Mt. Yamnuska, Alberta, Canada

Mt. Yamnuska is part of the front range of the Rocky Mountains about 45 minutes West of Calgary. You are looking at an overthrust. The rock at the base of the cliff face is older than the rock immediately under it. The shear cliff face (what Yamnuska means in the Stoney language) is Cambrian in age, around 500 million years old. The underlying Belly River Formation (what most of the foothills are composed of) is Cretaceous, or only about 75 million years old. 

Here's a cross section from the good people at the Canadian Geoscience Education Network (and you should have a look at that site sometime).

For the best views of Yamnuska take Hwy 1A from Calgary through Cochrane. It is a slower paced scenic way to the Mountains than the Trans-Canada. However, if you do take the Trans-Canada, exit at SeeBee. Stop to see the Seebee dam (a famous Cardium Formation locations and one of the muses for Dr. Roger Walker's swaley cross-stratification interpretation. Then drive up the road towards Yamnuska. If you want to climb up, there is a path up to and along the ridge to the right.

Why were we there

We've done a lot of work over the past two decades for Calgary companies large and small, and at least one of us (our company namesake) has called Calgary home.

You may have made the pilgrimage to Banff and Lake Louise from Calgary yourself, either as an Engineer or Earth Scientist  participating on a field trip, or maybe you were simply touring with family or friends. As you crested the final pre-mountain ridge and entered the long decline into the Seebee area, the first spectacular front-range peak you see is Mount Yamnuska.

This image serves as the lead-in for our website just as it greets people on their journey through the Canadian Rockies.

To say we have been here hundreds of times over the years would not be an overestimate. Our latest visit coincided with a featured presentation to the Canadian Operations Research Society (CORS). The talk was on decision making and optimal planning in unconventional resource plays. It is a topic similar to that which won Bill Haskett the Society of Petroleum Engineers International Award in Management and Information.

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