
Carolyn EylesMcMaster University | McMaster · Department of Geography and Earth Sciences
Carolyn Eyles
B.Sc., M.Sc., PhD, PGCE, PGeo
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130
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
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July 1988 - present
Publications
Publications (130)
Glacial deposits are important sources of palaeoclimatic information but not all deposits are formed by processes that reflect the overall climatic conditions of a region; surge‐type glaciers undergo periodic episodes of rapid ice movement, often unrelated to ambient climatic conditions. This study examines the glacier forefields of Öldufellsjökull...
Thermomechanical processes caused by short- and long-term temperature fluctuations are a prevalent weathering mechanism on exposed rock walls. While many authors have explored the potential for thermomechanical weathering in alpine and polar regions, few have examined the effects of seasonality on weathering in temperate climates. This is pertinent...
Regional subsurface mapping of glacial depositional systems preserved in buried bedrock paleovalleys, and quantitative analysis of new LiDAR imagery of surface glacial landforms using machine learning techniques, when combined, are powerful tools for assessing the dynamics of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) during the last (Wisconsinan) glaciation i...
In this letter we make the case that closer integration of sediment core and passive optical remote sensing data would provide new insights into past and contemporary glacio-sedimentary processes. Sediment cores are frequently used to study past glacial processes and environments as they contain a lengthy geochemical and sedimentological record of...
As geoscientists, we must prioritize improving our ability to communicate science to the public. Effective geoscience communication enables communities to understand how geological processes have shaped our planet and make informed decisions about Earth’s future. However, geoscience research outputs have traditionally been published in peer-reviewe...
The Niagara Escarpment is an actively eroding prominent geological feature that spans from southern Ontario, Canada, to northern Michigan in the United States. Minimal research has been conducted on the highly fractured sedimentary cuesta in Hamilton, Ontario, which is subject to thermal weathering processes in a temperate climate. Unfortunately, t...
Highlighted the McMaster University Campus Urban GeoHike (previously termed GeoTrail). The motivation for creating Urban GeoHikes includes encouraging appreciation of the importance of geologic processes and landforms in shaping our urban communities.
Introducing the Niagara Winery GeoHike (previously GeoTrail) project. This GeoHike discusses how each winery produces its wines and how the terroir affects the unique wines that are produced in various regions.
Tropical glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, Perú are rapidly thinning and retreating as a result of climate warming. The retreat of these glaciers along narrow linear bedrock valleys has increased the number and size of moraine‐dammed glacial lakes formed in the valleys. This study aims to identify the geomorphological and sedimentological characte...
This poster presentation introduced the GeoHike (formally GeoTrail) Project, led by the APGO Education Foundation. GeoHikes are virtual field trips that promote a greater understanding of geoscience and describe the influence of geological hazards to the public using the ArcGIS StoryMaps software.
The Niagara Escarpment is a fractured Palaeozoic sedimentary cuesta, subject to year-round weathering in a temperate climate. We examined the temperature of the rock surface and fractures at three in situ sites with varying aspect and lithology, as well as the surface and interior of three control blocks maintained in outdoor conditions between Dec...
The Niagara Escarpment, situated in the Great Lakes region, is a highly fractured sedimentary cuesta integrated into urban infrastructure along its extent. Recent work suggests that pre-existing fractures contribute significantly to the disaggregation of exposed rockwalls, and that thermal conditions play a predominant role in this process. However...
The Niagara Escarpment is a geological feature located in southern Ontario, Canada, and the northeastern United States, comprising highly fractured sandstone, shale and carbonates deposited during the Ordovician and Silurian periods. Differential erosion of the strata has generated a steep cliff face which bisects the city of Hamilton, Ontario. Geo...
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant cancelation of geoscience fieldwork, as well as outstanding accessibility issues inherent in conducting fieldwork, we developed a virtual geological fieldtrip (VFT) to the Huronian age deposits in the Whitefish Falls area, Ontario, Canada. This region is a geologically significant site in which man...
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and resultant cancellation of geoscience fieldwork, as well as outstanding accessibility issues inherent in conducting fieldwork, we developed a virtual geological fieldtrip (VFT) to the Huronian age deposits in the Whitefish Falls area, Ontario, Canada. This region is a geologically significant site in which m...
Regional‐scale, high‐resolution terrain data permit the study of landforms across south‐central Ontario, where the bed of the former Laurentide Ice Sheet is well exposed and passes downflow from irregular topography on Precambrian Shield highlands to flat‐lying Palaeozoic carbonate bedrock, and thick (50 to >200 m) unconsolidated sediment substrate...
Regional scale 3D models provide insight into general unit geometries and stratigraphic relationships; however, potentially significant local scale data and unit geometries are rarely preserved. Accurate modeling of local scale unit geometries and stratigraphic relationships is important for understanding aquifer-aquitard connectivity, estimation o...
El impacto del calentamiento global es especialmente evidente en las regiones de gran altitud de la Cordillera Blanca en Perú, donde los glaciares andinos de valle están retrocediendo rápidamente. Debido al aumento del deshielo y el retroceso de los glaciares, grandes lagos pro-glaciares están formando en frente, retenidos por inestables diques de...
El retroceso actual de los glaciares tropicales en la Cordillera Blanca del Perú ha dado lugar a la formación generalizada de lagunas glaciares con diques morrénicos. Como la continua fusión de los glaciares hace que estas lagunas crezcan, presentan el riesgo de desencadenar inundaciones (GLOFs, por sus siglas en inglés), eventos de pérdida de masa...
Tropical glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, Perú are rapidly thinning and retreating as a result of climate warming. The retreat of these glaciers along narrow linear bedrock valleys has increased the number and size of moraine-dammed glacial lakes formed in the valleys and this has in turn increased the risk of catastrophic releases of water as gl...
Tropical glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, Perú are rapidly thinning and retreating as a result of climate warming. The retreat of these glaciers along narrow linear bedrock valleys has increased the number and size of moraine-dammed glacial lakes formed in the valleys and this has in turn increased the risk of catastrophic releases of water as gl...
A network of Late Wisconsin valleys deeply incise thick successions (up to 200 m) of Quaternary sediment and Paleozoic bedrock across south-central Ontario. The valleys have previously been interpreted as an integrated network of tunnel channels recording catastrophic releases of subglacial meltwater across the bed of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS)...
Late Wisconsin Newmarket Till (NT) is observed at or near surface in south-central Ontario between Owen Sound and Kingston across a vast, physiographically complex terrain. NT occurs along the Niagara Escarpment in the west, in patches on shield peneplain to the north, and capping broad drumlinized uplands separated by, or forming the floor of, inc...
This study utilizes a landsystem approach to analyse the landforms and sediments exposed on the forefields of three closely spaced outlet glaciers of the Vatnajökull Ice Cap, southeast Iceland; Morsárjökull, Skaftafellsjökull and Svínafellsjökull, in order to determine how individual glacier and environmental characteristics influence landscape dev...
*Open access version available through publisher's website at:
____________________https://doi.org/10.1139/cjes-2017-0081
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Analysis of 56 outcrop exposures in cut banks along the Nottawasaga River in southern Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada, has led to the identification of eight stratigraphic units (SU1-8) that represent a re...
A geomorphological study was conducted to determine the most accurate and efficient number of primary data points necessary for modelling hummocky terrain with subtle elevation changes. Primary elevation data were collected on hummocky terrain using an S320 GNSS survey receiver, interpolated using ordinary kriging in ArcGIS, and analyzed using a Mo...
Simcoe County, Ontario hosts an abundance of shoreline features recording the existence of a series of glacial lakes during deglaciation. Recent surficial mapping investigations in the region have led to the identification of numerous new shoreline features and high resolution imagery and digital elevation models have facilitated analysis and corre...
Chapman and Putnam (1984) developed a landscape classification framework for southern Ontario grouping Quaternary glacial terrain into physiographic regions, based on surface morphology and dominant sediment type. Modern surficial mapping investigations combine sedimentology with high-resolution imagery and surface models, allowing further refineme...
Regional-scale, high-resolution (5 and 2 m cell size) terrain data sets provide an opportunity to study late glacial ice dynamics through remote terrain analysis across a large area of south-central Ontario where the bed of the former Laurentide Ice Sheet is well-exposed. Mega-scale glacial lineations (MSGL) and mega grooves are eroded into Precamb...
Thick till sheets deposited during the Quaternary form significant aquitards in many areas of North America. However, the detailed sedimentary heterogeneity and architecture and depositional history of till units are not well understood. This study utilizes architectural element analysis to delineate of the internal sedimentary architecture of the...
Glacial terrains are commonly recorded using a landsystem approach, which allows detailed documentation of the geomorphological evolution of the landscape. However, landsystem analysis of Quaternary subsurface stratigraphies in which landforms are not apparent or preserved is problematic, making delineation of the sedimentary architecture of a glac...
Central Canada experiences numerous intraplate earthquakes but their recurrence and source areas remain obscure due to shortness of the instrumental and historic records. Unconsolidated fine-grained sediments in lake basins are ‘natural seismographs’ with the potential to record ancient earthquakes during the last 10,000 years since the retreat of...
The Timiskaming Graben is a 400 km long, 50 km wide north-west trending morphotectonic depression within the Canadian Shield of eastern North America and experiences frequent intraplate earthquakes. The graben extends along the border of Ontario and Quebec, connecting southward with the Nipissing and Ottawa-Bonnechere grabens and the St. Lawrence R...
Drumlins are enigmatic subglacial landforms that have been interpreted to form by a number of processes, including incremental accumulation of till, erosion of previously deposited sediment, catastrophic meltwater floods, and sediment deformation. However, relatively little is known about the controls on drumlin formation, such as spatially variabl...
Major hydrocarbon and groundwater reservoirs are commonly hosted within coarse-grained alluvial deposits that contain a high degree of sedimentary heterogeneity. This paper presents a detailed characterization of the sedimentary heterogeneity of fluvial–deltaic deposits using architectural element analysis (AEA). Sedimentological data collected fro...
As the field of three-dimensional (3D) subsurface geological modeling develops at an increasingly rapid rate, so too does the number of available software programs catering to these applications, most of which offer very similar ensembles of algorithms for interpolating data. A few studies have analyzed the effect of algorithm selection on the accu...
There has been considerable interest in recent years in the development of theoretical models of subglacial transport and deposition of sediment, but relatively few studies report field documentation of the resultant sediment stratigraphies. This paper presents detailed sedimentological description and analysis of a succession of late Quaternary de...
Eyles, N., Eyles, C., Menzies, J. & Boyce, J. 2010: End moraine construction by incremental till deposition below the Laurentide Ice Sheet: Southern Ontario, Canada. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2010.00171.x. ISSN 0300-9483.
Just after 13 300 14C a BP in central Canada, the retreating Ontario lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet briefly re-advanced west...
Testing the accuracy of 3D modelling algorithms used for geological applications is extremely difficult as model results cannot be easily validated. This paper presents a new approach to evaluate the effectiveness of common interpolation algorithms used in 3D subsurface modelling, utilizing four synthetic grids to represent subsurface environments...
Abstract One of the first stages of the three-dimensional (3D) subsurface modeling process involves collation and analysis of available borehole and/or outcrop data to identify individual subsurface units, usually distinguished by the grain size of the sediment, and the elevation of their bounding contacts. Input data can come from a variety of sou...
One characteristic of strong geoscience departments is that they recruit and retain quality students. In a survey to over 900 geoscience departments in the US and Canada several years ago nearly 90% of respondents indicated that recruiting and retaining students was important. Two years ago we offered a pre-GSA workshop on recruiting and retaining...
The Timiskaming Graben (TG) is a northwest-trending arm of the Ottawa-Bonnechere Graben and the St. Lawrence Rift System (SLRS) in eastern Canada. Together they form a 600 km long failed rift in the Canadian Shield, extending southward along the border of Ontario and Quebec to the St.Lawrence River Valley onto the Hudson Valley and Lake Champlain i...
Uplifted during the 1964 Alaskan earthquake, extensive intertidal flats around Middleton Island expose 1300 m of late Cenozoic (Early Pleistocene) Yakataga Formation glaciomarine sediments. These outcrops provide a unique window into outer shelf and upper slope strata that are otherwise buried within the south-east Alaska continental shelf prism. T...
Two prominent episodes of Neoproterozoic glaciation in Australia are recorded in the Cryogenian (Sturtian <725 Ma) and during the Ediacaran (Elatina <c. 580 Ma). Deep stratigraphic drilling and coring of Sturtian and Elatina glacial strata within the Adelaide Rift Complex (Blinman 2), the eastern Officer Basin (Nicholson 2) and the western Officer...
The buried Paleozoic bedrock surface of southern Ontario is dissected by an interconnected system of valleys. These buried valleys are infilled with thick successions of glacial, interglacial, and fluvial sediments that contain a lengthy record of changing environmental conditions during the late Quaternary. Detailed logging of over 500 m of sedime...
Lake Wanapitei (132.75 km2) fills what has been identified as an Eocene (c. 37 Ma) meteorite impact basin in the Canadian Shield near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The area was glaciated many times during the Pleistocene and the basin lies immediately north of the prominent Cartier Moraine built during the last glaciation by the retreating Laurentide I...
The Paraná Basin (1 600 000 km ² ) is the largest intracratonic basin in southern South America and contains a thick (1300 m) Permo‐Carboniferous glacial succession (the Itararé Group). This paper describes over 1700 m of drill core recovered during recent exploration for oil and gas. Itararé Group sediments consist of massive and stratified diamic...
The Perth Basin is an intracratonic rift in Western Australia and contains a Carboniferous to Cretaceous infill in excess of 12 km thick. Some 2 km of mid-Carboniferous to Lower Permian glacially influenced marine strata spanning the Serpukhovian to Kungurian (about 50 My), form one of the longest late Paleozoic cold-climate successions preserved a...
The snowball Earth hypothesis suggests that the Neoproterozoic was characterized by several prolonged and severe global glaciations followed by very rapid climate change to ‘hot house’ conditions. The Neoproterozoic Port Askaig Formation of Scotland consists of a thick succession of diamictite, sandstone, conglomerate and mudstone. Sedimentological...
The School of Geography and Geology (now named the School of Geography and Earth Sciences, SGES) was created in 1998 through amalgamation of the former departments of Geography and Geology. One of the first tasks of the new School was to revise and restructure the undergraduate B.Sc. programs it offered in order to meet changing societal and employ...
McMaster University is a `research intensive' university with 17,000+ full time undergraduate students. The School of Geography and Earth Sciences (SGES) is located within the Faculty of Science, offers B.Sc., B.A., M.Sc., M.A. and PhD degree programs and teaches more than 70 undergraduate courses on an annual basis. The Honours B.Sc program in Ear...
The Dundas Valley is a bedrock valley infilled with up to 180 m of Quaternary sediment that underlies the Hamilton- Wentworth region of southern Ontario. Although the infill of the Dundas Valley contains a valuable record of past environ- mental change and controls groundwater and contaminant migration pathways in the region, the nature, origin, an...
Outcrops of pebbly mud (diamict) at Scarborough in Southern Ontario, Canada (the so-called Sunnybrook ‘Till’) are associated with the earliest incursion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) into mid-continent North America some 45,000 years ago. The Sunnybrook is a blanket-like deposit containing deepwater ostracodes and occurs conformably within a th...
The Carnarvon Basin of Western Australia is a rift basin that contains a thick (up to 5 km) succession of late Carboniferous–early Permian glacially influenced marine sedimentary strata. These rocks accumulated in near-polar paleolatitudes along the uplifted and glaciated margin of the west Australian Shield (Pilbara Craton). Three stratigraphic su...
ABSTRACT There is much debate regarding the intensity and geographic extent of glaciation during the Neoproterozoic, particularly in response to recent geochemical work suggesting that the Neoproterozoic earth was at times ice covered from equator to poles (the ‘Snowball Earth’ hypothesis). A detailed sedimentological analysis of the Neoproterozoic...
The Great Breccia is a thick (over 50 m) diamictite that occurs close to the base of the Neoproterozoic Port Askaig Formation in Scotland, and contains matrix-supported clasts up to 100 m across in a poorly sorted dolomitic matrix. Detailed logging and mapping of cliff and shoreline exposures through the Great Breccia on the Garvellach Islands show...
The intracratonic Canning Basin is Western Australia’s largest sedimentary basin (>400 000 km2) and has experienced repeated episodes of Phanerozoic extension and subsidence, resulting in deposition of a number of first-order ‘megasequences’. A major phase of basin extension and sedimentation (Grant Group) occurred in the Late Carboniferous/Early P...
The Canning basin (400,000 km2) of Western Australia is one of the largest intracratonic basins to have been affected by cold climates as Gondwana drifted across the south polar regions during the Permian-Carboniferous. This article decscribes the tectonostratigraphic setting and evolution of the Permian-Carboniferous Reeves Formation and Grant Gro...
The intracratonic Canning Basin is Western Australia's largest sedimentary basin (>400 000 km(2)) and has experienced repeated episodes of Phanerozoic extension and subsidence, resulting in deposition of a number of first-order 'megasequences'. A major phase of basin extension and sedimentation (Grant Group) occurred in the Late Carboniferous/Early...
Pliocene-Pleistocene megachannels, as much as 400 m deep and several kilometers wide, are exceptionally well exposed around the Gulf of Alaska coastal margin in glaciomarine sedimentary strata of the Yakataga Formation. In the Icy Bay region, stacked megachannels of the Yakataga Formation are filled predominantly with debris flow diamictites, crude...
The Sydney Basin of New South Wales, Australia is a foreland basin containing a thick (up to 10 km) Permo‐Triassic succession. The southern margin of the basin exposes strata deposited during Late Palaeozoic glaciation of south‐eastern Gondwana. The Early Permian Wasp Head, Pebbley Beach, Snapper Point Formations and Wandrawandian Siltstone were de...
This paper describes multiple layers of ice-rafted debris and an ice-scour structure in Early Permian marine strata within the Shoalhaven Group of the Sydney Basin, New South Wales, Australia. Strata were deposited on a high-latitude, glacially influenced continental margin during the final stages of Late Palaeozoic glaciation between 277 and 260 M...
In southwestern Ontario, Canada, Palaeozoic sedimentary strata are covered by Pleistocene glacial sediments. The topography of the buried bedrock surface has been mapped over an area of some 45,000 km2 using new computerised depth-to-bedrock data from more than 200,000 waterwells. This information shows that arching of the underlying Proterozoic ba...
Small group, self-directed problem-based learning is often arranged so that a faculty tutor is a member of each group. Courses with limited faculty resources use learning groups that are tutorless. For such situations, the students are trained and empowered to manage such "processing skills" as problem solving, change management, group process, cri...
Striated boulder pavements, consisting of planar concentrations of clasts having striated upper surfaces, are a common feature of glacigenic deposits but their origin is not well understood. Laterally extensive pavements are currently forming in the intertidal zone west of Icy Bay in the Gulf of Alaska. Pavements comprise “armoured” layers of inter...
The onset of late Cenozoic glacial events in the far North Pacific Ocean is recorded by ice-rafted debris in the Yakataga Formation in the Gulf of Alaska. The dating of these events is controversial. Ages based on molluscs suggest that initial late Cenozoic tidewater glaciation occurred in the early middle Miocene (15-16 Ma). Previous work on plank...
The predrift fit of South America and Africa remains problematic given the inability to match all parts of the coastlines simultaneously. Early opening of the South Atlantic Ocean may have been facilitated by intraplate deformation in either South America or Africa, but the location of such deformation is controversial and poorly constrained. Broad...
Coastal mountains in the northeastern Gulf of Alaska expose continuous, along-strike sections over many tens of kilometers through the 5-km-thick infill (Yakataga Formation) of a glacially influenced active margin basin. The basin has been thrust and uplifted as a result of continuing compression between the underlying Pacific and North American pl...
The Cardium Formation (Turonian-Coniacian, Upper Cretaceous) of the Western Interior Seaway, Alberta, contains six marine sandier-upward successions bounded by seven basin-wide erosion surfaces. In the subsurface, erosion surface E5 is associated with major oil and gas fields and is penetrated by thousands of wells. During transgression, shorefaces...
The 5 km thick Yakataga Formation of the Gulf of Alaska provides the longest and most accessible record of late Cenozoic glaciation in the world. The formation consists of interbedded marine and glacimarine sediments of late Miocene to Holocene age and is well exposed on offshore islands and in the coastal mountain ranges as a result of the converg...
Seven major erosion (E) surfaces are found within the 100-m-thick Cardium Formation in the subsurface of Alberta. Erosion surface E5 has up to 20 m of erosional relief in the Carrot Creek area, and is cut into originally horizontal open-marine sandstones and mudstones. The E5 surface has been correlated into the Pembina area by construction of a st...
Buried lake sediments and tufa strandlines of Holocene age provide evidence of a former lake in the Selima Oasis depression, northwest Sudan, near the hyperarid core of the eastern Sahara Desert. A 1.6 m section through laminated lake muds and precipitates has been analysed in detail, and 30 radiocarbon dates, geochemical, sedimentological, diatom...
In East Anglia, the mid-Pleistocene ‘North Sea Drifts’ extend over some 1500 km2 of the coastal zone of North Norfolk. They are the oldest Pleistocene glacial sequences exposed in Britain, deposited during the Anglian Glaciation (ca. 450 ka BP?). Laminated and stratified pebbly mud (diamict) facies of the North Sea Drifts are widely regarded as the...
The Late Proterozoic Conception Group, exposed on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, Canada, is a 4 km thick turbidite succession containing a conformable 300 m thick sequence of diamictites (the Gaskiers Formation) near the base. Massive and crudely‐stratified diamictites form beds up to 25 m thick which have a tabular geometry with slightly er...