Thermal history of Canadian Williston Basin from apatite fission-track thermochronology - Implications for petroleum systems and geodynamic history

Abstract

Apatite fission track (AFT) thermochronology has been applied to a composite depth profile of Precambrian basement rocks underlying the Phanerozoic Canadian Williston Basin. Thermal histories derived from the AFT data record cycles of heating and cooling which follow the pattern of regional burial history, but which also indicate major temporal and geographic variations in the timing and degree of maximum Phanerozoic temperatures. These variations in the thermal history were not previously recognised from organic maturity indicators and subsidence models. Specifically, our study suggests a late Paleozoic heat flow anomaly with a geographic extent closer to that of Middle Devonian-Carbonifero..