IGC Field Excursion C-03 in Southeast British Columbia, Early September, 1972
2022 Anniversaries in the History of Canadian Science and Technology: The Excursions of the 1972 Montréal International Geological Congress (IGC)
First posted Tuesday, September 6, 2022 / Yom shlishi, 10 Elul, 5782
By David Orenstein, Emeritus, Danforth CTI
david.orenstein@alumni.utoronto.ca
IGC Field Excursion C-03 in Southeast British Columbia, Early September, 1972.
2022 Anniversaries in the History of Canadian Science and Technology:
The Excursions of the 1972 Montréal International Geological Congress (IGC).
First posted Tuesday, September 6, 2022 / Yom shlishi, 10 Elul, 5782.
By David Orenstein, Emeritus, Danforth CTI
david.orenstein@alumni.utoronto.ca
On Wednesday, September 6, 1972, exactly fifty years ago, our C-03 excursionists woke up in, Nelson, British Columbia,
On Saturday, September 2, four days previously, in Kimberley, also British Columbia, they had watched the first game of the 1972 Canada-USSR Hockey Series from the Montréal Forum, which the Soviet Union had won 7-3.
From my last blog post to this one, their itinerary was:
Day 4 Sun. Sept. 3, 1972: Kimberley, B.C., to Cranbrook to Creston
On Day 4, the excursion “crosse[d] the Purcell Mountains from the Rocky Mountain Trench to the Purcell Trench”, following the Moyle River, and under the leadership of Cominco’s H.C. Morris.
The rocks were the Proterozoic Purcell Group… “a basin-filling sequence… deep water turbidites, … [then shallower] sandstones and mudstones and [finally]… argillaceous, silty and calcareous rocks… includ[ing] stromatolitic and reefal units.
“In late Proterozoic time the Purcell Group was uplifted and folded into a north-plunging anticlinorium… [with the intrusion] of extensive sheets of gabbro and quartz gabbro….”
At Stop 4:1, at the Sullivan Mine, in Kimberley, there was a dump of the argillite and greywacke excavated from the mine and a view of the Rocky Mountain Trench, there 19 mi./30 km wide. The Trench extended to the North 25 mi or 40 km. To the South, but in a southeasterly direction 31 mi or 50 km, to the town of Elko.
Then, the 30 explorers went southeast to Cranbrook, at Mile 20.2 or Kilometre 32.5 km, and there turning southwest and into the Purcell Mountains.
At Stop 4:2 (28.5 mi/45.8 km) at Lumberton Junction, you could see the “[f]lat-lying greywackes, siltstones, and argillites of the lower Proterozoic Aldridge Formation… in low cliffs along the highway.” They “showed grading, lamination, convoluted bedding, flame structures and cross lamination.” This formation was “intruded by … [a] Moyle gabbro sill.”
They followed “the Moyle River southeast to… Stop 4:3”, (34.5 mi/55.5 km) with the Kitchener Formation with its good exposures of “[g]rey, white and buff-coloured mudstones, calcareous mudstones and limestones…. [T]the calcite-filled fractures lead to a… ‘molar tooth’ structure….” Shallow-water indicators were common.
The Creston Formation on Moyle Lake was the highlight of Stop 4:4 (35.8 mi/57.5 km), with roadcuts and boulders displaying “[g]reen, purple and white sandstones, sandy shales and shales.” There were ripple-marks, crossbedding, and fracture-filled mud-cracks. The formation totalled 6,500 feet thick (2 km), with gradual transitions to the formations above and below.
Jim Monger recalls that, that “night… we stayed in the town of Creston. On arrival and before supper on [the pre-Congress Excursion] A03 we took any participants who wished to go, swimming in Kootenay Lake, north of Creston. We did the same thing on C03 but unfortunately for me the lake level had dropped. I managed to partly scalp myself by hitting my head on a rock and wound up in emergency in Creston hospital. Fortunately, suitably bandaged, I was able to rejoin the trip two days later.
“In 1984 I attended the IGC in Moscow and met many of the Russians who participated in C0 3. Their first question to me was ‘How is your head?’ ”
Day 5 Mon. Sept. 4, 1972: Creston, B.C., to USA / Canada Border to Nelson
{Correction starts:}J.T. (Jim) Fyles {Correction ends}led the excursion both this day and the next through the Selkirk and Monashee Mountains. {Update starts:} Fyles “worked for what is now called the B.C. Geological Survey and ended his career (I think) as a Deputy Minister. His brother, John Fyles, was a Quaternary geologist who became Chief Geologist of the GSC. These corrections and updates are thanks to Jim Monger. {Update ends}
That night it was Game Two of the Hockey Series. Result: 4-1 for Canada, at Maple leaf Gardens.
Day 6 Tues. Sept. 5, 1972: Nelson, B.C., to Kaslo, and return to Nelson
On this day, the excursion “crosse[d] the southern part of the Nelson batholith, ….[whose] western contact along Sloan Lake [was] a fault which separates [it] from schist and gneiss of the Shuswap Metamorphic complex.
“The Nelson batholith typically [was] composed of porphyritic, medium-grained rocks with phenocrysts of potash feldspar commonly up to 2 inches (5 cm) long.”
Day 7, Wed. Sept. 6, 1972: Nelson, B.C., to Grand Forks to Osoyoos
On today’s date, fifty years ago, both Jim Monger himself, and Vic Preto, the excursion organisers were leading Excursion C-03 through the Monashee Mountains and Interior Plateau.
Also on that date, Canada tied the Soviet Union, 4-4, at the Winnipeg Arena
Stop 7:4 (78.5 mi/125.5 km) was the Grand Forks Lookout, “a few hundred yards north of the International Boundary, [with] a good view east along the Kettle River and…north along the Granby River.” It was just “west of the Granby River Fault, … the western boundary of the Grand Forks horst of metamorphic rocks.”
According to Jim Monger, “Later on in the trip we passed through the town of Grand Forks (Vic had done his Ph.D. thesis at McGill on the Grand Forks Gneiss). Just west of Grand Forks the route passes very close to the Canada-US border, which then was marked only by a low farm fence separating fields. Lots of Russian cameras were in action.”
Stop 7:7 (147.3 mi/235.7) was another Lookout, at Anarchist Mountain. Was the Mountain named in honour of the great Anarchist leader, the Russian Prince, Peter Kropotkin? Kropotkin had been this way in September 1897, on the geologists’ excursion after the 1897 Toronto Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS).
That was 125 years ago, and also 75 years before the 1972 IGC Excursion C-03.
But that’s another story!
Bibliography
J.W.H. Monger and V.A Preto with several others (1972),
Field Excursion A03 – C03: Geology of the Southern Canadian Cordillera, Guidebook., 24th IGC, Ottawa. (iv) + 87 pp. incl. 5 pp. ref.
+ 6 foldout maps and cross-sections + 1 separate map sheet.
– Day 4, H.C. Morris (1972) “Purcell Mountains” in Field Excursion A03 – C03: Geology of the Southern Canadian Cordillera, Guidebook, pp. 27-30.
– Days 5 &6, J.T. Fyles (1972) “Selkirk and Monashee Mountains” in Field Excursion A03 – C03: Geology of the Southern Canadian Cordillera, Guidebook, pp. 31-41.
– Day 7, V.A. Preto and J.W.H. Monger (1972) “Monashee Mountains and Interior Plateau” in Field Excursion A03 – C03: Geology of the Southern Canadian Cordillera, Guidebook, pp. 41-49.
Links
CSTHA Blog Posts for the 1972 Montréal IGC Field Excursions:
Excursion C-03, Day 1-3, September 2, 2022.
https://cstha-ahstc.ca/2022/09/02/1972-igc-field-excursion-c-03-pt-2/
Excursion C-03, Day 0, August 30, 2022.
https://cstha-ahstc.ca/2022/08/30/1972-field-excursion-c-03/
Commencement of Excursion AX-01, July 22, 2022.
Survey of 1972 Montréal IGC Field Excursions, July 1, 2022
https://cstha-ahstc.ca/2022/07/01/happy-canada-day-joyeux-fete-du-canada-2022/
1972 IGC Congress Circulars, incl. Excursion Announcements, June 24, 2022.
https://cstha-ahstc.ca/2022/06/24/the-3-circulars-of-the-1972-igc-in-montreal/