NTGO Information Update
Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Northwest Territories Geoscience Office (NTGO) and Yukon Geological Survey (YGS) are pleased to announce the release of NWT Open File 2009-02 and YGS Open File 2009-25:

Regional Geoscience Studies and Petroleum Potential, Peel Plateau and Plain, Northwest Territories and Yukon: Project Volume edited by Leanne J. Pyle and Adrienne L. Jones.

This 10-chapter volume summarizes the findings of the 2005-2009 Peel Petroleum Project Research Team and is a collaboration among NTGO, YGS, Geological Survey of Canada, universities, and industry.

In addition, NTGO announces the release of the following:

Pierce, K.L. and Jones, A.L. (compilers), 2009. ArcGIS®9.x Digital Atlas to accompany Regional Geoscience Studies and Petroleum Potential, Peel Plateau and Plain, Northwest Territories and Yukon: Project Volume; Northwest Territories Geoscience Office, NWT Open File 2009-03. Digital files.

Both products are now released through the NTGO Gateway web portal. Simply click on the Gateway button at the NTGO website here, then click on Newest NTGO Publications. A process that allows existing users to log-in, and new users to set up a Gateway account, will occur at the time of the download request. Gateway downloads are free of charge.

Project Description: Peel Plateau and Plain (Peel area), a prospective petroleum area in the Northwest Territories and Yukon, lies south of Beaufort Sea-Mackenzie Delta, north of the Mackenzie Mountains, and east of the Richardson Mountains. The eastern limit of Peel Plain parallels the route of the proposed Mackenzie Gas Project natural gas pipeline, which could provide infrastructure for potential new gas discoveries in the area. A total of 74 exploratory wells have been drilled in Peel area. None of these wells have been productive, but there have been several encouraging petroleum shows, as well as gas seeps, oil stained outcrops, and bitumen occurrences. The project volume presents results of a four year project (2005-2009), Regional Geoscience Studies and Petroleum Potential, Peel Plateau and Plain (Peel Project), including improved knowledge of the Phanerozoic stratigraphic succession and geological data from petroleum systems that are potentially important in Peel area. The project has yielded 90 publications, including this volume and accompanying digital atlas, interim reports, conference abstracts and workshop proceedings documents. The result is a publicly available, comprehensive body of geoscience work for Peel area of use in oil and gas exploration and resource development, as well as in regional land use and business planning endeavours.

This volume is accompanied by a digital atlas (NWT Open File 2009-03) that contains Geographic Information System-ready files which encompass all of the spatial data associated with the project research. These data include: field and core photographs, interpreted seismic profiles, core and measured section descriptions, geochemical analyses, isopach and structural maps, and other pertinent data linked to a spatial database of wells, seismic tracklines, and field-based locations.

About NTGO: The Northwest Territories Geoscience Office is a federal-territorial partnership between Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment. It advances geological knowledge of the Northwest Territories for the benefit of Northerners and all Canadians.

For a listing of our recently released publications, click here.