Nose Hill Park erratic

This boulder, like the famous "Big Rock" near the town of Okotoks, is one of many quartzite boulders that originated back in the Main Ranges of the Canadian Rockies and were transported to the prairies by Cordilleran valley glaciers 17 000 to 20 000 years ago.

From the rock's composition, geologists have determined that this erratic at Nose Hill came from Mount Edith Cavell near Jasper, Alberta, probably as a result of a landslide that fell onto a valley glacier that followed the Athabasca River valley out onto the Plains, where it was deflected southward by contact with the Laurentide Ice Sheet advancing from the northeast.

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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