The northern Alaska potential petroleum province comprises the Mesozoic Colville geosyncline in the foothills of the Brooks Range and the ancient Arctic platform on the present coast, a total onshore area of about 70,000 sq mi (181,300 sq km). Depths to pre-Mississippian basement rocks range from less than 3,000 ft (914 m) on the platform to more than 20,000 ft (6,096 m) in the southern part of the geosyncline.

The Arctic platform was uplifted in Devonian time, when it was one of the sources of the thick wedge of Upper Devonian clastic beds deposited on the site of the present Brooks Range. The platform persisted into the Mesozoic as a relatively stable source area which was onlapped by Mississippian and Pennsylvanian carbonate beds and Permian to lowest Cretaceous clastic beds from the ancient Arctic Alaska basin on the south. The platform facies probably contains the most favorable Mississippian to Jurassic reservoir rocks; these include an average total of about 500 ft (152 m) of sandstone and 1,000 ft (305 m) of limestone and dolomite at depths less than 15,000 ft (4,572 m) within an onshore area of about 20,000 sq mi (51,800 sq km). This Mississippian to Jurassic platform facies grades outhward into basinal source rocks that have an average thickness of about 6,000 ft (1,830 m). The platform "basement" itself locally may include pre-Mississippian dolomite reservoir rocks.

Cretaceous rocks in the Colville geosyncline, derived from a late Mesozoic orogenic belt in the Brooks Range, are mostly nonprospective graywacke and shale in a narrow disturbed belt along the front of the range. Molasse deposits of marine subgraywacke and shale that grade upward and southward into nonmarine rocks fill the rest of the geosyncline. They comprise about 9,000 ft (2,740 m) of shale and sandstone deposited during an Early Cretaceous regressive cycle and as much as 6,000 ft (1,830 m) deposited in a Late Cretaceous regression after an erosional interval. Lower Cretaceous sandstone beds have an average aggregate thickness of 750 ft (229 m) in an area of 46,000 sq mi (119,140 sq km). The best known Lower Cretaceous reservoirs are in the area of predominantly marine sandstone; owever, migration of generally northwest-trending shorelines across the entire area during Early Cretaceous time enhances the overall petroleum potential. Sandstone beds in the Upper Cretaceous have an aggregate thickness of about 750 ft (229 m) in an area of 20,000 sq mi (51,800 sq km) in the eastern part of the geosyncline, and are locally very porous and permeable. Black marine shale at the base of the Upper Cretaceous regressive strata is a probable source for oil and gas, both in the overlying sandstone and in the unconformably underlying Lower Cretaceous sandstone.

Poorly known nonmarine Tertiary rocks that cover about 7,500 sq mi (19,425 sq km) in the northeast part of the geosyncline are more than 2,000 ft (610 m) thick and resemble the nonmarine Upper Cretaceous rocks. Both the Tertiary and the Upper Cretaceous probably thicken offshore above unconformities.