Heavy Oil Migration System in Western Canada Sedimentary Basin

Heavy Oil Migration System is a GIS dataset of line features representing petroleum migration pathways. It was created by the Alberta Geological Survey from mid-1990s digital files, edited and attributed in 2005-06, and published by the Government of Alberta. The data is part of the Geological Atlas documenting the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin's subsurface geology.

Use Cases

• Model petroleum migration pathways using the line feature geometry and attributes.
• Analyze the spatial relationship between heavy oil migration systems and other geological features from the Atlas.
• Integrate this migration system layer with other GIS data for basin-scale petroleum resource assessment.

Strengths

• Data is part of an authoritative reference volume, the Geological Atlas of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin.
• Shapefiles were consolidated and attributed into single files by feature type for consistency.

Limitations

• Original digital files were created in the mid-1990s, so the underlying data may be temporally stale.
• Specific row counts, column details, and spatial accuracy metrics are not provided.

Provenance

Source

Alberta Geological Survey, Government of Alberta.

Collection Method

Produced from archived digital files, then edited to correct, attribute, and consolidate into single shapefiles.

Time Range

Data creation in the mid-1990s, with edits in 2005-2006.

Freshness

Last updated on the platform in March 2026, though the core data is from the 1990s and 2005-06.

Geography

Western Canada Sedimentary Basin.