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Nine bedrock and two till samples were analyzed to determine whether their chemical and physical properties could be used to distinguish between bedrock units and to differentiate local bedrock from overlying tills. The bedrock samples came from The North Cliff subsite of the Wellsch Valley Site, and the till samples from Jaw Face subsite. Eight of the nine bedrock samples show great similarity. However, their geochemical differences from the overlying Quaternary tills establish that the tills contain much material entrained, during one or more early Quaternary glaciations, from older bedrock outcrops to the north and northeast. The glaciers that laid down the tills appear to have reworked and concentrated elements compatible with a dry climate, probably formed by weathering during long interglacial, and perhaps preglacial, intervals when the surface was undergoing slow degradation.

Twelve till samples from the North Cliff section at the Wellsch Valley site, Saskatchewan, were analyzed by neutron activation to determine if trends in traced element composition would prove useful in differentiating stratigraphic units. After analyzing trace-element distributions (including rare-earth elements), no discrete stratigraphic units could be recognized from the samples studied. The eight tills in the North Cliff Section appear to be homogeneous, even though each successive glaciation apparently originated from a different source area on the Canadian Shield. The compositional data tend to enhance the impression that each successive glacier reworked sediments of similar chemical composition into younger and younger drift sheets, separated in some cases by fluvial and aeolian deposits.

This paper presents the results of a combined stratigraphical, paleomagnetic, and vertebrate paleontological study of the Maser-Frisch Site near Irvine, Alberta. At that site, about 3 m of mainly pond and stream deposits overlies Cretaceous bedrock and underlies Quaternary till and loess. All of the deposits have normal magnetic polarity. Further, the lower pond and stream deposits have yielded an interesting collection of mammal bones. Taxa identified include rabbit or hare, ground squirrel, prairie dog, bog lemming, canids, cats, badger, elephant, horses, camel, and shrub-ox. The identified taxa tentatively imply a late Irvingtonian Land Mammal Age for the fauna. This, along with their preglacial setting and normal polarity, indicates that the pond and stream deposits were laid down near the beginning of the Brunhes Polarity Chron (about 0.7 Ma) and so provide a maximum limit for the first glaciation of the region. Together, the fauna and deposits offer an interesting glimpse at conditions prevailing on the High Plains of the region at that time, which apparently resembled the dry, treeless grassland found there at present.