ALBERT

Description: The geomorphology, geometry, and sedimentary infill of buried gorges and V-shaped valleys observed at the base of major river valleys in the formerly glaciated southeastern Canadian Shield region have been revealed from excavation and drilling data acquired during the construction of hydro-electric dams and seismic data collected on lakes and offshore. Compilation of these previously published and unpublished data provided an exceptional opportunity to examine the morphology and spatial distribution of buried bedrock gorges and the mechanical processes responsible for their erosion. In some valleys, detailed observations of deep gorges have been allowed by their exhumation over large areas. Archive photographs show deep and large potholes, natural pillars, furrows, flutes, and scallops on the well-polished bedrock walls of the gorges. They also reveal that gorges and valleys have a sharp-ending V shape and very narrow base and are superimposed by a U-shaped valley, forming a buried valley-within-valley topography. The narrow and deep cross-profile of these gorges, their well-polished slopes, and the type of bedforms observed within them are typical features of fluvial bedrock channels. Drilling operations at many sites have also provided data on bedrock topography of these gorges within valleys and on the nature of their sedimentary infill. The different lines of evidence presented in this paper indicate that gorges and V-shaped valleys of the region were not eroded by the Laurentide Ice Sheet during Quaternary glaciations but are relics of a preserved preglacial fluvial system eroded during a lower base level. This paleofluvial system is interpreted to be linked to fluvially cut channels observed on the seafloor of the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence.