Cypress Hills Formation


The Cypress Hills Formation is a stratigraphical unit of Oligocene age in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.
It takes the name from the Cypress Hills, and was first described in outcrops on the slopes of the Cypress Hills by M.Y. Williams and W.S. Dyer in 1930. Type localities are found at Anxiety Butte in south-western Saskatchewan, as well as hill slopes in south-eastern Alberta.

Lithology

The Cypress Hills Formation is composed of loose quartzitic gravel and sand, occasionally conglomerate and marl.

Distribution

The Cypress Hills Formation reaches a maximum thickness of in the sub-surface in Saskatchewan, and is typically thick. It occurs in the elevated Cypress hills, as well as in several plateau remnants in south-eastern Saskatchewan, south of the Frenchman River.

Relationship to other units

The Cypress Hills Formation forms the present day erosional surface, or may be covered by Laurentian Drift and loess. It conformably overlays the Ravenscrag Formation.
It is equivalent to the Swift Current Creek Formation in southern Saskatchewan.