Marble Canyon: Stromatolites in Limestone

Fossil Huntress — Palaeo Sommelier

Marble Canyon in British Columbia, Canada is a lovely place to hike. Here you can see some of the oldest freshwater stromatolites on Earth and one of our oldest lifeforms. The canyon's name comes from the brilliant limestone of its walls. The bedrock is microcrystalline limestone (sedimentary rock) rather than marble (metamorphic rock). The rocks found here tell of the forming of British Columbia. Marble Canyon was once part of a chain of Pacific Islands originating far to the southwest of the coast of ancient BC. They rode their way north and were eventually caught up between the North American Plate and the edge of the Pacific Plate, then slowly crushed between the large islands of the Insular Supperterrane of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. Most of the pacific islands were entirely crushed, but Marble Canyon is made of bits and pieces of the islands that survived.