The sculpted bedrock landscape of the French River area of Georgian Bay, Ontario has attracted attention for many years.  The suite of sculpted “s-forms” have been described individually in many locations and attributed to glacial erosion because they were closely associated with glaciated bedrock. However, the beautifully preserved Georgian Bay sites showed that these forms are analogous to erosional forms created by flow separations in fast-moving water and are elements making up an integrated landscape.  The role of the glacier is now seen to be as a confining medium generating extremely high velocity pressurized floods rather than a primary agent of erosion.  Geodoxa has captured UAV (drone) imagery of the French River area providing unprecedented perspectives on the suite of landforms. You can read this landmark paper by Kor, Shaw & Sharpe published in 1991 (Get the PDF) and this 2023 paper (Sharpe, Leduc, Smart & Shaw).

​

French River is an open-air museum

​

Much of the French River's rock has been preserved under the water of Georgian Bay since the Ice Age. 800 years ago, the level of the bay suddenly dropped, exposing many pristine s-forms. Remember that even hard granites of the Canadian Shield are weathered down by atmospheric alteration and the acid of the lichens. So, to better study s-forms we must dwell with sites where the bedrock has been preserved unaltered for 10 000 years just as it was after the disappearance of the ice sheet.

​