Gaspereau Valley a Hanging Valley EarthCache

Gaspereau Valley a Hanging Valley

Gaspereau is a Canadian rural community located in Kings County, Nova Scotia. It is located about 3 km south of the town of Wolfville on the Gaspereau River. The name "Gaspereau" is often used to refer to all of the communities along the 15 km Gaspereau Valley which include Gaspereau, Wallbrook, Melanson, Benjamin Bridge and White Rock.

An aerial view down the Gaspereau Valley taken by Ellis Gertridge circa 1996

The scenic Gaspereau Valley to the south and east lies in a syncline of more easily eroded sandstone and shale of the Horton Bluff Formation (early Carboniferous, about 340 million years). More slate and granite, the latter part of the South Mountain Batholith (Devonian), are on the high ground further south.

The long tongue of the Cornwallis Valley has been cut off to form the Gaspereau Valley.  If this fault had not occurred, the broader valley would have swept without a breakup to the base of the main table land beyond and the most charming part of scenery would never have occurred.  There are indications that this  movement taking place along this line of fracture is extremely slow. The Gaspereau Valley is even more ancient than the Carboniferous sandstones that rest in it.

Formation Of A Hanging Valley

Hanging valleys are formed as a result of the erosion effects of glaciation. The valleys are thought to have been formed by two different glacier flows that interact with each other. A glacier with the relatively small amount of material flows into the main glacier with the more glacial material. The main glacier with huge volumes of glacier material ultimately erodes away either through abrasion or plucking, with vertical erosion forming extremely steep valleys with vertical slopes, while lateral erosion is widening the valley walls. The hanging valleys formed in this way have U-shaped walls.

A hanging valley is a shallow valley carved by a small glacier and thus the elevation of the valley floor is "hanging" high above the elevation of the valley floor carved out by the larger glacier. 

The last two million years of Earth history, known as the Quaternary Period have been a wee bit chilly. The land masses of the northern Hemisphere have been periodically covered by large ice sheets. All of the Maritime Provinces were covered by kilometre-thick glaciers as recently as 20,000 years ago (or 20 ka for short).

To log this Earthcache visit the viewing location.  Please answer the following questions and send in a timely manner to my geocaching profile or email. Answers not received will result in deleted logs.

Questions:

1. Using your gps measure at ground zero?

1a. What is the shape and how wide is the valley at ground zero?

2. Using your gps measure the elevation at N45° 05.127' W64° 18.186'?

2a. What is the shape and how wide is the valley at this coordinate?

3. Calculate the drop of the valley using the differences between the elevations ?

4. Post a picture in your log with a personal item or hand in picture to prove you were there.

[REQUIRED] In accordance with the updated guidelines from Geocaching Headquarters published in June 2019, photos are now an acceptable logging requirement and WILL BE REQUIRED TO LOG THIS CACHE. Please provide a photo of yourself or a personal item in the picture to prove you visited the site.