Geoheritage Park in Almonte, Septembr 11, 2016, with Dr. Allan Donaldson

A large group of Macnamarans were treated to a tour of the first municipal geoheritage park in Canada and we were fortunate to be led by one of its founders, Dr. Allan Donaldson. The specimens on display illustrate our community’s unique geoheritage. They include local sedimentary rocks of Ordivician age, about 500 to 450 million years ago, as well as both igneous and metamorphic rocks of Precambrian age, from about 2.5 to 1 billion years old. Here large rocks are on permanent display along a walkway near the river. Understanding them is to know about colliding continents, mountain building, changing ocean depths and glaciers covering the landscape.

After our walk through the park, we moved on to Pakenham where we searched for fossils in the limestone near the bridge. Here we found an excellent variety of different fossils dating from about 450 million years ago, some very large and well preserved.

Allan will be our speaker for the November meeting and we can look forward to learning more about our local geology from this excellent and enthusiastic educator!