The Niagara Escarpment

Queenston Heights is part of the Niagara Escarpment, a height of land that extends 725 kilometers across Ontario from Niagara Falls to Manitoulin Island. Over 430 million years ago, a shallow tropical sea covered most of central North America. Sediments and coral reef on the seabed were compressed into dolomite, a hard type of limestone that was more resistant to erosion than the bedrock of adjacent lands after the water retreated. The cliffs of the escarpment are the exposed floor of that ancient sea. Its rugged terrain, home to a wide variety of plants and wildlife, forms a natural corridor through urban and rural areas. In 1990, the United Nations designated the Niagara Escarpment a World Biosphere Reserve.

Ontario · Canada