A pair of University of Saskatchewan researchers have published a paper showing evidence that a large tsunami rolled over the prairies.
The duo, Brian Pratt and Colin Sproat had their work published in the November 2023 edition of a Sedimentary Geology— journal on published research and review papers in the field of sediment and rocks.
They say they’ve found the strongest evidence of a high energy event that occurred around 450 million years ago, in a place not known for its oceans.
“Nobody expects to see them in these shallow inland seas which covered southern Saskatchewan and adjacent Manitoba,” said Brian Pratt, professor in the department of Geological Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan.
“So nobody even thinks about it. Even the textbooks don’t even mention it.”
The prairies used to be located close to the equator in the Ordovician period, covered by a shallow sea called the Williston Basin.
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