The Franklin Glacier Complex is a deeply eroded volcano in the
Waddington Range
The Waddington Range is a subrange of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is only about 4,000 km2 (1,545 sq mi) in area, relatively small in area within the expanse of the range, but it is t ...
of southwestern
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
, Canada. Located about northeast of
Kingcome, this sketchily known complex resides at
Franklin Glacier near
Mount Waddington
Mount Waddington, once known as Mystery Mountain, is the highest peak in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. Although it is lower than Mount Fairweather and Mount Quincy Adams, which straddle the United States border between Alaska ...
. It is over in elevation and because of its considerable overall altitude, a large proportion of the complex is covered by glacial ice.
Magmatic activity of the Franklin Glacier Complex spanned roughly four million years from the
Late Miocene
The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...
to the
Early Pleistocene
The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, being the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently estimated to span the time ...
, with the most recently identified volcanic eruption having taken place around 2.2 million years ago. The existence of thermal springs near the complex implies that magmatic heat is still present. It has therefore been of interest to
geothermal exploration
Geothermal exploration is the exploration of the subsurface in search of viable active geothermal regions with the goal of building a geothermal power plant, where hot fluids drive turbines to create electricity. Exploration methods include a bro ...
.
Geography
The area lies in one of British Columbia's many territorial divisions called the Range 2 Coast Land District.
Local relief exceeds with the long valley-filling Franklin Glacier originating from an
icefield
An ice field (also spelled icefield) is a mass of interconnected valley glaciers (also called mountain glaciers or alpine glaciers) on a mountain mass with protruding rock ridges or summits. They are often found in the colder climates and highe ...
below the west face of Mount Waddington.
It is part of the Waddington Range, a subrange of the
Pacific Ranges
, photo = Mount Garibaldi (50997016501).jpg
, photo_size = 280px
, photo_caption = Mount Garibaldi massif as seen from Squamish
, map =
, map_image = South BC-NW USA-relief PacificRanges.png
, m ...
which in turn are a subdivision of the
Coast Mountains
The Coast Mountains (french: La chaîne Côtière) are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the Coast of British Columbia ...
.
The Franklin Glacier Complex was covered by the
Cordilleran Ice Sheet until its
retreat about 13,000 years ago. Franklin Glacier has since undergone glacial retreat and expansion throughout the
Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...
. It appears to have retreated significantly during the early Holocene warm period, followed by advancements 6,300, 5,400, 4,600, 4,100, 3,100, 2,400, 1,500, 800 and 600 years ago. The timing of expansions corresponded with cool summer temperatures, generally moist conditions and increased precipitation.
Geology
Minimal geologic studies have been conducted at the Franklin Glacier Complex and its
geology
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...
is therefore poorly known.
It measures wide and long, covering a northwesterly elliptical area of .
Volcanic rock
Volcanic rock (often shortened to volcanics in scientific contexts) is a rock formed from lava erupted from a volcano. In other words, it differs from other igneous rock by being of volcanic origin. Like all rock types, the concept of volcanic r ...
s of the Franklin Glacier Complex consist predominantly of
dacite
Dacite () is a volcanic rock formed by rapid solidification of lava that is high in silica and low in alkali metal oxides. It has a fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic texture and is intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite. ...
breccia
Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix.
The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of di ...
, minor dacite flows and a few
hornblende
Hornblende is a complex inosilicate series of minerals. It is not a recognized mineral in its own right, but the name is used as a general or field term, to refer to a dark amphibole. Hornblende minerals are common in igneous and metamorphic rocks ...
andesite
Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomi ...
remnants. An absence of
pumice
Pumice (), called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of highly vesicular rough-textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. It is typically light-colored. Scoria is another vesicular vol ...
,
glassy blocks or
bombs
A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanic ...
in the breccia suggests that it may be of epiclastic origin, possibly formed during collapse and infilling of a
caldera
A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...
.
The complex has therefore been described as a caldera or a cauldron subsidence. Heavy erosion of the volcanic rocks has exposed a series of
biotite
Biotite is a common group of phyllosilicate minerals within the mica group, with the approximate chemical formula . It is primarily a solid-solution series between the iron-endmember annite, and the magnesium-endmember phlogopite; more alumino ...
-
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
-
porphyry, biotite quartz-
feldspar
Feldspars are a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagioclase'' (sodium-calcium) feldsp ...
-porphyry and
quartz monzonite
Quartz monzonite is an intrusive, felsic, igneous rock that has an approximately equal proportion of orthoclase and plagioclase feldspars. It is typically a light colored phaneritic (coarse-grained) to porphyritic granitic rock. The plagioclase ...
subvolcanic
pluton
In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...
s and
dike swarm
A dike swarm (American spelling) or dyke swarm (British spelling) is a large geological structure consisting of a major group of parallel, linear, or radially oriented magmatic dikes intruded within continental crust or central volcanoes ...
s. They intrude through fractured and
hydrothermally altered
Metasomatism (from the Greek μετά ''metá'' "change" and σῶμα ''sôma'' "body") is the chemical alteration of a rock by hydrothermal and other fluids. It is the replacement of one rock by another of different mineralogical and chemical com ...
Mesozoic
The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...
to early
Tertiary
Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago.
The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...
granitic
A granitoid is a generic term for a diverse category of coarse-grained igneous rocks that consist predominantly of quartz, plagioclase, and alkali feldspar. Granitoids range from plagioclase-rich tonalites to alkali-rich syenites and from quart ...
and
metamorphic rock
Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causin ...
s of the Coast Plutonic Complex.
The complex lies on the overlapping trend of the
Garibaldi
Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as ''Gioxeppe Gaibado''. In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as ''Jousé'' or ''Josep''. 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, patr ...
and
Pemberton volcanic belt
A volcanic belt is a large volcanically active region. Other terms are used for smaller areas of activity, such as volcanic fields. Volcanic belts are found above zones of unusually high temperature () where magma is created by partial melting ...
s, which were formed as a result of
subduction zone
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...
magmatism
Magmatism is the emplacement of magma within and at the surface of the outer layers of a terrestrial planet, which solidifies as igneous rocks. It does so through magmatic activity or igneous activity, the production, intrusion and extrusion of ...
along the
Cascade Volcanic Arc
The Cascade Volcanoes (also known as the Cascade Volcanic Arc or the Cascade Arc) are a number of volcanoes in a volcanic arc in western North America, extending from southwestern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern Califo ...
in the last 29 million years.
Two separate stages of magmatic activity have been identified at the Franklin Glacier Complex.
The first magmatic stage about 6.8 million years ago involved the central emplacement of an elongated quartz monzonite
stock
In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...
.
At least five porphyry and transitional
vein
Veins are blood vessels in humans and most other animals that carry blood towards the heart. Most veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart; exceptions are the pulmonary and umbilical veins, both of which carry oxygenated b ...
-type mineral occurrences were deposited during this period.
A series of smaller
intrusion
In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...
s were emplaced during the second magmatic stage 2.2 to 3.9 million years ago, at least some of which appear to have been feeders for the overlying volcanic pile.
The Franklin Glacier Complex is substantially older than the neighbouring
Silverthrone Caldera
The Silverthrone Caldera is a potentially active caldera complex in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, located over northwest of the city of Vancouver and about west of Mount Waddington in the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The cald ...
to the northwest.
Immediately west of the Franklin Glacier Complex are a series of
hot spring
A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...
s confined in valleys. At Canyon Lake, a hot spring feeds a small stream that flows into the southeastern end of that lake. A single temperature of has been obtained from this spring while the Hoodoo Creek and Pinter spring temperatures remain unknown. The existence of these hot springs has made the Franklin Glacier Complex a target for geothermal exploration but little work has been conducted due to its remote location. The only performed exploration has been moderate
geologic mapping
A geologic map or geological map is a special-purpose map made to show various geological features. Rock units or geologic strata are shown by color or symbols. Bedding planes and structural features such as faults, folds, are shown with s ...
. A 50
megawatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...
binary plant has been proposed at Canyon Lake.
History
Mineral exploration
Mining in the engineering discipline is the extraction of minerals from underneath, open pit, above or on the ground. Mining engineering is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, and ...
at the Franklin Glacier Complex has occurred sporadically since at least the 1960s. The earliest recorded work was done by Kennco Exploration Limited with the staking of claims in a zone of
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
-
molybdenum
Molybdenum is a chemical element with the symbol Mo and atomic number 42 which is located in period 5 and group 6. The name is from Neo-Latin ''molybdaenum'', which is based on Ancient Greek ', meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lea ...
mineralization associated with the quartz monzonite stock. This was followed by geological mapping, silt and soil
geochemical
Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing the e ...
sampling and of
diamond drilling
Exploration diamond drilling is used in the mining industry to probe the contents of known ore deposits and potential sites. By withdrawing a small diameter core of rock from the orebody, geologists can analyze the core by chemical assay and cond ...
in seven short
borehole
A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petro ...
s. Kennco conducted no further work which led to the eventual lapse of their mineral claims in 1976. The area was restaked later that year by United Mineral Services Limited who would conduct reconnaissance mapping and regional research. In 1987–1988, United Pacific Gold Limited performed trenching, mapping,
geophysics
Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...
, geochemical sampling and of diamond drilling in nine boreholes. Mineral claims were staked once again in 1996 by F. Onucki and J. R. Deighton for the purpose of locating reported high-grade
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
mineralization.
Franklin Glacier was skied by Canadian
mountaineers
Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, an ...
Don
Don, don or DON and variants may refer to:
Places
*County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON
*Don (river), a river in European Russia
*Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name
*Don, Benin, a town in Benin
*Don, Dang, a vill ...
and
Phyllis Munday Phyllis B Munday, CM (née James) (24 September 1894 – 11 April 1990) was a Canadian mountaineer, explorer, naturalist and humanitarian. She was famed for being the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Robson (with Annette Buck) in 1924, ...
on July 22, 1930 while exploring and mapping glaciers of the Waddington Range.
Don Munday named the glacier in 1927 for its association with the Franklin River which in turn was named after a Benjamin Franklin at
Tatla Lake
Tatla Lake is a freshwater lake in the West Chilcotin area of British Columbia, Canada, situated just east of the community of Tatla Lake, British Columbia. This long, narrow lake, known for good kokanee fishing, is part of the Fraser River dr ...
.
See also
*
List of volcanoes in Canada
List of volcanoes in Canada is an incomplete list of volcanoes found in Mainland Canada, in the Canadian islands and in Canadian waters. All but one province, Prince Edward Island, have at least one volcano.
Alberta
British Columbia
Ne ...
*
List of Cascade volcanoes
This is a list of Cascade volcanoes, i.e. volcanoes formed as a result of subduction along the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest of North America. The volcanoes are listed from north to south, by province or state: British Columbi ...
References
{{Cascade volcanoes
Volcanoes of British Columbia
Miocene volcanoes
Pliocene volcanoes
Pleistocene volcanoes
Polygenetic volcanoes
Subduction volcanoes
Calderas of British Columbia
Garibaldi Volcanic Belt
Pemberton Volcanic Belt
Stocks (geology)
Hot springs of British Columbia
Geothermal energy in Canada
Pacific Ranges
Miocene Canada
Range 2 Coast Land District