Geoscape Grand River Ontario

Most of the readers of Wat On Earth will be unaware of a wildly successful Geological Survey of Canada initiative launched by the Vancouver Office and titled "Geoscape Vancouver". Bob Turner and John Clague were the prime movers, ably assisted by many others in the Vancouver Region. The product is a large, extremely colourful, wall poster suited for classroom use and public viewing that demonstrates different aspects of the geological and physiographical setting of Vancouver and its environs. Geoscape Vancouver is aimed squarely at the teachers of the lower mainland and the "splash effect" has attracted the attention of the media as well as the public (and more importantly) the politicians.

Geoscape Vancouver is backed up with slide sets, overheads and various teaching aids. For more information, visit our http://sts.gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/urban.htmwebsite.

The purpose of mentioning this item is not so much to alert you to its presence but rather to tell you where it is going from here. Because of the success of this public outreach venture the senior management of the Geological Survey have agreed to support a number of new "Geoscapes" for various parts of the country. Posters have been proposed for Victoria, Whitehorse, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec, Halifax and, on somewhat different scales for the Grand River Valley of Southern Ontario, Southern Saskatchewan and Nunavut.

Since many readers of Wat On Earth are scattered across Canada and perhaps reside in some of the areas mentioned above you should be aware of these local initiatives. Of course I also mention this because of some personal interests. Teachers in the K-W area who would like to contribute to the GEOSCAPE GRAND RIVER are asked to contact Alan Morgan and Peter Russell.

Preliminary developments on this poster have been largely through the gracious cooperation of the Grand River Conservation Authority who have amassed a large quantity of data over many years. Their main aim has been to standardise and digitise all the watershed data. As a result many different digital maps are already in existence. For example, the solid bedrock has been plotted using Ontario Geological Survey base maps. All the Quaternary deposits have been plotted, although the multiple till sequences will need to be simplified as to provenence and timing. There is (not surprisingly) data on floods, as well as maps on physiography, bedrock topography and aggregate resources. There are 3 dimensional potentiometric surfaces for groundwater. All major Quaternary landforms are plotted, and work is proceeding in a number of other areas. However, one really important aspect is to involve teachers in this work, so that developed modules can be of most use to their colleagues who will - under the new Ontario curriculum - have to explain Earth processes to their students.

This is a plea for help in this area!

Alan Morgan.