The Canadian Rockies are famous for their outstanding scenery, and also for the associated oil and gas production in the foothills and eastern plains. Outcrops ranging from Devonian to Quaternary, stretching from 400 million years to less than a million years, provide analogs to many producing formations. Most of our knowledge regarding the Triassic Montney Formation has been garnered in the subsurface, but there are excellent age-equivalent outcrops, such as the Sulphur Mountain Formation, which provide valuable data and discussion points.

The Montney Formation occurs over a wide area, and may reach 360 m in thickness. It is dominated by silt grade sediment, with relatively low total organic carbon values. It was deposited primarily as a series of prograding clinoforms, with deposition influenced by underlying reefal deposits and older structures. Facies in the subsurface range from upper shoreface sandstones, through lower shoreface hummocky cross-stratified sandstones and coarse siltstones, to finely laminated lower shoreface sandstone and offshore siltstone beds, as well as turbidites. There are also coquinas in updip eastern settings. Equivalent deposits related to many of these depositional settings can be observed in the Sulphur Mountain Formation in outcrops in Canmore and Kananaskis. The rocks display a wide variety of sedimentary structures and a suite of body and trace fossils, and provide a valuable window into the subsurface, with the outcropping facies acting as direct analogs to those seen in Montney cores.