WORT - FortQu’Appelle Geolog Tour

April 13, 2011

Meet at the J.A. Burnett Centre at 9:00 am sharp.

We will return to the centre at 3:15 pm.

The Fort Qu’Appelle Geolog Tour was designed for middle years students. Our group will be touring the Qu’Appelle Valley from PasquaLake to the far end of KatepwaLake. Along the way we will make 12 stops to explore and complete activities related to the biology, geography and geology of the Qu’Appelle Valley. The activities will enhance the new grade 7 science curriculum in the areas of Interactions within Ecosystems and The Characteristics and Formation of the Surface Geology of Saskatchewan.

What to Bring:

Warm clothes for the outdoors (it is only April)

Rubber boots / winter boots (depending on the weather)

Water

Bag lunch

Camera

 Notebook and pencil

 Identification books (i.e. plant or bird books)

Binoculars

If you have already studied the above topics in class this year, please bring along your science book to share with the group what your class has worked on.

Before this outing, please read through and have a basic knowledge of the information attached to this sheet.

Adaptation: The genetic advantage of an organism to adjust easily to a changed environment.

Alkaline: Soil that is basic or the opposite of acidic. It is soil that is prone to drought.

Alluvium: A deposit of earth, sand, and other transported matter left by glaciers and meltwater flowing over land.

Awns: A thin, rigid quill-like extension of a grass.

Carrying Capacity: The number of organisms an environment and its resources can handle.

Community: Interacting groups of plants and animals living together in a certain location.

Competition: A confrontation that occurs between species or within a species when resources are shared or become scarce.

Decomposer: An organism that sustains itself on the decaying organic material of the dead; it helps in the breakdown of dead material and returns vital nutrients to the soil or water. Most decomposers are bacteria or fungus.

Disturbed Site: A site or area that has been modified from its stable or natural condition by a natural or man-made disturbance or change, such as a gravel pit or flood.

Diversity: The community's abundance of different species of organisms and differing genes.

Ecosystems: A nutrient-recycling and energy-harnessing structure composed of living and non-living functions.

Erode: The formation of landforms by the gradual wearing away of the soil.

Erratic Boulders: Boulders that have been displaced by the movement of glaciers.

Fill: (valleys) Gravitational pull on valley walls causing soil and gravel to slide downwards and settle on the valley floor. Over great periods of time, if untouched, a valley will fill entirely.

Glaciation: Period when the surface of the earth is covered by a glacier.

Hummocky: An area of knob and kettle depressions.

Introduced: Species that are not native to an area, and that have been brought in from other locations.

Kettle: A steep-sided depression in glacial terrain commonly containing a lake or swamp and believed to have formed by the melting of a large, detached block of stagnant ice buried within glacial deposits.

Meltwater: Glacial ice that has melted into water as the glacier retreats.

Moraines: Distinct accumulations of unsorted, unorganized glacial material, mainly till, deposited directly by glaciers.

Niches: The role in which a species occupies in a community.

Percolate: Movement of water through a surface, one drop at a time.

Pioneer Species: The first plants to settle into a disturbed site, usually a weedy species.

Pipestone Spillway: Water channel formed approximately 15,000 years ago as Lake Indian Head drained into LakeSouris (See figure from Stop 8).

Predation: Killing another organism for food or to eliminate competition.

Primary Consumer: The first consumption level of the food chain; a herbivore.

Primary Producer: A photosynthesizing plant or algae that harnesses the sun's energy and transforms water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates for the consumption of higher beings in the food chain. Oxygen is produced as a by-product.

Quaternary Period: Consists of the Pleistocene (glacial) and Holocene (postglacial) Eras and is thought to cover the last two or three million years of the earth's history.

Silt: A rock fragment smaller than a very fine sand grain and larger than coarse clay having a diameter ranging from 0.002 to 0.05 mm.

Slump Ridge: Accumulation of soil in a hump formation as gravity pulls it down from the scarp. If the weight of the slump ridge is too much for the slope of the hill to bear, a landslide will occur.

Springhead: A place where groundwater emerges naturally from the ground onto the land surface or into a body of surface water.

Striated: (boulders) A superficial scratch inscribed on the rock surface by a rock fragment imbedded in the base of a glacier.

Terrace: Bench-like surfaces that break the continuity of the valley slope. Such terraces are remnants of former valley bottoms.

Till: Unsorted and unorganized material deposited directly by a glacier and consisting of a mixture of clay, silt, sand, gravel, and boulders.

Tributaries: A stream contributing its flow to a larger stream or lake. In the case of Stop 6, the tributaries feeding into KatepwaLake developed from groundwater.