One of the reasons that our area is a vacation destination is Canyon Lake, a body of water created from the water of the Guadalupe River by the Corps of Engineers in 1964. We looked at homes along Canyon Lake when we were house hunting but did not find anything that suited our needs. Now we are learning about the area, and one of the most fascinating elements of the lake is what is now called Canyon Lake Gorge. How Canyon Lake Gorge came into being is a story worth telling.
During one week in the summer of 2002, 35 inches of rain fell on the upper watershed of the Guadalupe River (that’s more rain than the area averages in a year). The torrents of rain created a flood of biblical proportions in the area northwest of New Braunfels, sending the water down the Guadalupe into the already-swollen Canyon Lake, which then gushed over its spillway for the first time in the history of the lake. The resulting inundation sliced open the ground beneath the spillway creating a 64 acre gorge exposing ancient rock, crustaceous limestone, fossils, and dinosaur footprints that had not seen the light of day for 110 million years.
People who observed the phenomenon still speak in awe of what they saw—an avalanche of water flowing at the rate of 67,000 cubic feet per second—a total that is estimated at 185 billion gallons, enough to fill the lake 1 ½ times its normal level—obliterating everything in its path. After it all ended, what was once a gentle depression below the lake was now a gorge about 1000 feet wide and 45 feet deep, exposing the Trinity Aquifer, and revealing faults, fractures, and seeps in the limestone.
After the flood, local residents, realizing the treasure that had been created, banded together and formed the Gorge Preservation Society, which today maintains this natural classroom and offers guided tours. As soon as we heard the story of the flood, we decided to see for ourselves and signed up for a tour that lasts three hours and which is akin to a tutorial in geology.
It is fascinating to see fossils, but then we can see a lot of fossils in the limestone of our back yard. For me what was most exciting was to view the footprints of a dinosaur, and to learn that from the prints, archaeologists and paleobiologists can identify the creature as acrocanthosaurus, and even know its prey, the sauropod.
Canyon Lake Gorge was an excellent introduction to our new region.
During one week in the summer of 2002, 35 inches of rain fell on the upper watershed of the Guadalupe River (that’s more rain than the area averages in a year). The torrents of rain created a flood of biblical proportions in the area northwest of New Braunfels, sending the water down the Guadalupe into the already-swollen Canyon Lake, which then gushed over its spillway for the first time in the history of the lake. The resulting inundation sliced open the ground beneath the spillway creating a 64 acre gorge exposing ancient rock, crustaceous limestone, fossils, and dinosaur footprints that had not seen the light of day for 110 million years.
People who observed the phenomenon still speak in awe of what they saw—an avalanche of water flowing at the rate of 67,000 cubic feet per second—a total that is estimated at 185 billion gallons, enough to fill the lake 1 ½ times its normal level—obliterating everything in its path. After it all ended, what was once a gentle depression below the lake was now a gorge about 1000 feet wide and 45 feet deep, exposing the Trinity Aquifer, and revealing faults, fractures, and seeps in the limestone.
After the flood, local residents, realizing the treasure that had been created, banded together and formed the Gorge Preservation Society, which today maintains this natural classroom and offers guided tours. As soon as we heard the story of the flood, we decided to see for ourselves and signed up for a tour that lasts three hours and which is akin to a tutorial in geology.
It is fascinating to see fossils, but then we can see a lot of fossils in the limestone of our back yard. For me what was most exciting was to view the footprints of a dinosaur, and to learn that from the prints, archaeologists and paleobiologists can identify the creature as acrocanthosaurus, and even know its prey, the sauropod.
Canyon Lake Gorge was an excellent introduction to our new region.
2 comments:
Nice pictures!
Thanks--just wish I could post all of them!
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