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Big Rock And The Napi Chase
- The Big Rock near Okotoks is a 16,000-ton quartzite boulder sitting 500 km from its source and split into two halves.
- Blackfoot legend tells of the trickster Napi who gave his robe to the rock, which then chased and broke apart after him, explaining the boulder's journey.
Glaciers Transport Gigantic Erratics
- Louis Agassiz proposed glaciers transported erratics, explaining how the Big Rock moved from the Athabasca River to the prairie.
- Modern geology supports this: glaciers carry embedded rocks and deposit them when they recede, matching the rock's source and distance.
How Rocks And Cores Reveal Past Glaciations
- Geological signs like glacial striations and moraines record ice movement direction and maximum extent.
- Deep ice and sediment cores reveal fossils and chemical data used to reconstruct climate changes over millions of years.