A mine. In a National Park. Inside a mountain. Not what you would expect but for over sixty years, zinc and lead where mined from within Mount Stephen and Mount Field in Yoho National Park. These mines were the only successful metal mines in the Canadian Rockies. Railway construction workers chanced upon lead-zinc ore in the […]
A spectacular submarine cliff over 100 metres high – the Cathedral Escarpment- marked the front of the algal limestones of the Cathedral Formation. The Cathedral Escarpment was initially thought to be a product of prolific algal growth and sediment accumulation during a period of sea level rise. A re-interpretation suggested that the escarpment is the
The Geology of the Burgess Shale (Part 3): The Cathedral Escarpment Read More »
The picture above features fossil ridge, situated behind and to the right of the hikers; as well as, Mt Wapta, situated behind and slightly to the left of the hikers. The former is where the Walcott Quarry is located. Below we describe why fossil ridge and Mount Wapta have mudstone (shale) rocks lower down on the
The Geology of the Burgess Shale (Part 2): What Rocks Tell Us About Life Read More »
Yoho National Park was established In 1886, as Canada’s second national park. This occurred only twenty eight years after the first European, James Hector, laid eyes on the area. The tiny Yoho National Park encompassed only 26 square kilometres at the base of Mount Stephen. The park was subsequently expanded four more times before the
The History of Yoho National Park and the Discovery of the Burgess Shale Read More »