Group seeks to mark Ottawa’s geological sites

Looking to develop public awareness of earth sciences, a group of 25 geoscientists, including three past directors of the Geological Survey of Canada, has started a project to catalogue and preserve impressive geological features in the Ottawa and Gatineau regions of eastern Ontario and western Quebec.

The effort, called the Ottawa-Gatineau Geoheritage Project, is headed by Al Donaldson of Carleton University, Don Hogarth of the University of Ottawa, and retired Geological Survey scientists Denis St-Onge and Hal Steacy. They are identifying significant geological features worthy of being designated as Geoheritage Sites.

They have received support from the Department of Natural Resources, which will soon release a poster titled Geoscape Ottawa/Gatineau, aimed at students but also available to tourists and the general public. As a complement to the poster, the project’s supporters hope to see new signage and guidebooks locating and describing key geological features in the region. (Another 15 projects are in various stages of production across the country, offering similar opportunities in other regions.)

The Geological Association of Canada has expressed interest in supporting the publication of an updated guidebook to the geology of the National Capital Region, and the National Capital Commission (the Crown corporation that manages lands owned by the national government in the Ottawa region) has indicated it may expand its program of educational signage and descriptive brochures. The National Capital Commision (NCC) already maintains descriptive panels at Champlain Lookout, describing how the Grenvillian mountains, possibly rivaling the Himalayas, existed there more than 1 billion years ago and were gradually worn down by erosion before the onset of the recent Ice Age.

NCC officials have also taken favourable note of the committee’s suggestion for signs near a popular NCC bike path, on the Gatineau side of the river, where a 450-million-year-old Ordovician limestone bed, exposed by unusually low water in the Ottawa River this past summer, provides a spectacular view of stromatolites.

The committee is considering other sites, including an exposure of the unconformity between Precambrian and Paleozoic rocks, an occurrence of post-Grenvillian volcanic rocks, Ordovician strata rich in corals and other fossils, folded and faulted strata at Hog’s Back Falls, glacially polished metamorphic rocks beneath glacial till and sand outwash, and a major landslide area within post-glacial deposits of Leda clay.

In view of the current resurgence of public interest in things geological, success of the Ottawa/Gatineau Geoheritage Project should serve to advance interest in a science that builds on all other sciences.

Anyone interested in contributing to the effort may contact Al Donaldson at: Dept. of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ont. K1S 5B6. E-mail: jadonald@ccs.carleton.ca. Phone: (613) 225-6427.