.
Industry activity varied throughout the decade, primarily, as a result of variations in the world price of oil. A significant development occurred in 1999 with the construction of the Wapella pipeline. This pipeline delivers crude oil production from the Wapella and Rocanville areas of Saskatchewan and from the Kirkella and Daly fields in Manitoba to the Cromer pumping station for efficient distribution to the international market and refineries.
2000s and beyond: The fracking landscape and the Third Oil Boom
In the early 2000s new advances in horizontal well drilling and fracking changed the energy industry landscape across the world. The advent of multi-stage hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in long horizontal wells opened up the reservoirs to production values at rates never before seen in Manitoba’s history. The Amaranth and Bakken formations saw extreme development with single and multi-legged horizontal wells, all benefitting from the new fracking process. While fracking of wells in Manitoba had been common practice for over 65 years, it was the application of the multi-stage hydraulic fracturing of horizontal wells that changed Manitoba’s oil production history.
These technological advancements resulted in the discovery of oil in the Bakken Formation by Tundra Oil and Gas Partnership south of the Daly Field in 2002; this marked the beginning of Manitoba’s third oil boom. This discovery led to the establishment of the Sinclair Field in 2005. This rapidly growing field was amalgamated with the Daly Field in 2010 to become the Daly Sinclair Field, the largest oil field in Manitoba. The Amaranth Formation saw redevelopment in the Waskada Field, resulting in a significant enlargement of the field size and production.
During this time, the extension of a compressed gas collection pipeline from Saskatchewan into the Pierson Field in 2006 marked the end of gas flaring in the field and the beginning of economic and sustainable gas collection.
Since the early 2000s, further development of existing oil fields through infill drilling (i.e., wells drilled between existing oil wells) dominated and kept the oil patch busy. Wildcat exploration (i.e., drilling outside of areas with known oil production) for new targets was rare as oil prices fluctuated. The establishment of the Manson Field in 2012 marked the discovery of unique oil pools that straddled multiple formations, including the Melita, Reston, Amaranth and Lodgepole formations.
Although, traditional waterfloods were widely used to improve oil production rates in mature pools with declining production rates, new, enhanced oil recovery methods were being piloted. In 2008, the first carbon dioxide injection pilot project was successfully executed in the Daly Sinclair Field; this was followed by a nitrogen injection pilot project in 2016.
The oil story is still on hold in northern Manitoba, but there is renewed hope. Between 2008 and 2018, a renewed, multi-disciplinary effort undertaken by federal-provincial partnerships determined that the Hudson Bay area has all the right geological conditions for the formation and trapping of oil and gas (Lavoie et al., 2019). To this date, however, there have been no renewed industry exploration efforts and no economically viable accumulations have been discovered.
Manitoba’s Oil Patch
Manitoba’s oil patch occurs exclusively in the extreme southwest corner of the province, within the Willison Basin. There are 13 oil fields in total (Figure 3) and approximately 245 active oil pools in Manitoba (oil fields are groupings of one or more oil pools, and oil pools are groupings of one or more producing wells). Currently, oil production in Manitoba comes from the Torquay, Bakken, Lodgepole, Mission Canyon, Amaranth, Reston and Melita formations. These formations occur in the middle of the thick sedimentary package in the basin (Figure 4), producing oil from depths ranging from 450 to 1200 m.
Between 1951 and May 2019, the total cumulative oil production for Manitoba was 66.5 million m3 along with 316.6 million m3 natural gas. In 2018, the average monthly production was 193,747 m3 oil with 1.395 million m3 natural gas. Today, (mid-2019) there are 11,509 oil wells licensed in Manitoba with 8,431 of those wells producing at some point between 1951 and May 2019.
Because Manitoba’s commercial oil production comes from a select group of formations, there is a lot of potential for undiscovered oil pools, particularly at depth. There are documented oil shows—traces of oil in the rock—in deeper formations, but these require further exploration work (Figure 4). Many of the formations present in Manitoba have oil production in other parts of the Williston Basin, in particular Saskatchewan and North Dakota.
Cretaceous-age shallow shale formations have natural gas shows and are known to occur in the Favel, Carlile and Pierre Shale formations (Nicolas and Grasby, 2009). In these shallow shale reservoirs, the natural gas (consisting of mostly methane) is biogenic gas. This gas occurs naturally all-over southwestern Manitoba, west of the escarpment. In this type of gas accumulation, the source rock and reservoir rock are within the same unit. In areas where the shale is near surface, the gas diffuses naturally into the atmosphere and shallow groundwater. Water wells that tap into groundwater within the shale units commonly have small bubbles of methane that occur naturally.
Currently, there is no commercial production of biogenic gas in Manitoba, despite its occurrence over a large geographical area. In contrast, Saskatchewan has large gas fields with economic production from the same rocks to the west.
Oil production and innovation
Oil production in Manitoba had peaks and valleys through the years (Figure 5a). The peaks are correlative to the discovery, and subsequent development of oil pools and growth of oil fields. The valleys reflect times of natural decline in production that can be related to oil price fluctuations and/or to the benefits (or not) of added development drilling and enhanced oil recovery methodologies. Enhanced oil recovery methods, such as waterfloods, are used when reservoir pressures begin to decline significantly enough that production is approaching a point of being uneconomic. Figure 5a shows clearly the effects that waterflooding has on increasing the oil production rates in the Virden Field.
Technological advances in drilling techniques and reservoir stimulation methods through time consistently resulted in improved production from old and new wells (Figure 5b). Advances in engineering and drilling techniques resulted in wells being drilled faster and more efficiently, and pushed the boundaries from drilling vertical wells to drilling them at angles—known as deviated wells—as well as horizontally. Horizontal wells are first drilled vertically, then the drill bit makes a gradual turn into a horizontal direction, and continues to drill for several hundred metres (a common length for a horizontal well in Manitoba is 0.5-2 km). A horizontal well allows for the well bore to be in contact with more of the surface area of the reservoir; this is particularly important and ‘game changing’ for thin reservoirs such as the oil-rich sandstone layer of the Bakken Formation (Figure 5b). This results in efficient extraction and higher production rates per well. Reservoir stimulation is performed in order to enhance the amount of oil coming out of the rock. These reservoir stimulation methods include partially dissolving the reservoir rock with acid (called acidization) and fracturing (fracking) the rock deep underground using explosives or hydraulically-induced pressures (also know as hydraulic fracturing). Multi-stage hydraulic fracturing is the process of doing multiple fracturing events (4-28 fracturing events is common for Manitoba) within a single well bore along the length of the producing interval (or lateral “leg”). Using a slurry of water, additives and sand-like particles, the pressure in the borehole is increased until the rock naturally breaks and the slurry rushes into the newly created fractures. As the water mixture drains out of the fractures and the well bore, the sand-like particles stay behind in the fractures propping them open. This allows the oil and gas to flow out of the rock more efficiently and at greater volumes.
Figure 5 shows the trends of drilling and production in Manitoba, as well as the evolution of producing formations related to technological advancements and discoveries. The oil production from Lodgepole and Mission Canyon formations accounted for most of Manitoba’s oil until 2005, when new drilling and fracking techniques were used in the Bakken then in the Amaranth. Reservoirs in the Amaranth Formation contributed small volumes, but did not become a significant contributor to the cumulative production until the full development of the Waskada and Pierson fields in the early 1980s, corresponding to Manitoba’s second oil boom. Production from the Bakken Formation started in 1983, but took off in great volumes with the discovery of the Sinclair Field (now amalgamated with the Daly Field, and called the Daly Sinclair Field) in 2005. This discovery correlates to the biggest oil boom in Manitoba’s history.
Historically, Manitoba has little natural gas associated with its oil production (Figure 5a). Due to the high cost of collecting gas and the requirement for compressing stations and associated infrastructure, gas has been flared at battery (collection) sites in Manitoba. In Waskada, the operation of a gas plant used to collect this gas was short-lived. However, the eastward extension of a modern compressed gas pipeline from Saskatchewan made collection of the gas in this field economic and sustainable.
The combination of drilling innovations and advances in reservoir stimulation further opened the reservoirs, particularly in the Amaranth and Bakken formations in the Waskada and Daly Sinclair fields. These formations have thin reservoirs, averaging 3-4 metres thick, and have mediocre porosity. Using a vertical well with this type of reservoir is inefficient and can border on being uneconomical. However, using horizontal wells (in some cases with multiple lateral “legs” from a single drill pad) and performing multi-stage hydraulic fracturing, has proven to be a perfect combination for opening up these prolific oil pools.
Acknowledgements
Much of this historical account and chronology of events in the oil industry in Manitoba was previously published in detail in a Manitoba Energy and Mines Educational Series Brochure (MG13505 rev. 88) last updated and published in 1988. The author would like to acknowledge the research and authorship of the Government of Manitoba geoscientists, engineers and other staff and historians who contributed to that early publication.
References
- Hamblin, A.P. 2008. Hydrocarbon potential of the Paleozoic succession of Hudson/James Bay: preliminary conceptual synthesis of background data. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5731, 12 p.
- Lavoie, D., Pinet, N., Zhang, S., Reyes, J., Jiang, C., Ardakani, O.H., Savard, M.M., Dhillon, R. S., Chen, Z., Dietrich, J.R., Hu, K., Craven, J.A., Roberts, B., Duchesne, M.J., Brake, V.I., Huot-Vezina, G., Galloway, J.M., McCracken, A.D., Asselin, E., Decker, V., Beauchemin, M., Nicolas, M.P.B., Armstrong, D.K. and Hahn, K.E. 2019. Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Moose River, and Foxe basins: synthesis of research activities under the Geomapping for Energy and Minerals (GEM) programs 2008-2018. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 8507, 76 pp.
- Nicolas, M.P.B. 2016: Preliminary investigation from the Cretaceous section of the Manitoba Potash Corporation core at 3-29-20-29W1, southwestern Manitoba (NTS 65K1), in Report of Activities 2016, Manitoba Growth, Enterprise and Trade, Manitoba Geological Survey, pp. 150-156.
- Nicolas, M.P.B. and Grasby, S.E. 2009, Water and gas chemistry of Cretaceous shale aquifers and gas reservoirs of the Pembina Hills area, Manitoba (parts of NTS 62G), in Report of Activities 2009, Manitoba Science, Innovation, Energy and Mines, Manitoba Geological Survey, pp. 175-182.
Compiled by
Michelle P. Boulet Nicolas, MSc, PGeo, FGC, Chief Geologist, Sedimentary Geoscience, Manitoba Geological Survey
- Review: Ganpat S. Lodha, PhD, PGeo, FGC , Past Director, Geoscientists Canada, Retd. Senior Staff Geoscientist-Atomic Energy of Canada, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
- Editing: James Burns, PhD,
Posted by Glen N. Cook, PEng (SM), FEC If you have feedback on this article please contact the webmaster at APEGM.heritageeng@gmail.com.
