GEOTOUR GUIDE - City of Kamloops

hoW did all These GeoloGiCal maTerials form?
a quick tOur thrOugh geOlOgic time.
How old is Kamloops? Well, European settlement of the Kamloops area goes back to the mid 1800s. However, First Nations
settlement in the region is much older and likely goes back several thousand years. But the land itself is much, much, much older.
What follows is a brief summary of the geological history that geologists have pieced together for the Kamloops region.
a BooK WiTh mosT paGes missinG
Imagine the analogy of viewing the Earth as a story book, or more accurately, a library of books. In its many pages are recorded,
in rock and fossil, the Earth’s history. Each volcanic eruption, each flood deposit, each slow burial of mud and animal and plant
remains on the seafloor is another page. Each region on Earth is a separate book, recording the history of that place. However,
when geologists try to read the story we find that most of the pages are missing. Only a few pages remain. Why? Erosion is the
answer. Erosion is continually removing geological materials and the records they contain. Few geological materials escape
erosion. Today, most of British Columbia is eroding, bit by bit, by river scour, glacier grind, rock fall, and land slide. We lose
“pages” every year. Geologists work with the remaining scraps of the story to piece together the geological history of a place
such as Kamloops.
Figure 5. The geological history of the Kamloops region is presented as a clock. Each ancient geological
event is recorded in a geological material and the fossils that it contains. Much ancient history has been
destroyed by erosion of the geological materials over geological time, leaving many gaps in the history.
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