CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Dickinson, P.J.; and Broster, B.E.
Date : 2008.
Title : A geological framework for human occupation of the Lower Saint John River Valley, New Brunswick,Canada.
Publication : Quebec 2008: 400 Years of Discoveries. Joint Meeting of the Geological Association of Canada, Mineralogical Association of Canada, Society of Economic Geologists and the Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits. May 26-28, 2008. Québec City Convention Centre, Québec.
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Abstract
The nature of human interaction with the landscape, both past and future, is an essential question for both geology and archaeology. Landscape elements are controlled in large part by long-term temporal processes and are recorded in the thick sedimentary deposits found within the lower Saint John River valley, New Brunswick. A 67m continuous core was recovered through drilling at Grand Lake Meadows, located at the junction of Grand Lake and the Saint John River, approximately 55km south of Fredericton, New Brunswick. Sediment samples were collected from the core to identify stages of development of the marsh land area and surrounding environs since de-glaciation. Organic samples were also collected for radiocarbon dating, which allowed for the development of chronological control of changes in both the environmental and archaeological record. Analytical tests included grain size, loss-on-ignition, and ion chromatography to determine detailed contextual information of physical environmental change. Changes in concentration of variables with depth demonstrated the relationship between time and geological processes. This data was then directly integrated with archaeological data to build a history of possible human-landscape interaction within the Grand Lake Meadows. As a result of this study, the Grand Lake Meadows is interpreted as having evolved through four phases of deposition, from glacial deposition of till, followed by marine deposition, with water over the area allowing for brackish/lacustrine deposition, to fluvial deposition, and finally the development of the present environment with floodplain deposition. This landscape reconstruction, which documented change in the sediment system, landscape morphology, depositional histories and chronology, allows for possible linkages to be determined between geological events and human activity within the Grand Lake Meadows system.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology