Turtle Mountain (Alberta)
| Turtle Mountain | |
|---|---|
| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 2,210 m (7,250 ft) |
| Prominence | 518 m (1,699 ft) |
| Coordinates | 49°34′37″N 114°14′24″W / 49.57694°N 114.24000°W |
| Geography | |
| Location | Alberta, Canada |
| Parent range | Blairmore Range |
| Topo map | NTS 82G/09 |
| Geology | |
| Mountain type | Limestone |
| Climbing | |
| Easiest route | Scramble |
Turtle Mountain is a mountain in Alberta, Canada.
It is located in the Crowsnest River Valley and is part of the Blairmore Range of the Canadian Rockies. The headwaters of the Oldman River are found here.
Local Indigenous peoples of the area, the Blackfoot and Ktunaxa, have oral traditions referring to the peak as "the mountain that moves."
The mountain is most famous for the 1903 Frank Slide in which 30 million cubic metres (82 million tonnes) of limestone broke away from the top of the mountain, burying the East half of the town of Frank and killing about 70 of the approximate 600 residents of the town. However, only 12 bodies were ever recovered. The mountain has been monitored since 1903 with the most recent project established in 2003.
Turtle Mountain is an anticline of Paleozoic Rundle Group carbonates thrust over weaker Mesozoic clastics and coals. Summit fissures at the apex of the anticline likely allowed water to infiltrate and weaken the slightly-soluble carbonates within the mountain face, while the supporting underlying clastics were undermined by valley glaciation followed by erosion from the Crowsnest River.
On April 29, 2003, at the ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Frank Slide, the Hon. Ralph Klein, Premier of Alberta, announced $1.1 million in funding for a monitoring program on Turtle Mountain.
Implementing the project required a collaborative effort between contractors, the Government of Alberta and universities. Initial stages of the state-of-the-art predictive monitoring system were designed and deployed by March 31, 2005. The Turtle Mountain Monitoring Project was administered by Emergency Management Alberta (EMA), with technical direction from the Energy Resources Conservation Board/Alberta Geological Survey (ERCB/AGS).
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