Why Does the Naskapi Mudstone “Blanket” Prograde the Paleo-Shelf Edge Offshore Nova Scotia?
Donald I. Cummings1, Robert W. Dalrymple1, and R.W.C. (Bill) Arnott2 1 Queen’s University, Kingston, ON 2 University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON The Naskapi Member of the Logan Canyon Formation (Aptian) forms a regionally extensive terrigenous mudstone blanket (<300 m thick and >1000 km parallel to depositional strike) over hydrocarbon-rich sandstones of the Missisauga Formation in the passive margin basin offshore Nova Scotia. Although a substantial regional landward translation of the shoreline might conventionally be interpreted at the Missisauga-Naskapi contact, evidence for a major transgression/regression is in fact lacking in seismic data from the Sable Subbasin (i.e., there is no obvious downlap surface). Rather, Naskapi reflections are parallel and, where the paleoshelf-slope transition can be resolved, correlate with progradational reflections at the paleoshelf-edge. Core and well-log data from the Panuke Field, located ~25 km updip of the paleoshelf-edge, show that the Naskapi, de
