Geology & Landscape | Scenic Quality

Geology and Landscape Development
Across central mainland Nova Scotia is a large area characterized by the close interrelationship of underlying, resistant Horton Group strata and overlying, less-resistant Windsor Group limestone, salts, and shales.

The large rivers (e.g., the Avon and Shubenacadie) that flow across this area follow fault lines or the courses of ancestral rivers. However, their tributaries tend to flow northeast or southwest in synclinal hollows between anticlinal ridges.

The Carboniferous strata were readily eroded by glacial action during the last ice age, and the District is heavily blanketed with glacial debris. Outwash deposits are common.

Scenic Quality
The common element in these areas is human settlement, originally and still largely related to farming.

View from Shand House Click to enlarge

Although settlers were initially interested primarily in dykelands along the tidal Avon and Shubenacadie river systems, they later fanned out across much of the fertile till plain. The farmscapes of the Region’s core farming areas, centred on Windsor, Shubenacadie, Stewiacke, and Middle Musquodoboit, provide open vistas and much of scenic interest. A dairy industry offers distinctive landscape elements (grazing cattle, silos, large barns) in areas close to the metropolitan market. Wide tidal rivers add much to the beauty of a scene, as does the steep fault-scarp of Martock Mountain, southeast of Windsor. The Windsor vicinity achieves the highest scenic ratings, largely owing to stronger relief, and the Shubenacadie and Upper Musquodoboit areas rate as medium to moderately high.