Abstract This one-day field trip through Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, illustrates the breadth of societal contributions afforded by urban geology. In addition to the classic geotechnical needs and concerns about geological hazard mitigation, interest is growing in the heritage and educational values of geological sites, and their potential roles in fostering a sense of place. As urban populations become increasingly diverse, they cannot be united by shared history; therefore, the shared environment can emerge as a strong element of shared identity. With more than 50% of the global population now living in urban centers, it becomes too easy for them to become alienated from geology as a “science of the hinterland,” devoted more to resource exploration and development than to matters of shared heritage. A surprising amount of geological information can be studied and appreciated in an urban area, despite development. There is a need for ongoing urban geological surveys, supported by educational institutions linked to urban administrations and provincial and/or state and national agencies. The surveys would have rapid-response capability to allow optimal recovery of fine-scale information from the temporary exposures that daily come to light. Metro Vancouver’s exposed (in-place) bedrock and surficial deposits represent over 100 million years of Earth history. It is a history of continuous mountain building and collapse as recorded by granitic batholiths with cross-cutting dikes and sills, Mesozoic and Cenozoic clastic sedimentary rocks, volcanic features, and Quaternary glacial and nonglacial deposits. Several of its landforms have cultural significance for both aboriginal and settler populations, reflected in their names and associated stories. Both information and meanings reside in the urban geological landscape and beg to be interpreted, providing excellent educational and research opportunities even as they also contribute to cultural continuity.

Abstract Distinctive suites of landslides occur in five stratigraphic-structural provinces in the Foothills area of southwestern Alberta. The Porcupine Hills are characterized by slumps and earthflows on slopes steepened by fluvial activity. The ridges of the Rocky Mountain Foothills have a low frequency of landsliding due to slope angles that are generally lower than bedding-plane dip angles. Extensive landsliding around the Mokowan Butte upland is likely due to shearing of bedrock beneath the Lewis thrust and glacial oversteepening. Glaciolacustrine valley fills form the floors of interridge valleys within the Foothills. These glaciolacustrine sediments fail as rotational slumps and flows. Rockslides and rock avalanches cluster along major thrust faults in the eastern Rocky Mountains. Glacial steepening and the exposure of cliff-forming Proterozoic and Paleozoic carbonates and clastics overlying recessive clastics, particularly along thrust faults, are identified as significant destabilizing factors. A mass-wasting feedback loop is suggested, cliff-forming massifs driving failure in underlying recessive rocks, which in turn triggers failures in the massif. Creep is suspected as a factor in footwall slope instability. Landsliding has likely been a prime agent in the retreat of the mountain front for at least the past 2.6 m.y. Recession rates of 0.2 cm/yr can be computed for this period.

Abstract This chapter presents a method by which morphometric criteria can be used to obtain a rapid first-approximation of potential debris flow hazard on alluvial fans in the Canadian Rocky Mountain Front Ranges. Geomorphic and sedimentologic evidence indicates that many fans are affected by debris flow processes. Such fans generally are steeper than 4° and have small, steep first- or second-order drainage basins with Melton’s ruggedness number ( R ) more than 0.25 to 0.3. Fans not prone to debris flows are dominated by fluvial processes and have gentler slopes in less rugged third-order or higher drainage basins. This morphometric approach should have wide applicability for continuously graded basins in unglacierized regions.