Kabir Kouba

The Park of the Kabir Kouba Cliff and Waterfall is a public park in Québec (Canada) crossed by the Saint-Charles River. The rapids and falls of this section of the river are called Kabir Kouba the «river of a thousand bends» in the Montagnais language. An interpretive center and trails permit the observation of the Kabir Kouba waterfall that has a height of 28 metres. The trails also provide a view of the canyon which at its highest point measures 42 metres as well as a rich variety of flora, fauna and fossils dating over 455 million years old. The interpretive center also offers services such as Kabir Kouba by Lantern, A Day at Loretteville package as well as guided visits of the falls. A song by the singer Claire Pelletier, Kabir Kouba, evoques the many Huron legends that honour the river and the waterfall.

The waterfall is the point of encounter between two geological regions: The Saint-Lawrence lowlands (the park) and the Canadian Shield (the waterfall). It's in the sedimentary rocks of the park that we are able to observe fossiles dating from the era of the Iapetus Ocean.

In the same sedimentary rocks, it is possible to observe potholes, round holes formed by the circulation roration of small rocks. At the beginning, these small rocks are stuck in little depressions which gradually erode to form the potholes. The biggest pothole of the Park of the Kabir Kouba Cliff and Waterfall measures 5 feet deep.

We can also note the presence of erratic blocks in the park. These immense blocks were deposited on the site thousands of years ago by an enormous glacier that covered North America during the last ice age, called the Wisconsin glaciation. In the Quebec region, the glacier attained a depth of 3 km and its weight crushed the earth's crust. That's why, 18 000 years ago, the city of Quebec was 200m below the ocean.

The canyon of the Saint-Charles river was formed after the glacier's retreat, by the erosion caused by the flowing of water from the Saint-Charles lake. The latter was formed of hard and resistan rocks, gneiss, covered by much less resistant calcarous rocks. Consequently, the water eroded the calcarous rocks until it attained the resistant gneiss which resulted in the Waterfall and 42m high canyon. The rate of erosion of the canyon was an estimated 3.33mm per year.

The Park of the Kabir Kouba Cliff and Waterfall has many fossils, the majority of which are marine organisms from the Ordovician period, date approximately 455 million years. They are contained in the sedimentary calcarous rocks of the Saint-Lawrence lowlands.

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