The Co-ords will bring you to a parking/rest area with bathroom facilities, garbage containers and a phenomenal view!
Welcome to Mount Kerkeslin! Have an eye, you may see some mountain goats!
Mount Kerkeslin is a 2956 meter (9698 feet) mountain summit located in the Athabasca River valley of Jasper National Park, in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta, Canada. It is the highest peak of the Maligne Range. It is located in the South part of the Maligne Range, East of the Icefields Parkway and is clearly visible from the Athabasca Falls Lookout.
Mount Kerkeslin is composed of sedimentary rock laid down during the Cambrian period and pushed east and over the top of younger rock during the Laramide Orogeny.
THE CAMBRIAN PERIOD
The Cambrian Period was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 55.6 million years from the end of the preceding Eciacaran Period 541 million years ago (mya) to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya. Its subdivisions, and its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established as "Cambrian series" by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name for 'Cymru' (Wales), where Britain's Cambrian rocks are best exposed. Sedgwick identified the layer as part of his task, along with Roderick Murchinson, to subdivide the large "Transition Series", although the two geologists disagreed for a while on the appropriate categorization. The Cambrian is unique in its unusually high proportion of lagerstatte sedimentary deposits, sites of exceptional preservation where "soft" parts of organisms are preserved as well as their more resistant shells. As a result, our understanding of the Cambrian biology surpasses that of some later periods.
The Cambrian marked a profound change in life on Earth; prior to the Cambrian, the majority of living organisms on the whole were small, unicellular and simple; the Precambrian Charnia being exceptional. Complex, multicellular organisms gradually became more common in the millions of years immediately preceding the Cambrian, but it was not until this period that mineralized—hence readily fossilized—organisms became common. The rapid diversification of life forms in the Cambrian, known as the Cambrian Explosion, produced the first representatives of all modern animal phyla. Phylogenetic analysis has supported the view that during the Cambrian radiation, metazoa (anamils) evolved monophyletically from a single common ancestor: flagellated colonial protists similar to modern choanoflagellates.
Although diverse life forms prospered in the oceans, the land is thought to have been comparatively barren—with nothing more complex than a microbial soil crust and a few molluscs that emerged to browse on the microbial biofilm. Most of the continents were probably dry and rocky due to a lack of vegetation. Shallow seas flanked the margins of several continents created during the breakup of the supercontinental Pannotia. The seas were relatively warm, and polar ice was absent for much of the period.
THE LARAMIDE OROGENY
The Laramide Orogeny was a time period of mountain building in western North America, which started in the Late Cretaceous Period, 70 to 80 million years ago, and ended 35 to 55 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the orogeny are in dispute. The Laramide orogeny occurred in a series of pulses, with quiescent phases intervening. The major feature that was created by this orogeny was deep-seated, thick-skinned deformation, with evidence of this orogeny found from Canada to northern Mexico, with the easternmost extent of the mountain-building represented by the Black Hills of South Dakota. The phenomenon is named for the Laramie Mountains of eastern Wyoming. The Laramide orogeny is sometimes confused with the Sevier Orogeny, which partially overlapped in time and space.
The Laramide orogeny was caused by subduction of a plate at a shallow angle.The orogeny is commonly attributed to events off the west coast of North America, where the Kula and Farallon Plates were sliding under the North American Plate. Most hypotheses propose that oceanic crust was undergoing flat-slab subduction, i.e., with a shallow subduction angle, and as a consequence, no magmatism occurred in the central west of the continent, and the underlying oceanic lithosphere actually caused drag on the root of the overlying continental lithosphere. One cause for shallow subduction may have been an increased rate of plate convergence. Another proposed cause was subduction of thickened oceanic crust.
Magmatism associated with subduction occurred not near the plate edges (as in the volcanic arc of the Andes, for example), but far to the east, called the Coast Range Arc. Geologists call such a lack of volcanic activity near a subduction zone a magmatic gap. This particular gap may have occurred because the subducted slab was in contact with relatively cool continental lithosphere, not hotter asthenosphere. One result of shallow angle of subduction and the drag that it caused was a broad belt of mountains, some of which were the progenitors of the Rocky Mountains. Part of the proto-Rocky Mountains would be later modified by extension to become the Basin and Range Province.
The Mountain was named in 1859 by James Hector during the Palliser expedition, but the source of the name is not known.
Based on the Koppen Climate Classification, Mount Kerkeslin is located in a subarctic climate with cold, snowy winters and mild summers. Temperatures can drop below -20C with windchill factors below -40C. Percipitation runoff and spring melt from Mount Kerkeslin drains into the Athabasca River.
To log this Earthcache, answer these questions and send me the answers:
1) What is the height of Mount Kerkeslin? (in Meters or Feet)
2) How many years did the Cambrian Period last?
3) What events are commonly attributed to The Laramide Orogeny off the West Coast of North America?
4) Who named Mount Kerkeslin?
5) What was the name of the expedition they were on when Mount Kerkeslin was named?
6) What is the rapid diversification of life forms during the Cambrian Period also known as?
7) How many years ago did the Laramide Orogeny end?
8) What evidence can you see to support the theory that Mount Kerkeslin was formed by a shallow angle subduction?
A picture or "selfie" of you, your party and your GPS's would be great but not mandatory.
Enjoy the scenery, safe travels, and Happy Caching!!!