Red Rock Canyon, Waterton National Park, Alberta

If you follow my posts, you will know that most of my photography is focused on wildlife, mostly birds and insects.  However, one of my favourite areas of photography is doing landscapes.  I have always been fascinated by geomorphology - the shaping of the earth through weathering, erosion, and tectonic processes.  Red rock canyon in Waterton National Park certainly had that kind of appeal for me.  It was a place that I relished visiting.

The rock in Red Rock is red - a moniker fitting for the environment - and is made mostly of very old sedimentary deposits called argillite.  Argillite is basically a type of shale.  Its red and light green colours come from the presence of iron - oxidized in the red form and unoxidized in the green.  Like most sedimentary rock, it was laid down as particulates at the bottom of what used to be a sea until uplift occurred creating what we know today as the Rockies.

The bands were once horizontal, flat layers but have been distorted by the collision of different crustal plates forcing the once ocean bottom upwards.  There is excellent information with greater detail at the Waterton Park webpage on geomorphology.  You can find it here.

We quite enjoyed our visit to Waterton.  There were several highlights of the trip; Red Rock Canyon was one and there were numerous opportunities to see and photograph wildlife.  I spent  some time wandering along the bottom of the canyon with my cameras and got some very nice photos.  

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com