The geology of Alberta encompasses parts of the Canadian Rockies and thick sedimentary sequences, bearing coal, oil and natural gas, atop complex Precambrian crystalline basement rock.
The Precambrian granite and gneiss crystalline basement rocks beneath Alberta are extremely ancient, dating to the Archean and Proterozoic.
Carbonate deposition common in the Paleozoic ended during the Jurassic as the North American continent moved westward with the opening of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Guichon Batholith emplaced 200 million years ago, near Ashcroft, British Columbia and was accompanied by a period of erosion that wore away Devonian, Mississippian and Triassic strata from east to west.
The Late Jurassic Morrison Formation, known for its stockpiles of dinosaur bones formed as uplift in the Black Hills of western South Dakota shed sediments into Alberta.