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Jackson and Brent Ward have been studying the drill cores since a geologist involved in the Evergreen Line tunnelling — a graduate of SFU’s earth sciences department — told Ward that SkyTrain had no use for them, so would he like them?

“We said yes,” said Jackson of the drill cores the two have been studying since September. “To find a place where hundreds of metres of record are available to us is amazing. The cost of getting this sort of data would be astronomical. It will be invaluable for tracing the evolution of this area.”

Four of several dozen cores are now stored in Jackson’s garage in Coquitlam, moved there by tunnel contractor SNC Lavalin — for analysis by the pair and one of Jackson’s graduate students.

“What really surprised me is that the drills did not encounter any bedrock at all,” said Jackson. “The tunnel cuts through a buried valley (that) was filled up with sediment” deposited during several ice ages.

“These cores represent an amazing geological archive of the glacial history of the Lower Mainland,” added Ward, noting that some cores yet to be studied extend below sea level — an Earth scientist’s dream, given such material is typically unattainable in an urban area.

“At first look, the paleogeography is quite a bit different than what we imagined,” noted Jackson, noting that a section of ‘broken’ sediment was likely caused by the passage of glacial ice.

Jackson has determined that in the recent geological past ,the passage of glacial ice produced a deep valley between Burnaby Mountain and central Coquitlam that made them islands.

He’s awaiting radiocarbon analysis to determine the timing of the glacial advances, and the researchers hope to access the remaining cores to complete their research.

“This is just the start,” added Jackson. “We have a huge amount of laboratory work to be done.”

bmorton@postmedia.com