Digital Geology Map of British Columbia

Tile NN11: Mid Rockies

Preliminary Release, April 2003, revised April 2004

Suggested bibliographic reference: Massey, N.W.D., MacIntyre, D.G. and Desjardins, P.J., 2003: Digital Geology Map of British Columbia: Tile NN11 Mid Rockies, B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines, Geofile 2003-12 (version 2), scale 1:250,000.

Digital regional compilations of the geology of B.C. at 1:250,000-scale were made in 1992-96 in support of the Mineral Potential Project.  These were released as Open Files (see references below) and downloads from the GSB website (http://www.em.gov.bc.ca/geology).  They were also used as the geology base for the Map Place (http://www.mapplace.ca).  

However, numerous errors and inconsistencies have been noted with these datasets.  The Digital Geology Map of British Columbia Project was designed to address these problems and, in the process, produce a seamless digital map of the Province with consistent geological tagging.  Updates to the geology have also been made where feasible.  However, some "map boundary" problems remain reflecting differences in original sources.  

The recompilation has been based on the same tiles as the Cordilleran GIS Map Library (Journeay and Williams, 1995) which conforms to the International Map of the World standard used for indexing 1:1,000,000-scale topographic maps.  This differs from the numbering convention used for the National Topographic System maps.  Tile NN11 encompasses NTS 1:250,000 sheets 83C, 83D and 83E.

The datasets released here are a revision of the previously released GeoFiles, though still preliminary.  Final versions of the data will be released in January 2005.  All line work within the tile is now as seamless as possible and has been joined with adjacent tiles.  Attribute data has been checked for errors; in particular, tags for Belt and Terrane have been corrected.  Fault types have been combined into one file (instead of 3 or 4 in the original GeoFiles).  

All data sets are in shape file format that should be readily usable by most GIS software.  They are presented as either decimal degrees (subscript _ll), BC Albers (subscript _alb) (1) or UTM zone 10 (subscript _utm) projections.  All use NAD83 as the datum.  The datasets are intended to be used at 1:250,000-scale and their use is not recommended at greater scales. 
Datasets included are:-

Geological line work: intended for cartographic purposes only.
		NN11_Fltln 

Note: lines for normal, extensional and thrust faults follow a "right-hand rule" such that appropriate symbology (tics and teeth) should be placed on the right-hand side of the line.  A suitable legend (.avl) file is included for ArcView 3.x users.

Topographic line work: 
		NN11_River; NN11_250KGrid; NN11_Neatline

Topographic polygons:
		NN11_Lake; NN11_Ice; NN11_River_poly

Geological polygons:
		NN11_Quaternary; NN11_Geology (2)

Note: Due to intentional overlaps between different polygon datasets, they should be stacked in the following order for correct cartographic representation:
Top: NN11_Ice; NN11_River_poly; NN11_Lake; NN11_Ocean; NN11_Quaternary; NN11_Geology: Bottom
Line work files should be stacked on top of the polygons (relative order is not so critical).


References:

Bellefontaine, K., D. Alldrick and Desjardins, P.J., 1994: Mid Coast (all or parts of 92F, G, J, K, L, M, N; 93D; 102P; 103A), Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Open File 1994-17.

Bellefontaine, K., Legun, A., Massey, N. W,D, and Desjardins, P.J., 1995: Mineral Potential Project, Digital Geological Compilation NEBC South half, (83D, E; 93F, G, H, I, J, K, N, O, P), Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Open File 1995-24.

Desjardins, P.J., 1994; Digital Geology Polygons; Vancouver Island Region (matches OF 1994-6) Kootenay Region (matches OF 1994-8) Cariboo - Chilcotin Region (matches OF 1994-7), Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Open File 1994-27.

Höy, T., Church, B.N., Legun, A., Glover, K., Gibson, G., Grant, B., Wheeler, J.O., Dunne, K.P.E., Cunningham, J. and Desjardins, P.J., 1994: Kootenay Area (82E, F, G, J, K, L, M, N, O; 83C, D), Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Open File 1994-8.

Journeay, J.M. and Williams, S.P., 1995: GIS map Library: a window on Cordilleran geology (version 1.0); Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 2948.

MacIntyre, D. G., Ash C. and Britton, J., 1994: Nass-Skeena (93/E, L, M; 94/D; 103/G, H, I, J, P; 104/A, B), Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Open File 1994-14.

MacIntyre, D.G., Legun, A., Bellefontaine, K. and Massey, N. W.D., 1995: B.C. Mineral Potential Project: Digital Geological Compilation, Northeast British Columbia 94A, B, C, F, G, H, I, J, K, N, O, P), Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Open File 1995-6.

Massey, N.W.D., Desjardins, P.J. and Grunsky, E.C., 1994:Vancouver Island (92B, C, E, F, G, K, L; 102I), Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Open File 1994-6.

Mihalynuk, M., Bellefontaine, K., Brown, D., Logan, J., Nelson, J., Legun, A. and Diakow, L., 1996: Digital Geology, NW British Columbia (94/E, L, M; 104/F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P; 114/I, O, P), Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Open File 1996-11.

Schiarizza, P., Panteleyev, A., Gaba, R.G., Glover, J.K., Desjardins, P.J. and Cunningham, J., 1994: Cariboo - Chilcotin Area (92J, K, N, O, P; 93A, B, C, F, G, H), Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Open File 1994-7. 

Schiarizza, P. and Church., N., 1996: The Geology of the Thompson - Okanagan Mineral Assessment Region, Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Open File 1996-20. 

Notes:

(1) Parameters for BC Albers:
Units				metres
Spheroid			GRS 80
Datum				NAD 83
Central meridian		126 00 00 W
Latitude of origin		45 00 00 N
1st standard parallel		50 00 00 N
2nd standard parallel		58 30 00 N
False easting			1000000
False northing			0

(2) NN11_Geology attributes:
Keycode			old geological tag, used in previous Mineral Potential compilations
Tecunit			Tectonic Assemblage tag (Journeay & Williams 1995)
Strat_unit		new geological tag
Era			Geological Era within which the unit lies
Period			Geological Period within which the unit lies 
Strat_age		Stratigraphic age of unit
Strat_name		Stratigraphic name of unit
Group_suit		Group or Suite name for unit
Formation_		Formation name of unit
Rock_type		description of rock types in unit
Rock_class		rock class of unit (intrusive, volcanic, sedimentary, metamorphic)
Original_d		original description of the unit from legends of Mineral Potential compilations
Age_max_te		Maximum age (Ma) of unit, text
Age_min_te		Minimum age (Ma) of unit, text
Age_max_nu		Maximum age (Ma) of unit, numerical
Age_min_nu		Minimum age (Ma) of unit, numerical
Project			Original Mineral Potential compilation project; from which polygon is derived
Belt			Morphogeological belt
Terrane			Terrane
Sourceid		code for original source publication
Unit			description of unit (could be used in legend)

In order to produce a geological map, it is recommended that either of the fields strat_unit or tecunit be used for symbolization.


