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Geological History of
Strathcona Park
Today, it is a short trip from Vancouver to
Vancouver Island and the scenery of Strathcona Park, but it was not always so. Vancouver
Island began to form 380 million years ago on the ocean floor in what is now the deep
eastern Pacific. Over some 200 million years, three distinct episodes of volcanic eruption
built on each other to raise a landmass above the surface of the sea. In the long
interludes between the eruptions, limestones and sediments accumulated on the tops of the
dormant volcanoes. This ancient land is called Wrangellia by geologists, for the Wrangell
mountains in Alaska. Sometime between 140 and 65 million years ago, Wrangellia was
gradually carried eastward
on its crustal plate to collide with other terranes and, eventually, with North America.
Today the Wrangellia terrane stretches from Vancouver Island, through the Queen Charlotte
Islands into the Yukon and southeastern Alaska.
View of Mount McBride from Buttle Lake
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This diagram (when viewed full size) shows the
sequence of rocks (stratigraphy) that occurs within the park and immediately adjacent to
it, including the names and ages of the natural rock layers or strata.
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