Regional stratigraphic framework of the Lisburne Group of ANWR

The Carboniferous Lisburne Group, a major carbonate platform succession, is widely exposed in the Brooks Range and forms an extensive hydrocarbon target in the subsurface of the North Slope of Alaska. Gradationally beneath carbonates of the Lisburne Group, terrigenous sediments of the Mississippian Endicott Group (conglomerate and sandstone of the Kekiktuk Formation overlain by the Kayak Shale) were derived from local and northern (Ellesmerian) source areas. Locally, at the Endicott-Lisburne transition, sandy limestones of the Itkilyariak Formation record another phase of siliciclastic influx that lies above and/or is a lateral equivalent of the Kayak Shale and Lisburne Group in areas adjacent to paleotopographic highs. This siliciclastic to carbonate transition represents a major transgressive succession that onlaps northward over the sub-Mississippian unconformity, a regional angular unconformity and sequence boundary in northern Alaska. The age and nature of onlap depend upon the paleotopography of the underlying sub-Mississippian rocks and regional passive margin subsidence. The Lisburne Group is a thick succession of carbonate rocks subdivided into the Alapah Limestone and overlying Wahoo Limestone, both having informal members.