The Canadian Continental Drilling Program is a geoscience project designed to provide information on the Canadian landmass that can be best obtained through borehole drilling. During a now hazy moment in 1988, a conversation took place where one of the correspondents linked a new program and our desire to have more information about the latest Cretaceous-earliest Tertiary in the area of southern Manitoba. We had just returned from a trip where we had looked for and at the best surface exposures in the area and realized that they did not really provide a solid basis for detail stratigraphy. At that long ago hazy moment, the second individual involved in the conversation mumbled that actually the same could be said for the Cypress Hills area of southeastern Alberta. So began a journey that reached a climax in the fields and snow of the prairie provinces during October and November.

An optimistic proposal was submitted to the new Canadian Continental Drilling Program, with the three principal authors of the proposal being the present authors and Dr. J. F. Lerbekmo of the University of Alberta. The proposal, entitled "The Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary in Western Canada", was for three 250 m cored holes and two 50 m cored holes. A team of scientists was identified for study of various aspects of the recovered material. Originally, our proposal was one of the herd of proposals but through time and a number of presentations it rose upwards in the hierarchy until it was firmly nestled in second spot. The pilot project was not successful in obtaining funding so, much to our surprise, the proposal was picked as the initial project for the program. Funding was obtained from Amoco Canada Petroleum Company Ltd. and National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The funding was established in June of 1992 forcing those involved in the proposal to produce some results.

Preparation for drilling progressed through the summer and early fall with the hope that drilling would occur in 1992. Drilling commenced in a blizzard in the Cypress Hills on October 13, 1992. During the following four weeks, drilling continued accompanied by a series of transitory traumatic events that included slow drilling, wrecked trucks, mechanical breakdowns, stuck logging tools, crowbars disappearing down boreholes, cold temperatures, stuck core barrels, broken wire lines, core freezing to core barrels, flat tires, stuck trucks, and budget pressures. If the winds had died down, if the sun had appeared, if it had warmed up, and if the snow and rain had stopped then the weather would have been pretty good. Generally, not all of these desirable changes happened at the same time. In spite of these problems, the results of the drilling were encouraging and, although the final evaluation of the material collected will not occur for a number of years, the primary objectives of the project were achieved.

The Cypress Hills, Alberta hole was sited to obtain the thickest amount of Ravenscrag Formation possible in Alberta. The site was also relatively close to the Eagle Butte structure, a small scale impact structure. Core was recovered from the Ravenscrag, Frenchman, Battle and Whitemud formations. New information on the nature of the upper two formations are assured from the material collected.

The Turtle Mountain, Manitoba hole commenced in the Turtle Mountain Formation and was completed in the Odonah Member of the Riding Mountain Formation. Again, the material will provide new information about the drilled formations not currently available from outcrops or other cores. The hole in the Wood Mountain area of Saskatchewan commenced drilling in the Ravenscrag Formation and coring was terminated in the Bearpaw Formation. Both the Turtle Mountain and Wood Mountain cores were drilled to a depth of 250 m and a casing installed so the holes may be used for temperature surveys over the next few years to see how climate across the prairie provinces is changing. The short cores were taken in the Wood Mountain Creek area of Saskatchewan and at the Frenchman River south of Shaunavon, Saskatchewan. The sites were selected to try and obtain unweathered Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary clay material close to well-known boundary claystone localities. Unfortunately, the Frenchman River corehole cut through a previously unseen channel that had removed the boundary interval.

Palynological studies of the material will begin immediately so that a biostratigraphical framework can be established for the cored intervals. Future geological and geochemical studies will be carried out utilizing the path-finding palynological determinations. It is apparent even at this early stage that a lot of new information was obtained with the cores collected during this endeavour.

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  This article first appeared in CAP Newsletter 15(2):17-18, 1992.