Cycles #1
by Kathy Bassett
Title
Cycles #1
Artist
Kathy Bassett
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
The Kamloops area is built on a mosaic of different geological materials, each with a unique age and story. One of the oldest materials is 270 million year old limestone that once was ancient seafloor . Fifty million years later, mudstone and volcanic rock that underlies much of Kamloops today was seafloor mud or volcanic islands in the ancestral Pacific Ocean. During this same period, melted rock rose rose beneath volcanoes to form the copper deposits at Afton and Highland ValleyThis seafloor and volcanic islands collided with the western edge of North America 180 million years ago (Jurassic age), as the Atlantic Ocean started to open and North America moved westwards against the seafloor and volcanic islands. This collision welded the mudstone and volcanic lavas to North America, adding to its landmass and causing its coastline to jump westwards. The collision caused mountains to rise as the lava and limestone was deformed into folds and broken by faults. For millions of
years erosion carved the mountains. Fifty million years ago, volcanoes erupted and blankets of volcanic ash and lava covered the land, forming the plateau country northwest of Kamloops. Forests and lakes filled the lowlands between volcanoes and their record is preserved at the McAbee fossil bed. Ancient rivers carved this landscape, forming the modern valleys of the Thompson Rivers. The ice sheets of the Ice Ages further carved these valleys, and rounded the plateau and mountains in the Kamloops region. Volcanoes in the Wells Gray Provincial Park area were active during and after the last Ice Age. As the glaciers melted, lakes formed where glaciers dammed valleys. Plants and animals re-colonized the land as the glaciers melted, and First Nations peoples followed, hunting game, foraging plants, and fishing for salmon. Euro-Canadian settlers came later, first as fur traders and prospectors, and later as farmers and ranchers, building the city that has become Kamloops.
Uploaded
December 17th, 2012
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