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ÿGeoscape Canada
Natural Resources Canada > Earth Sciences Sector > Priorities > Geoscape Canada > Southern Saskatchewan
Geoscape Southern Saskatchewan
Geoscience for Prairie communities
Keep digging?
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What if we just kept digging?

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The deeper we go, the older it gets!

The landscape of southern Saskatchewan rests on a thick series of sedimentary rock layers that underlie central Canada from the Rocky Mountains to the Canadian Shield. These layers - sandstone, shale, limestone, dolostone, potash, salt, and coal - formed during the last half-billion years of Earth history. The youngest layer is at the top; deeper layers are progressively older. This record of geological time is only partly complete. Numerous layers are missing due to periods of erosion in the geological past - somewhat like a book with many of its pages missing. The layers of sedimentary rock that remain are tilted to the south. They overlie ancient metamorphic and igneous rocks of Precambrian age that are exposed at the surface in the Canadian Shield of northern Saskatchewan.

The deeper we go the older it gets

did you know?

Previous (Badlands and dinosaurs)Index (Geoscape Southern SaskatchewanGeoscience for Prairie communities)Next (Water)


2006-05-05Important notices