BULLETIN No. 42 
UPPER PALAEOZOIC FAUNAS OF THE LAKE MINNEWANKA 
SECTION, NEAR BANFF, ALBERTA 
By Hervey W. Shimer 
CONTENTS 
Page 
Introduction 1 
Description of formations examined 3 
Faunal summary 6 
Geological history 7 
Detailed description of sections 8 
Descriptions of species 24 
Illustrations 
Plates I to VII. Illustrations of fossils 135-147 
Plate VIII. View of mountains on northern side of lake Minnewanka 149 
Figure 1. Index map showing locations of measured sections 9 
INTRODUCTION 
Lake Minnewanka, often locally called Devils lake, is about 9 miles 
northeast of Banff in the Rocky mountains of western Alberta. It lies in 
a long, narrow valley, which, with a general east and west direction, forms 
a pass through the ranges from the foothills westward to Bow River valley. 
The lake itself occupies the western half of the valley, with a length of 11 
miles and a nearly uniform width of half a mile. The valley is a continu- 
ation of that of the upper reaches of the eastward-flowing Bow river and 
this long, northeasterly-trending trough is crossed by the northwest-south- 
east valley of Cascade river and the southward-bending lower Bow. Bank- 
head, with its coal mines, is in the valley, 2 miles west of the western end 
of the lake. The higher mountain tops of the region vary from 8,000 to 
9,000 feet in altitude, with mount Aylmer exceeding 10,000 feet. 
The sections studied lie in the southern termination of the Palliser 
range where it rises from the northwestern shore of lake Minnewanka and 
the eastward continued valley of this lake, and also westward across 
Cascade river along the base of the Cascade range. The mountains con- 
sist, as do the vast majority of the eastern Rockies of Canada, of folds 
fractured at the summits and the resultant blocks tilted westward. The 
general dip is 45 degrees west. 
In 1886 G. M. Dawson 1 published a “Preliminary Report on the 
Physical and Geological Features of that Portion of the Rocky Mountains 
between Latitudes 49° and 51° 30'.” In that report the general physio- 
graphy of the region here under discussion was outlined in the chapters on 
the Bow valley and on Devils lake and vicinity, and on the accompanying 
map the strata were treated as forming two stratigraphic groups: (1) the 
Kootenay, the Cretaceous, coal-bearing rocks; and (2) the Limestone 
series, Carboniferous, and Devonian. 
1 Geol. and Nat. Hist. Sarv., Canada. Ann. Kept., 1885, pt. B, 169 pp. 
