This GIS dataset is part of a digital compilation of the bedrock geology of Alberta. It is one of the datasets used to produce Alberta Geological Survey (AGS) Map 600.
This dataset contains
1) geological units that are represented by lines because they are too narrow to represent as polygons at 1:1 000 000 scale;
2) stratigraphic terminology boundaries that represent the approximate locations of where the names applied to intervals of strata change. These commonly correspond to lateral facies changes, which are gradational.
The data were created in geodatabase format and output for public distribution in shapefile format.
AGS Open File Report 2013-02 presents additional information on data sources related to this dataset.
To produce this dataset we combined digital versions of 117 existing and several newly mapped areas into an Alberta-wide GIS dataset. We processed the data as follows:
1. Collected and assessed input data. This involved collecting datasets from various sources, assessing quality, and standardizing the attribute table in the ArcGIS environment. When necessary, we corrected datasets that were digitized by third parties.
2. Created a standard provincial schema to house selected original and new map attributes.
3. Merged input data into one seamless layer, edge-matched the boundaries.
4. Generalized the original polygon features dataset by converting narrow polygons not applicable to the 1 000 000-scale map into line features.
5. Ran a topology check on the entire dataset to ensure no gaps or overlaps were present.