INTRODUCTION

The Cretaceous strata of the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, Canada, are well known for their rich molluscan faunas (e.g., Whiteaves 1876, 1884, 1900; McLearn 1972; Jeletzky 1977; Haggart 1986), which have served as the standard Cretaceous biostratigraphic reference tool for the region. As these molluscan faunas are primarily restricted to coarser clastic nearshore facies, the regional biostratigraphic control for deeper marine, offshore facies is poor. Preliminary biostratigraphic research on the Cretaceous offshore facies has been carried out utilizing radiolarians (Haggart and Carter 1993; Carter and Haggart 2006) and nannofossils (Haggart et al. 1994). Although some research has been carried out on well preserved Jurassic foraminiferal faunas in the region (e.g., Kottachchi et al. 2002, 2003) little work has been conducted on Cretaceous foraminifera.

Geological Survey of Canada field parties collected the sedimentary rock samples used for this foraminiferal study from throughout the Queen Charlotte Islands (Figure 1). We subsequently undertook a micropaleontological survey of the foraminifera from a subset of these samples to determine their faunal content and to establish a foraminiferal biostratigraphic framework, which dated the studies sections as Albian-Cenomanian in age (Dalby et al. 2009). As the Cretaceous foraminifera of this large area are virtually unknown, the purpose of the research presented here is to fully document the foraminiferal fauna identified in these samples, which will provide baseline data for use by future researchers to interpret foraminiferal fossil assemblages in Albian and Cenomanian aged sediments from the Queen Charlotte Islands and elsewhere along the Pacific Northwest coast.