Geology
Castle Mountain is the easternmost member of the Main Ranges in the Bow Valley. Passing through the mountain is the Castle Mountain Fault, a thrust fault which separates it and the other nearby peaks of the Main Ranges from the Sawback Range to the northeast, the westernmost of the Front Ranges in the region. Castle Mountain's upper sections, including its cliff faces, consist of late Pre-Cambrian and Cambrian age sedimentary rocks such as limestone and shale along with some metamorphic quartzite. Originally deposited in an ancient shallow sea, these deposits were later thrust over younger layers of late Paleozoic and Mesozoic age which now form the forested, gently sloping, base of Castle Mountain. It is an example of a castellated mountain in which erosion has sculpted a series of flat or gently sloping terraces composed of softer shale and sharp cliffs which reveal alternating layers of shale interspersed by harder layers of quartzite, dolomite and limestone.
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