Giant Current Ripples in Ontario's Bruce Peninsula |
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![]() Map of the area where these linear ridges occur, located a few
miles north of the town of Wiarton. In the upper right of the image,
linear ridges north of Berford Lake, and east of Highway 6, are
indicated by the wavy contour lines, that show patterns of ridges
aligned NW-SE. In the lower left of the image, west of Highway 6, and
crossed by the Red Bay road, contours outline several long, narrow
drumlins that are
oriented normal to the patterns of bedrock "ripples." The map is
courtesy of the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines CLAIMaps.
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In conventional geologic theory, these linear ridges of bedrock (or giant current ripples) are indentified as exhumed "bioherms", or reef-like structures of biologic origin, but geologic maps clearly show the patterns of ridges transect two different geologic formations, the Amabel and Guelph formations, suggesting they are erosional features. The Amabel and Guelph formations both consist of dolostone. The Amabel formation forms the steep cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment in the Bruce Peninsula. The bioherm interpretation of the patterns of linear bedrock ridges, although no doubt ingeneous, does not really explain their formation. It does not account for patterns of linear ridges resembling giant current ripples, or their orientation normal to drumlins that supposedly formed hundreds of millions of years later. Besides, there are problems when one attempts to explain how such ancient bioherms could have been exhumed, either by the hypothetical ice sheets, or by solution or weathering mechanisms acting over a vast time period. Click here to read a post discussing the bioherm interpretation. |
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![]() The limestones and dolostones of the Bruce Peninsula may have formed from reef derived materials, as the fossils present seem to indicate, but a more satisfactory interpretation of the linear ridges of bedrock is possible. An interpretation of these ridges as giant current ripples is consistent with the origin of drumlins by streamlining of partially unconsolidated sediment or rock by current action, followed by the process of disintegration. This concept was published as an appendix to my 1979 article, Drumlins and Diluvial Currents. It was proposed that the patterns of linear ridges in the Bruce Peninsula were eroded in partially unconsolidated carbonate sediments by transverse vortices which were developed in the currents that eroded drumlins a little downstream. The drumlins would represent the streamlining effects of longitudinal vortices in the currents. The currents were probably generated by differential crustal uplift centered in the Canadian Shield, northeast of Georgian Bay, that spilled the overlying waters to the southwest over the Bruce Peninsula. Only an environment of catastrophic erosion associated with crustal warping on a vast scale can explain all the deep lake basins associated with the Michigan Basin and the oriented erosional features, such as the various "re-entrant valleys" in the Niagara Escarpment, and drumlin fields. Crustal warping is also indicated by non-horizontal raised shorelines in the Great Lakes area. |
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See Also:
ReferencesArmstrong, D. K. (1993) Paleozoic Geology of the Central Bruce Peninsula. Ontario Geological Survey Open File Report 5856, Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, Toronto, Ontario.Armstrong, D. K. (1993) Paleozoic Geology of the Central Bruce Peninsula. Ontario Geological Survey Preliminary Map P. 3191, Scale:1:50,000. Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, Toronto, Ontario. Armstrong, D. K., and J. R. Meadows (1990) Stratigraphy and Depositional Environments of Niagaran Carbonates, Bruce Pennisula, Ontario. American association of Petroleum Geologists Eastern Section 1990 Annual Meeting Field Trip No. 2, London, Ontario. Ontario Petroleum Institute, London, Ontario. 59 pp. Cox, D. E., 1979. Drumlins and Diluvial Currents. Creation Research Society Quarterly, Volume 16(3):154-162. Smith, A. L., and J. A. Legault (1985) Preferred orientation of Middle Silurian Guelph-Amabel reefs of southern Ontario. Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, vol. 33, pp. 421-426. Related LinksThe Niagara Escarpment -- An Earth Chronicles EpisodeA picture of some giant current ripples in Montana Copyright © 1997-2005 by Douglas E. Cox
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