Geology of Vancouver Island

Paleontology is big on Vancouver Island. We had just moved here when Courtenay, the town nearest to us, came out in style to welcome home its elasmosaur. The fossilized remains of this great "swan lizard" had been found on the Puntledge River. They had been shipped to Alberta to be classified and assembled and were coming home to take a their position as the most exciting exhibit in our local Paleontology Museum. In that same year, the Provincial Government set aside the Artlish Cave Park on Northern Vancouver Island. I was curious. We had come here from the greater Vancouver area and we did not have anything comparable to this on that side of the Georgia Strait. I decided to look into the geological history of the island. I read a book or two.

About the Dog

When I originally wrote these pages, I thought that they might be of interest to home schoolers so I got some help from my favourite dog. She has a way of expressing herself in a very direct and forceful manner. It also seemed appropriate and necessary to involve her because these pages started out on her home page. She has dictated the page about the elasmosaur since she found the idea of dinosaur size bones exciting. She also did a simplified version of the page on plate tectonics. Now this section is no longer part of a dog page but it is part of our home page and you can never sneak into our home without being greeted by an enthusiastic welcome from Kiwi so it seemed appropriate to leave her to do her thing on these geology pages.

It was the return of our elasmosaur that got us curious about it all to begin with.
Check here if you want Kiwi's simple story of how our island was formed. This page is suitable for young readers.
The land forms on the island have been created by volcanic action that took place millions of years ago. Shifting oceanic plates have caused folding of the rock and as this process continues the area is subject to a significant level of earthquake activity.
Vancouver Island is part of the Wrangellia Terrane. It was formed somewhere south of the equator and pushed up here by the forces of plate tectonics.
Because it originated in another hemisphere, the fossils found here are unlike those found elsewhere in Canada.
Vancouver Island has a whole underground world arising from its geological past. Visit our caves