Evaluators for the Niagara’s UNESCO Geopark bid, Jakob Walløe Hansen and Sarah Gatley, spent Monday morning learning about the unique geology of the Niagara Region.
Assembled at the Ball’s Falls Centre for Conservation were board members of Niagara Geopark and their educational partners.
Dr. Alicia Powell, Manager of the Conservation Areas Programs and Services for the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, welcomed guests to Ball’s Falls by telling them “we’re Niagara’s other falls.” Ball’s Falls is one of 20-plus Geosites in the region to be visited by Walløe Hansen and Gatley over a three-day tour.
Water plays a prominent role in Niagara Geopark’s proposal to have most of the Niagara Region declared an UNESCO Global Geopark.
Powell talked about how water flow unites a community and, in the early 1800s, the area of Ball’s Falls had three distinct mills: a grist mill, saw mill, and woollen mills, and over a dozen homes populating the area.
She gave a tour of the Niagara Geopark Visitors Centre which is housed in the Ball’s Falls Centre for Conservation, a building designed to have a limited impact on natural resources.
Ball’s Falls is a popular site for summer day campers, school field trips and visits by the public, Powell explained. In 2023, 11,000 students participated in educational programs, and paid admission to the park topped 150,000 people.
Currently Powell is working with Brock University to ensure that the significance of Ball’s Falls can be accessible for people visiting from all over the world.
Presenter Dr. Carolyn Eyles, professor and managing director in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences at MacMaster University, talked about making complex concepts of geoscience accessible to all. Her group have created informative QR codes and posted them at points along geosite trails. They are also producing a children’s storybook that links geology and hiking. In it, Rocky Racoon explores the Niagara Escarpment and finds a number of interesting rocks and fossils.
Frank Brunton, a senior research geoscientist with Ontario Geological Survey, shared his field-based mapping of Ontario’s Paleozoic bedrock and groundwater resources.
In a follow-up email to The Local, Brunton explained that what makes the Niagara Geopark region unique is that “there is a wide diversity of Paleozoic sedimentary rock types that were more vulnerable to physical and chemical erosion due to the migrating vertical uplift and relaxation of strata on time scales of 500,000 years to 2 million years. This resulted in the drastic changes of thicknesses of the rock strata as you drive along the QEW between Niagara Falls and Hamilton.”
“This is especially true within five to ten kilometres of Niagara Falls and River proper. So, the interplay between marine and non-marine deposition and erosion associated with short-lived and migrating of uplift of the sedimentary strata resulted in a complex mosaic of sedimentary layers.”
“Remember that during this time frame (Late Ordovician to early Silurian – roughly 440 million to 430 million years ago) what we call Southwestern Ontario and western New York sat 20 degrees south of the paleoequator in a subtropical marine setting with prevailing winds and currents from the east! Not like today at all,” he said.
Dr. John Menzies, a professor of geosciences at Brock University, showed how the movement of ice sheets created the geography of the region.
Mark Zelinski, board member of the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Network, shared images from his upcoming 10th book, Niagara Escarpment: Land Between Waters. He showcased the environmental treasures of the Niagara Escarpment UNESCO World Biosphere, and the diverse Indigenous and modern communities that thrive along its path.
Dr. Bill Pearson formed and chairs APGO, an educational foundation about geoscience. He said that “geoscience affects everyone every day, and they don’t realize it.”
Dr. Daniel Dick, a geoscience communication postdoctoral fellow at McMaster University, showed photographs of geosite fossils belonging to the Devonian Age, over 400 million years ago.
The remainder of the visit to Ball’s Falls included a walk to allow evaluators a chance to try out the GeoHike QR code signage, and a tour of Ball’s Falls heritage village.
