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Before arriving in Illinois in June 1995 to assume my position as Chief of the Illinois State Geological Survey (1995-2008), I spent 31 years as a researcher and geologic mapper in Canada (1965-1995) and in Vermont (summers of 1964 and 1966). At the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), I worked on various geologic projects throughout the country and collected several thousand images of glacial geology, glacial sediments, and periglacial features. These images were collected at a time when budgets allowed a single individual access to large parts of the country where access was and still is difficult and expensive because of the substantial aircraft support such access requires. I intend to post as many of my best images as time permits.

By making these images available to you, images that were captured while carrying out projects that cost literally millions of dollars, I hope to share information that may be useful to earth scientists and other interested individuals. You may find that many of these images have application outside the area being photographed. I hope that by posting these images, I can preserve some sense of their value as examples of particular processes—without my annotations, this collection would be of little value.

For each image, I intend to provide a location, as best I can remember; an interpretation, which will usually explain why I took the photo or created the image; and a reference to publications in which the image was used or for which the image can provide further information. Many of the image descriptions are incomplete at present but will be updated as soon as complete information is available. For some images, precise locations are not known but the images are such good examples of the features or landscapes that I feel their precise locations are not important.

I welcome your feedback on the images and interpretations [shilts@inrs.illinois.edu].

Information on the use of these images: Most of my Canadian photos and images were created while I was an employee of the Canadian Government and are reproduced with the permission of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada (GSC), 2003 and Courtesy of Natural Resources Canada, Geological Survey of Canada. The research related to the photographs from Baffin and Bylot Islands was supported by both the GSC and grants from the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada to me and my students at Carleton University. The excellent Web sites of the GSC may display similar images, because several of that organization’s employees worked with me on GSC projects and we often photographed the same or similar features. On this ISGS Web site, however, the interpretations are mine alone, unless otherwise noted.

These images have particular significance to Illinois, which, having been covered several times by glacial ice, has, in its modern landscape older, Ice-Age equivalents of many of the landforms and sediments shown here.