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Geological Formations

Horseshoe Canyon (Alberta)

Erosional and Karst Formations

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Horseshoe Canyon is a badland formation surrounded by prairie in Alberta, Canada, about 17 kilometres west of Drumheller along Highway 9. It takes its horseshoe shape from two coulees that curve roughly 5 kilometres each before converging on Kneehill Creek, a tributary of the Red Deer River, exposing layered erosional formations along their slopes. The canyon lends its name to the Horseshoe Canyon Formation, a significant geological unit, and once held the small mining communities of Dunphy and Gatine at the tips of its two arms. In 2020 a twelve-year-old visitor found a dinosaur fossil in the canyon dated to about 69 million years old.

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