IAH009FT Thermal & Mineral Springs of the Canadian Rockies
This trip will visit springs along the Bow River Corridor. The trip will travel from Calgary stopping at a series of spring systems that progressively increase in temperature from east to west. The geological controls on spring occurrence, circulation depth, and temperature will be discussed. We will visit the world famous thermal springs of Banff National Park. While at Banff we will examine processes of travertine formation and acid spelogenesis at the Cave and Basin National Historic Site (the birth place of Canada’s National Park System). We will then examine the complex microbial communities that grow in the spring waters as well as a unique species of snail that has evolved over the last 5000 to 10,000 years to live within the warm thermal waters at Banff. The complex interrelation of the hydrogeology of the thermal spring systems, water rock interaction controlling spring water chemistry, and the microbial and snail ecology of the springs will be examined. Another stop includes acid Fe-rich springs that make an excellent analogue for low pH mineral deposits on Mars.
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Stephen Grasby has been at the Geological Survey of Canada since receiving a Ph.D. in Geochemistry from University of Calgary in 1997. He has worked on regional groundwater studies in the Canadian Parries, and in British Columbia, including climate change impacts of regional water supply for oil sands development, and formation water geochemistry. He has worked extensively in the arctic examining source rock potential, and geochemical records of gas generation and migration history. He has also conducted extensive study on thermal and mineral springs in western and northern Canada.
