Elbow River escarpment

As the Elbow River winds its way through Calgary, it cuts steep cliffs into the loose, fine-grained sediment provided by glaciers and glacial lakes 10 000 to 25 000 years ago. Today, because of their steep and unconsolidated nature, many of these slopes are unstable and pose a risk to housing developments placed too close to them. Some of Calgary's more significant landslides have been caused by human activity, such as excessive lawn watering too close to the cliffs at the top, or excavation of the 'toe' of the slope at the bottom.

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Legend

	Holocene	Present - 10,000 years ago
	Quaternary	10,000 - 25,000 years ago
	Tertiary	25,000 - 65 million years ago
	Mesozoic	65 - 245 million years ago
	Paleozoic	245 - 670 million years ago