St. Davids Buried Gorge Earthcache EarthCache
St. Davids Buried Gorge Earthcache
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Parking can be located at the following co-ords:
N43 07.495 W79 04.526
St. David's Buried Gorge was a channel for an ancient river which existed before the advance of the third Wisconsin Glacier. It is believed that this gorge was buried in glacial silt during the retreat of this glacier 12,000 years ago and never reopened.
When the Falls of Niagara eroded the gorge back to the present day Thompson Point (where the Spanish Aero Car and the Whirlpool is located), the river found erosion of the rock much easier.
The Niagara River broke through a rock barrier which held back glacial debris which had been previously filled into what was the ancient gorge of the St. David's River. The waters of the Niagara River quickly flushed this area of all the glacial debris (what is today the Whirlpool) and changed direction to follow the ancient gorge a short distance in a southward direction.
It is believed that the Whirlpool Rapids Gorge which extended southward to the present Michigan Central Railroad Bridge, had also been carved from the rock from the ancient St. David's River which was also responsible for the carving out of the now filled in St. David's buried gorge.
The ancient Whirlpool Rapids gorge was 38 meters (125 feet) wide. During the advance of the late Wisconsin Glacier the ancient Whirlpool gorge and the St. David's gorge were filled with glacial debris.
At one moment in time, the ancient river did not make a dog leg turn at the Whirlpool but rather followed a relative straight line via the St. David's Gorge through the present Village of St. David's to the shore of Lake Iroquois (Lake Ontario).
The St. David's buried gorge existed 22,800 years ago. It was a small portion of an ancient drainage system which extended the width of the Niagara Peninsula from Low Banks at Lake Warren (Lake Erie) to St. Catharines at Lake Iroquois (Lake Ontario).
The St. David's Buried Gorge was found to be 1219 meters (4000 feet) long and 305 meters (1000 feet ) wide at the Whirlpool. The gorge was 91 meters (300 feet) deep. This gorge was 200 feet (60 meters) deeper that the current floor of Lake Ontario. The gorge extends into Lake Ontario 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) west of the present Niagara River.
When Ontario Hydro was building the intake water tunnels to feed the Sir Adam Beck Hydro-Electric power plant, it was forced to bring the tunnels to the surface while crossing the St. David's Buried Gorge because they could not bore into the glacial debris. Instead they had to build concrete flumes on each side of this crossing to prevent water from being siphoned away through the buried gorge.
In 1998, the Niagara Parks Commission remodeled a portion of the Niagara Parks Golf Course nearest Whirlpool Road. This project consisted of the removal of the second hole and the installation of a large pond. This area of the golf course was built on top of an area of the St. David's Buried Gorge known as Bowman's Ravine. In 1903, the ravine was used by the Canadian Niagara Power Company as a dumping area for rock debris taken from the wheel-pit excavation.
When the unlined pond which when filled with water, the water immediately leached away into the glacial debris of the buried gorge. This pond needed to be fitted with a liner to hold the water within the confines of the pond.
In order to log this cache you must go to the specified co-ords and answer two questions and please email me your answers. DO NOT INCLUDE THE ANSWERS IN YOUR ONLINE LOG!
1. How far west does the Buried Gorge extend?
2. What manmade object is buried nearby?
Thanks goes out to Geoaware for helping me list, this my first earthcache.
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