#: locale=en
## Tour
### Description
tour.description = ESM Virtual Tour 2021
### Title
tour.name = ESM Virtual Tour
## Skin
### Multiline Text
HTMLText_13F44922_6C3F_5A84_41CE_E7D6C68D54A0.html = Map
To help you better navigate this large virtual space,
we've given you a map!
To access the map, click the white "+" button in the
upper right corner of the screen. You can also click
the "-" button to retract the map.
To quickly travel from room to room, click any of the
blue dots on the map to travel to that location. Note:
when you're exploring the Rock Garden, that space
has its own map!
Explore
You've reached the end of the tutorial!
Take a moment to explore this hallway and the items in it. At the end of this hall, there will be an introduction to our Scavenger Hunt.
Happy exploring!
Well done!
You're getting good at travelling.
Next, we'll briefly introduce you to the icons you'll find in this exhibit and what they mean.
Icons
Throughout the museum you will see different icons:
• Clicking on the blue info icon will give you information on
the object or space you are looking at;
• Some info buttons have audio clips as well;
• The headphones icon will play audio or a story;
• Watch out! If you click more than one audio icon at
once, they may play over each other. To exit audio,
click on a landing spot to move. This will cut all audio.
• The door icon will take you to other virtual rooms. Hover
over these icons to find out where they'll take you!
• When you enter a new room, click the
tour guides (like the one at the beginning of this tour)
to find out more about that room.
Well done!
You moved to a new landing spot. You can travel through the whole exhibit this way.
Another way to travel is to use the "up" and "down" arrows on your keyboard. The "up" arrow key will move you "forwards." With this method, you will move in the direction that you are facing, as long as there is a landing spot to stand on. The "down" arrow key will move you backwards.
Navigation Instructions
Using whichever method you prefer, move to the next TWO landing spots.
Welcome!
Turn on your audio to hear a greeting from our Museum curator.
Welcome to the University of Waterloo’s Earth Sciences Museum. This building is a gathering space for researchers, students and the community to share knowledge of the Earth on which we live and depend. Since the museum’s opening in 1967, our collections have grown to close to 10,000 specimens. You can explore the museum and choose your own adventure by moving from room to room.
Would you like a tutorial on how to explore this space?
Scavenger Hunt Instructions
Hi there! We hope you're enjoying your stay so far.
While you're here, keep an eye out for Scavenger Hunt Items! These hidden items will only be visible when you hover your mouse over the objects. Be careful, sometimes you can see an object from multiple locations but cannot click on it until you're standing in the correct spot.
Collect all the items for a small reward!
Hint: The first item can be found here.
Check the rubble to see what you found!
Congratulations!
You've completed the Scavenger Hunt. You are an amazing scavenger hunter, and Earth scientist in training! Congratulations on your discoveries!
As a reward for your hard work, here are some downloadable colouring sheets. If you want to keep exploring first, you can still access them by clicking on your "Items Found" Score at the top left corner of your screen.
Items Found:
{{quiz.items.found}} / {{quiz.item.count}}
Well done!
You found the red button.
Next, it's time to learn how to move around the exhibit.
Items Found:
{{quiz.items.found}} / {{quiz.item.count}}
Stalactite
Stalactites grow from the ceiling of a cave and stalagmites grow from the floor. They are formed when water drips continuously from the ceiling of a cave, leaving small traces of minerals behind after each water drop.
Agate
Congratulations! You've found a Scavenger Hunt Item. Agate forms when water containing dissolved quartz flows into holes in lava and leaves behind a thin layer of quartz. When many of these layers form, the mineral formed is referred to as agate. There are many different types of agate, including: crazy lace agate, luna agate, and fire agate. This specimen type is called banded agate. The variety of colours in the bands come from impurities in the water like iron or manganese. Banded agate most often has white, brown, black, blue, or yellow colour bands.
Do you have a 3D printer? Click here for 3D printing files of the Great Lakes!
A watershed is an area of land where all of the surface water drains into one output. The shape and area of the watershed is controlled highest point of land, called elevation. Since water flows downhill, the highest point of elevation determines which direction the water will flow. The water flows from the highest elevation at the edges of the watershed to the lowest elevation in the watershed, usually a river, lake, or ocean. Think of a watershed as a bathtub: the outside of the bathtub is confined by the high edges of the tub walls, and all the water that falls inside the bathtub flows down to one outlet, the tub drain.
Watersheds are everywhere, you are in one right now! The Earth's surface is giant network of different watersheds in various shapes and sizes that are all beside one another. Two or more different watersheds can share part of their perimeter, since they are both defined by the highest point of elevation. For example, let's imagine a mountain range, which is the highest point of elevation. If it rains directly on top of the mountain ridge, the rain that falls on the left side of the ridge will roll down the left side and into the watershed on the left. At the same time, the rain that falls on the right side of the ridge will roll down the right side of the mountain and into the watershed on the right. Two different watersheds that share an edge, defined by the moutain ridge!
Surface water is any body of water that is located above ground, on the surface of the Earth. Some surface water examples include lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, wetlands, creeks, and oceans, even though they are saltwater! Surface water is a very important part in the movement of water in and around the Earth, called the water cycle. Apart from clouds and rain, surface water is the most visible part of the water cycle that most people see and interact with. Whether you're driving past a river, shoveling the snow from your driveway, or spending a day at the beach, it is important that we keep our surface waters clean! To discover more about what some scientists are doing to understand our surface water systems better listen to Dr. John Spolestra.
Groundwater begins when rain or snowmelt seeps into spaces between Earth materials like soil, sand, gravel or rock and is held in those spaces in the ground. Any Earth material that holds water between its material spaces is called an aquifer. Sand is an example of an aquifer. If a material is slow to let water between its material spaces we call this an aquitard. Clay is an example of an aquitard.
Water moves at different speeds depending on the size and how connected the spaces in Earth materials are. For example water will move faster through large gravel than sand grains.
Groundwater is the world’s most extracted raw material from the Earth and provides about 50% of all drinking water worldwide! Locally, groundwater accounts for 80% of the water used in the Municipality of Waterloo. People install and use wells to pull the water up and out of the ground. To see how water moves through Earth materials watch the videos presented here.
Listen to John's interview:
(click blue silhouette)
Over 30 million people live around and depend on the Great Lakes. This is a great responsibility for both Canada and the USA. As an educational institution, it is our responsibility to make our community aware of how we can responsibly use, protect, and preserve our water resources. That is why we have this display and why water researchers at the University of Waterloo work with people all over the world to better understand water systems. Head to the Foyer to find out more information about our Great Lakes Fountain.
Baryte
This mineral's common name is baryte rose because of how similar it looks to a small rose flower. These baryte rose crystals commonly grow in sand. As the crystals grow they incorporate many sand grains within each crystal. Baryte is most commonly used as a drilling mud in the oil and gas industry. It is also used in paint, paper, cloth, rubber and in the medical industry to block x-rays. Given to a patient as a drink, it can be used to image the shape of their internal organs by x-ray.
Navigation Instructions
Moving Around
You can move through the virtual museum space by clicking on the "landing spots" on the floor, as pictured.
Find and click on the landing spot to go downstairs and continue the tutorial!
Some info buttons have audio clips as well.
Water is essential to life. The Great Lakes are the largest surface freshwater system on the Earth and hold 21% of the world’s fresh surface water. The depths of the lakes shown here are to scale, but the blocks have been moved higher or lower so that there is a teapot effect allowing water to pour from one lake into the other. As its name suggests, Lake Superior is the deepest and covers the most surface area. The second deepest great lake is Lake Michigan, and the shallowest is Lake Erie.
Notice: For visibility, the landing spots look different in the rock garden. However, they still work the same!
Notice: For visibility, the landing spots look different in the rock garden. However, they still work the same!
In the past, women were often not allowed to go to school, study science, or write about scientific discoveries. Yet throughout history there were women who made incredible scientific breakthroughs and discoveries that changed our understanding of science today. They did this by pushing boundaries, thinking creatively, and taking huge risks.
Click on the individual posters for more info on some incredible women geologists
Congratulations! You've found a Scavenger Hunt Item.
Ammonites were free-floating marine animals that lived during the Mesozoic, the time of the dinosaurs. Ammonites had a soft body that was contained within the last chamber of its spiral shell. Just like octopus and squid, Ammonites could move through the ocean by compressing water and then pushing it out of their shell. Like the dinosaurs, they went extinct around 64 million years ago.
Welcome to the tutorial!
The first skill you need to learn is how to look around. Using your mouse or track pad, click and drag the background to look around.
We have hidden a red button (pictured) somewhere in this space, look around to find it! Once you do, click on it to continue the tutorial.
Ichthyosaurs, pronounced "ik-thee-uh-sorz" were high-speed ocean predators during the age of dinosaurs. While dinosaurs ruled the land, predatory Ichthyosaurs hunted in the seas. The original specimen was found in shale rock at a quarry in the village of Holzmaden, Germany. It shows what was once a hungry mom-to-be with the remains of six embryos (babies not yet born) inside the mother. The heads of the embryos are indicated by arrows. One arrow is missing. Can you find where it should be located?
Deinonychus means “terrible claw". Look for the huge claws on its feet and hands. Also notice that its sharp teeth point backwards, to hold onto food – just like a fishhook. Many scientists think that Deinonychus, pronounced “die-NON-i-kuss”, hunted in packs like wolves or coyotes do today and were able to attack other dinosaurs or prehistoric animals that were much larger than themselves.
Water is transported to your home through pipes that city workers place below ground. The calcium-rich water moving through the pipes deposits a thin layer of calcium carbonate minerals on the inside of the pipe. Over time, layers of calcium carbonate deposited in this pipe caused the opening to get smaller and smaller until the city workers had to replace it with a new one.
This simulated rock outcrop is a replica of a part of the Mistake Point site located on the southeastern tip of Newfoundland. It was made from a mold taken from the rocks at Mistaken Point and is as close as possible to the real thing. The rock shows evidence of soft-bodied life forms that lived deep underwater on the sea floor about 565 million years ago. These fossils are unique in the fossil record because they are some of the oldest known examples of complex, multi-cellular life.
Barnum Brown, known as “Mr. Bones”, discovered the first fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur in 1902 near the Missouri River in Montana, U.S.A. Because of its impressive size, the T-Rex was named "King of the Tyrant Lizards". This is a cast of the T-Rex skull Mr. Bones found.
Coelophysis, pronounced “seel-OH-fie-sis”, is known as one of the first meat eating dinosaurs, as it lived approximately 216 million years ago during the Triassic time period. It was about as tall as a 5-year-old, one metre tall, and three metres long. Why is this fossilized skeleton all twisted up? Just like humans, dinosaurs had tendons. Tendons are like long rubber bands that run throughout our bodies and help us wiggle our fingers and toes, run and jump. If you hold up your arm, look at the inside of your wrist and then wiggle your fingers: you will see your tendons moving. After death, tendons shrink and cause the head and tail to twist up and back.
The stairs in the museum are made of Amabel dolostone, a sedimentary rock. Look at the dark lines that flow along the stair surfaces. These lines came from mud that settled at the bottom of a great inland sea around 420 million years ago. Over time the mud turned to rock that is now mined from the Adair Marble Quarry just outside of Wiarton, ON. Amabel dolostone is used for building stone, crushed stone, flux stone and dolomitic lime products.
If you change your mind, feel free to come back here to start the tutorial.
Before you go, here are some tips:
- If you accidentally click on multiple audio at once, you can silence them all by "walking" away (clicking a white dot on the floor).
- You can quickly get from room to room by clicking the blue dots on the map (you can access the map by clicking the "plus" button in the top right corner of your screen).
- Don't forget to look for hidden scavenger hunt items! Happy Exploring!
Welcome to the tutorial!
The first skill you need to learn is how to look around. Using your mouse or track pad, click and drag the background to look around.
We have hidden a red button (pictured) somewhere in this space, look around to find it! Once you do, click on it to continue the tutorial.
This is a block of rock salt mined from deposits that exist under Lake Huron. It is from the famous Goderich Salt Mine in Ontario, the largest salt mine in the world. The mine is as deep as the CN Tower in Toronto is tall! This block of salt was donated to the museum by Sifto Canada Inc. They make Sifto salt, the salt you might sprinkle on your food at the dinner table.
Audio Transcript
My name is Sarah McCaughtery and I am the lab technician in the middle isotope and Geochemistry lab. I'm responsible for the day-to-day operation of the lab. This includes instrument maintenance, sample analysis, training, and supervision of graduate students and general housekeeping of the Clean Lab and Instrument Lab.
Audio Transcript
This is a world class metal free clean lab, almost all the materials used to make the interior of this lab are metal free, with an exception to the instruments that require power and the power outlets. Now because our lab deals with very small quantities of metals, we have to be sure that the samples we analyse are not contaminated by the small amounts of metals that occur in the natural environment, such as the road you walk on, or the exhaust coming out of a truck, or the phone you even carry around in your pocket, all of these carry trace amounts of metals that could interfere with our analysis. So, we wear special gowns and shoes to make sure we don’t contaminate the samples that we are so interested in. Most solid samples such as soils and minerals are dissolved in this lab using concentrated acids, so they can be analysed using the mass spectrometers in the other room. Some other samples are mixed with specialized chemicals for extra detailed isotope analysis. All of these analyses require pristine laboratory conditions with no room for contamination from the outside world.
The main purpose of a fume hood is to protect the user from hazardous fumes, vapours, and dust. Much of our work involves concentrated acids which are extremely harmful if inhaled.
My name is Aimee Partlow. I’ve grown up in Guelph and joined a KW club, I guess when I was probably about 10, and I am now a schoolteacher for Upper Grand District School Board and I teach grade 4 which is the rock and mineral unit.
My name is Jim Reimer, I’ll tell you a little about my life. So I grew up in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, where I attended the University of Waterloo, earning a bachelors of science degree in Earth Sciences, followed by a masters degree in Earth Sciences, specializing in hydrogeology. I then went on to spend my career in the oil and gas industry as an exploration geologist, where I searched for and helped to explore for and develop crude oil and natural gas pools. This job I wasn’t really sure about when I entered this career initially, but it turned out to be an extremely fascinating, wide ranging, and rewarding profession, and I was very fortunate to be able work all across Western Canada, in the Canadian arctic, along the East Coast, and on some international projects as well. So it’s been a really rewarding career.
My name is Gary Partlow and I'm a retired professor from the University of Guelph from the Department of Biomedical Sciences.
So, rocks and minerals is a hobby of mine that began because of Aimee, who used to pick up pretty stones wherever we went. and out of that when she was very young, we purchased a small tumbler which came with a bag full of pretty stones and as we learned how to use the tumbler at course, it begged the question what are the stones called and where do they come from?
And that kind of started this on the hobby.
My name is Dylan Simmons. I'm a fourth-year geology student. I really like doing stuff outside: I ski, I rock-collect and all kinds of things like that, and geology is something I've come to love just out of luck really. And so it's something that I hope will take me traveling to around the world.
Geology is something that I really kind of just came into and sort of got lucky with because I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do and to be honest I didn't know much about geology or mineral collecting once I started here at the university Waterloo and so I got really lucky in in finding something that I love.
And it wasn't until the 2nd year trip for geology we went on a mineralogy trip to Bancroft, the mineral capital of Canada, and we did some collecting there for some projects. And so we did some presentations on different rock outcrops and whatnot. I ended up doing a little bit collecting and that was with a lot of my friends. And that really got me hooked because that was sort of my first experience really collecting it, which is kind of late. You know, I haven't been collecting that long, but it's something that I sort of fell in love with just because something with your friends and it's something that really interested me: the complexity of minerals and the variety you find which has really kept me going. I guess for me, that’s what really interests me about collecting, what drives me is sort of a hunt. It's interesting just to find yourself sort of along a small adventure looking for something that that might be hard to find. For me particularly it's the rare things that really interests me because they're so hard to find.
And then on the other hand, what really drives me is sort of the the whole complexity of the mineral world and how complex they get and all the different kinds you get all the varieties and how different they are: all the colors, the shapes, all that kind of stuff.
And so, I like to collect all different kinds of things because everything interests me essentially.
And so, when you can travel the country and find different minerals from all over the place. And you can put a name on it because you found it somewhere specifically. That's what makes it really interesting, and that's what I love about mineral collecting. What drives me, and it's a great hobby, really.
My name is Dylan Simmons. I'm a fourth-year geology student. I really like doing stuff outside: I ski, I rock-collect and all kinds of things like that, and geology is something I've come to love just out of luck really. And so it's something that I hope will take me traveling to around the world.
Geology is something that I really kind of just came into and sort of got lucky with because I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do and to be honest I didn't know much about geology or mineral collecting once I started here at the university Waterloo and so I got really lucky in in finding something that I love.
And it wasn't until the 2nd year trip for geology we went on a mineralogy trip to Bancroft, the mineral capital of Canada, and we did some collecting there for some projects. And so we did some presentations on different rock outcrops and whatnot. I ended up doing a little bit collecting and that was with a lot of my friends. And that really got me hooked because that was sort of my first experience really collecting it, which is kind of late. You know, I haven't been collecting that long, but it's something that I sort of fell in love with just because something with your friends and it's something that really interested me: the complexity of minerals and the variety you find which has really kept me going. I guess for me, that’s what really interests me about collecting, what drives me is sort of a hunt. It's interesting just to find yourself sort of along a small adventure looking for something that that might be hard to find. For me particularly it's the rare things that really interests me because they're so hard to find.
And then on the other hand, what really drives me is sort of the the whole complexity of the mineral world and how complex they get and all the different kinds you get all the varieties and how different they are: all the colors, the shapes, all that kind of stuff.
And so, I like to collect all different kinds of things because everything interests me essentially.
And so, when you can travel the country and find different minerals from all over the place. And you can put a name on it because you found it somewhere specifically. That's what makes it really interesting, and that's what I love about mineral collecting. What drives me, and it's a great hobby, really.
My name is Gary Partlow and I'm a retired professor from the University of Guelph from the Department of Biomedical Sciences.
So, rocks and minerals is a hobby of mine that began because of Aimee, who used to pick up pretty stones wherever we went. and out of that when she was very young, we purchased a small tumbler which came with a bag full of pretty stones and as we learned how to use the tumbler at course, it begged the question what are the stones called and where do they come from?
And that kind of started this on the hobby.
My name is Aimee Partlow. I’ve grown up in Guelph and joined a KW club, I guess when I was probably about 10, and I am now a schoolteacher for Upper Grand District School Board and I teach grade 4 which is the rock and mineral unit.
My name is Jim Reimer, I’ll tell you a little about my life. So I grew up in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, where I attended the University of Waterloo, earning a bachelors of science degree in Earth Sciences, followed by a masters degree in Earth Sciences, specializing in hydrogeology. I then went on to spend my career in the oil and gas industry as an exploration geologist, where I searched for and helped to explore for and develop crude oil and natural gas pools. This job I wasn’t really sure about when I entered this career initially, but it turned out to be an extremely fascinating, wide ranging, and rewarding profession, and I was very fortunate to be able work all across Western Canada, in the Canadian arctic, along the East Coast, and on some international projects as well. So it’s been a really rewarding career.
These four people collect rock, fossil, and mineral specimens. Click on the silhouettes to hear their stories!
Audio segment included. Scroll for audio transcript.
Say Hello to Albert, our Albertosaurus. If you thought this dinosaur was the fossil of Tyrannosaurus Rex... think again! Albertosaurus was a close relative of T-rex but not as large. A full-grown adult was about 9 metres long from the tip of its nose to the end of its tall. If it were alive today it could look into a 2-story building. Albertosaurus lived during the Late Cretaceous, between 76 and 74 million years ago.
Audio Transcript
The Albertosaurus skeleton replica is really old, around 75 million years old, but the way scientists positioned its bones is also really old—an old way of thinking, that is! Originally paleontologists thought that dinosaurs dragged their tails on the ground behind them, but then they looked more closely at how the bones fit together and realized they had it wrong. Dinosaurs didn’t drag their tails like a heavy sack of potatoes, their tails were strong and flexible, and helped them move and jump. Paleontologists also realized that if dinosaurs had dragged their tails, they should find long snake like tail prints beside fossil footprints and tracks. Now, there is some evidence of fossil tail prints found with footprints, but out of thousands of footprints found, there were only a few tail prints… Not enough evidence to support the tail dragging idea, which is how our Albertosaurus skeleton is built. You may be wondering then as to why our Albertosaurus still positioned this way if it’s scientifically wrong. There are a few reasons for this, number one, our museum doesn’t have the funds to pay for a new one, and two, this version tells a really good story about how our understanding and knowledge of dinosaurs evolves, just like the dinosaurs did.
Audio segment included. Scroll for audio transcript.
Say Hello to Albert, our Albertosaurus. If you thought this dinosaur was the fossil of Tyrannosaurus Rex... think again! Albertosaurus was a close relative of T-rex but not as large. A full-grown adult was about 9 metres long from the tip of its nose to the end of its tall. If it were alive today it could look into a 2-story building. Albertosaurus lived during the Late Cretaceous, between 76 and 74 million years ago.
Audio Transcript
The Albertosaurus skeleton replica is really old, around 75 million years old, but the way scientists positioned its bones is also really old—an old way of thinking, that is! Originally paleontologists thought that dinosaurs dragged their tails on the ground behind them, but then they looked more closely at how the bones fit together and realized they had it wrong. Dinosaurs didn’t drag their tails like a heavy sack of potatoes, their tails were strong and flexible, and helped them move and jump. Paleontologists also realized that if dinosaurs had dragged their tails, they should find long snake like tail prints beside fossil footprints and tracks. Now, there is some evidence of fossil tail prints found with footprints, but out of thousands of footprints found, there were only a few tail prints… Not enough evidence to support the tail dragging idea, which is how our Albertosaurus skeleton is built. You may be wondering then as to why our Albertosaurus still positioned this way if it’s scientifically wrong. There are a few reasons for this, number one, our museum doesn’t have the funds to pay for a new one, and two, this version tells a really good story about how our understanding and knowledge of dinosaurs evolves, just like the dinosaurs did.
Audio segment included. Scroll for audio transcript.
Say Hello to Albert, our Albertosaurus. If you thought this dinosaur was the fossil of Tyrannosaurus Rex... think again! Albertosaurus was a close relative of T-rex but not as large. A full-grown adult was about 9 metres long from the tip of its nose to the end of its tall. If it were alive today it could look into a 2-story building. Albertosaurus lived during the Late Cretaceous, between 76 and 74 million years ago.
Audio Transcript
The Albertosaurus skeleton replica is really old, around 75 million years old, but the way scientists positioned its bones is also really old—an old way of thinking, that is! Originally paleontologists thought that dinosaurs dragged their tails on the ground behind them, but then they looked more closely at how the bones fit together and realized they had it wrong. Dinosaurs didn’t drag their tails like a heavy sack of potatoes, their tails were strong and flexible, and helped them move and jump. Paleontologists also realized that if dinosaurs had dragged their tails, they should find long snake like tail prints beside fossil footprints and tracks. Now, there is some evidence of fossil tail prints found with footprints, but out of thousands of footprints found, there were only a few tail prints… Not enough evidence to support the tail dragging idea, which is how our Albertosaurus skeleton is built. You may be wondering then as to why our Albertosaurus still positioned this way if it’s scientifically wrong. There are a few reasons for this, number one, our museum doesn’t have the funds to pay for a new one, and two, this version tells a really good story about how our understanding and knowledge of dinosaurs evolves, just like the dinosaurs did.
Audio segment included. Scroll for audio transcript.
Have you ever heard the saying “a canary in a coal mine”? That saying holds merit! Up until the 1980s, it was common practice was to bring a canary bird into the mine tunnel as an early warning signal for toxic fumes. Canaries are very sensitive to toxic gases. As soon as gas levels slightly increased, the miners could tell by the behaviour of the bird. This allowed the miners enough time to leave the mine before they suffered from the toxic gases. Today, mines have advanced technology that constantly monitors the mine’s air quality to ensure that workers stay healthy and safe.
Audio Transcript
So, mining has a lot of high safety standards, especially now, just because it is an inherently dangerous environment, so it’s very important that we have proper safety measures in place to keep the workers safe. Nowadays, instead of using canaries we have technologically advanced so we have little equipment machines, we call them gas badges and they’re about the size of an old cell phone or walky-talky, and you can clip those onto your coveralls when you’re underground, and what this does is it will take in some of the air around you and scan it for any specific gases that may be harmful and if it detects anything above accepted limits of those specific gases it will buzz and have a flashing light and alert you to leave the area, and typically in mines there’s a lot of good ventilation, there’s engineers who focus solely on the ventilation for the mines, so it’s well regulated, so it’s typically not an issue for most parts of the mine, however when we have drillers underground, who are drilling into the rock occasionally, they can hit pockets of methane gas and that’s one of the main areas where we would need to have extra safety around monitoring the gases, because methane is quite flammable, and especially with all the equipment that’s operating, if there’s a spark in a flammable environment, that can be a big danger/risk in the mine.
These are long cylindrical “cores” of rock that were extracted from deep underground using a drill. The miners take these cores and cut them in halves or quarters. They keep a portion of the rock core as a sample and do geochemical tests on the other portions. This shows the miners what kind of minerals are present deep in the rock wall where we can’t see.
Spout oil wick lamps were teapot-shaped lamps filled with fat, oil, or lard, usually mixed with kerosene as fuel. The cotton sticking out the spout allowed fuel to travel from the base of the lamp to the end of the spout. The cotton wick was lit to produce a flame. A hook on the back of the pot allowed miners to attach the lamp to their caps. The flame from the lamp was brighter than a candle, but it produced smoke that hurt the miners’ eyes and covered their faces with black soot.
These are three pieces of equipment that were actually used in the operation of the Cobalt Silver Mines. The mucking machine, powered by compressed air, was used to fill the mining carts with ore. Once the ore cart was fully loaded by the mucking machine, it would be sent along the system of tracks within the mine tunnel. The ore would then be dumped, either out the back of a rear-dumping cart, or the side of a side-dumping cart. The process of transporting ore was a dangerous task, so dangerous that the equipment they used earned the nickname "the widowmaker" due to the many worker’s lives lost. These processes have since changed and are now much safer for miners.
Audio segment included. Scroll for audio transcript.
How do we get the rocks out of the ground? We blow them up, of course! Dynamite was commonly used to blast rock into smaller pieces which were then loaded in mine carts and taken for processing and smelting. It was a pretty dangerous task, so whatever you do, DON'T PRESS THE RED BUTTON......
Audio Transcript
So instead of using the blaster box of dynamite that you have in the museum currently, it’s a bit more sophisticated now, there’s a lot more cables and wires, and there are electrical systems that exist underground. My main interaction with the blasting has been, if we’re the first geology team or mining team in that area that had just been blasted we would have to make sure the area is well ventilated the area because there are a lot of ammonia smells that come out of there and other fumes that can be dangerous to humans. So running the ventilation, and then there would be a few wires and you would have to unplug a few things, there was a procedure for doing this. The way they did this was they would drill all of the holes with their explosives, and tie them together with their—um, it’s like a lead wire, I don’t know what the term for it is, but they would tie the explosives together with some wires and connect that to an actual electrical plug, similar to what you use to when you plug in your phone or charge your computer, looked like the same thing underground, you just plugged it in, and when they would do the blasting at the end of the shift, so the way that the blast schedule was done at all of the mines that I have been to is whenever they have a shift change. So, because a mine is a 24 hour operation, there are typically two twelve hour shifts, a morning and a night shift, and when everyone came up from one of their shifts, and so there were no people underground in the mine, that’s when they would do the blast, just to prevent any injury if there was any people underground, and then they would blast again at the end of that second shift. So that was how they organized it, and they controlled that, every miner would get a lock and a key and a physical lock and key, and before you went underground you had to put your lock on a big wall and it would also be corresponding to what area of the mine you would be going into that day, so it was a bit of a safety check to see who would be where throughout the mine throughout the shift and you would lock that lock with your lock and take that key with you underground and keep it with you, so when you would come up from underground you would take your key and unlock your personal lock and once everybody’s personal locks were taken off of the wall then your able to access the button that controls the detonation for the underground mine.
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This mesh is a safety feature used in underground mines to help control falling rock debris. The methods used to blow up rock underground often cause earthquake-like shaking that can knock rocks loose in other sections of the mine. This metal mesh is installed all over the mine tunnel to catch any rocks that might have fallen loose from a blast, and prevents them from falling on and harming the workers. The mesh is held in place by rock bolts that can be metres long. The bolts are drilled deep into the rock wall, held in place by the square plate on the end of the bolt.
Audio Transcript
So, this mesh and these rock bolts that are put up in the mine are mainly for rock stability. So, there are smart geologists and mining engineers look at things like rock mechanics, which is just looking at different stresses on the rocks and different strain on the rocks and trying to anticipate areas of the rock that are more or less stable, and then determining which type of safety features, like this mesh or the rock bolts, need to be placed there to prevent the rock from caving in those sections. So the mesh, we actually call it screen, I don’t know if that’s kind of the proper term, but currently we call that mesh, we call it screen underground, and that’s typically put up almost everywhere in the mine with current safety regulations, and the rock bolts are placed as well and the spacing of those rock bolts and the number of them are determined by those rock mechanic staff members, and sometimes we’ll also use a mixture of concrete with fine metal rods in it and we call that shock pre and actually spray that all over the tunnel and that helps to add stability as well. So, currently with a lot of mining safety practices you’ll see the screen and the rock bolts and that shock pre almost everywhere where you are underground, just because that really does add to the stability, but in the past they didn’t have those types of technologies or know more specifics about the rock mechanics so they were used less frequently which is why the entire tunnel wasn’t covered with the mesh and the rock bolts.
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This is a portable hydraulic drill that uses compressed air and water to drill long skinny holes into the rock face. Any idea of what miners would put in those skinny holes? That’s right, a stick of dynamite!
This is a ceramic pot used by scientists called Assay Technicians to determine the amount of metal, such as gold or silver, in a rock sample or drill core. A technician places the crushed-up rock sample in the pot, adds other materials to help it melt, and then places it in a fire or oven to heat it to hundreds of degrees Celsius. The valuable metals in the sample can then be removed and weighed. This process tells geologists whether their sample is high-grade (lots of valuable metals) or low-grade (few valuable metals).
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Drill bits are very important tools in mining and can be used to either remove or preserve rock material from below a rock's surface. There are two main types of drill bits. The first are rotary drill bits which have rotating parts on the drill head. The second are fixed-head drill bits which do not have any moving parts on the head. Drill bits come in all shapes and sizes and can be anywhere from five centimeters to one meter in diameter! Rotary drill bits work to gouge, grind, and remove rock waste in small pieces, whereas fixed-head drill bits shear, scrape, and remove rock material as drill core.
This is a strong hook made out of iron that was used to transport buckets of heavy ore, or someone's lunch, from one location to another. It has to be made from a very strong and durable material to be able to hold its shape, especially when hauling a heavy bucket of ore.
The technology behind this 18th century stereoscope was the foundation for today's 3D films and virtual reality devices. A stereoscope works by having two images of the same scene presented at slightly different angles. This forces our brains to merge the scenes together so that we perceive the image in three dimensions. The scenes in this stereoscope focus on 18th century mining industry, practices and locations.
This nine metre-tall slab of rock was taken from the Allstone Quarry in Bigwood Township, near Sudbury. Due to its size, the monolith was secured first, and the building was then built around it! This rock is one billion years old and is part of the Canadian Shield.
It is a metamorphic rock that was exposed to high heat and pressure which allowed the minerals to recrystallize and form gneissic banding. Gneissic banding occurs when felsic (light coloured) and mafic (dark coloured) minerals form alternating bands, giving the rock its striped appearance.
This is an antique version of a special kind of microscope called a petrographic microscope. Petrography is the study and classification of rocks. Geologists often use petrographic microscopes to take a closer look at rock samples. A very thin slice of rock is mounted onto a glass slide using Canada Balsam, a clear glue made from Balsam fir trees, to make a rock thin section. The thin section is then placed under the microscope lens so a geologist can use its many functions to determine what minerals and structures are in the rock.
Geiger counters are used by geologists to find valuable rocks that have radioactive elements in them. Radioactive elements, such as Uranium, are unstable and decay over time. As the elements decay, they release particles into the environment around them. A Geiger counter can detect these particles. To use a Geiger counter, put on the earpiece and listen to the machine’s constant 'click, click' sound. If the clicking gets faster, you are closer to a rock with more radioactive elements. Historically geologists have found many radioactive ore deposits. Nuclear Power plants use this resource to produce energy in the form of electricity which we all use in our cities and homes.
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One of the things that I’ve noticed when you go down underground into a mine is that it kind of feels like a video game, there’s a lot of physical levers and buttons you have to push, there’s a lot more physical tasks that you have to do, like you carry a wrench and you’re physically screwing or unscrewing hoses and things like that to get your work done. One of the other things, I have heard a phrase used with respect to geology things is, when something is strictly functional, it’s not pretty but it works, and that’s definitely true with being underground there’s a lot of crafty building things that have been created, that aren’t necessarily pretty but they are very functional. It’s like a construction site, I mean everyone’s wearing the high visibility clothing, there’s a lot of different sounds and smells when your underground as well, it’s typically very loud, it’s either very loud or very quiet, that’s what I find. So, you either have earplugs in and earmuffs on, because all of the equipment is running, or it’s so quiet that you can hear water dripping down the end of the tunnel, so there’s definitely a difference between those two. One of the other things about underground, is it has a very specific smell, I’m not going to lie, even when I’ve gone to different mines to go underground, too, it has kind of a, I guess sort of a damp and dusty smell mixed with a little bit of diesel, It’s very specific, but there’s definitely a very specific smell. I guess for part of the description too is that one of the other things is temperature and humidity change differently too just because of the way the ventilation is done—there are certain sections where they’ll have doors to control the ventilation, so you open one door and suddenly you feel like you’re in a greenhouse, it’s all hot and humid, and you close the door and it’s cold and windy, so definitely making sure that you are prepared for changes like that as well.
Locker rooms at a mine today look very similar to what you would see at any sort of membership-based gym, or even those on campus when you’re going to the gym. Typically, you’re assigned a locker to keep all of your equipment in. The major thing that is different is that they have baskets and areas where you can hang your clothing that you actually pull it up on a chain so that way it goes up towards the ceiling. That helps so that way your equipment can dry, it can be quite damp underground so that way your clothing is dry and ready for your next shift. It also helps to save space in your locker as well the rest of the room. There’s also things like showers, washrooms, standard locker stuff, but definitely the area where you can hang your equipment looks quite spectacular.
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Welcome to the Cobalt Discovery Mine! This mine tunnel replica is designed to mimic the silver mines that were operational before 1960 in the town of Cobalt, in Northeastern Ontario.
Take a look at the walls, do you think they are made from real rocks? They are not real, but they look real on purpose! This mine tunnel is an exact copy of one of the Cobalt mine tunnels. Artists from Research Casting International created a cast of the mine tunnel walls, kind of like pressing big sheets of playdough onto the wall. The cast preserved the exact shape of every crack and crevasse on the wall, and the castings were then painted to look just like to the real thing.
Before 1903, Cobalt was just a small town in north-eastern Ontario with around 100 people living there. As soon as it was discovered that there was silver in the rocks around Cobalt, there was a population explosion! The town grew to host 10 000 people in just a few years, and at the time, Cobalt was way more popular than Toronto! Everyone was willing to move to Cobalt, and they were ready to work in the silver mines.
Since Cobalt used to be just a quaint little town, there were not a lot of activities in the area to occupy people's time. A local hockey league was created to provide entertainment to the miners while they were off duty. At the end of the season, the teams competed to win the O'Brien cup, a trophy made from… you guessed it, silver from the mines, of course! A local hockey team called the Cobalt Silver Kings, was created in 1906, and they were one of the founding members of the National Hockey Association. As years went on, the NHA morphed into what we know now as the National Hockey League, the NHL. The O'Brien cup was awarded in the NHA and NHL leagues until 1950, but has since been retired. It now sits in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Ontario, as a reminder of the early beginnings of the popular sports association.
This hard hat has an electric light attached to the hat with a battery pack which provides power to the light. Miners would carry the portable battery pack on their belt as they moved throughout mine tunnels. This is an early version of the type of headlights miners wear today.
This model is a schematic of an underground mine system. There is a main shaft that is used to bring workers and material in and out of the mine. Each of the working mine tunnels connect to the main shaft. The tunnel locations are carefully planned out and unique to the specific ore deposit. Since each deposit is different, no two mining operation systems will look the same!
One of the convenient, portable light sources for 18th century miners was candles. This simple metal holder supports a candle and can be attached to objects with a hook and stake. Before making their way through dark tunnels, miners would hook the candle holder onto their caps and wear them as personal head lights. When they found the spot in the mine tunnel they wanted to dig, they would stake the candle holder into one of the many timber frames supporting the tunnel and voila! They had light!
The Brunton is a special type of compass used by geologists. The compass can be used to get from one place to another, but it can also be used to create geologic maps and measure geologic structures like veins in rock. It has tools that allow geologists to measure the tilt of the rock layers which extend underground, or into a cliff or mine wall.
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Safety lamps were introduced with the hope of reducing the amount of underground mine explosions. As miners break apart rock, toxic, flammable gases can be released in underground tunnels. This creates a very dangerous environment for underground miners, especially if they are using exposed flames such as a candle as a light source. If the flammable gases are ignited by an open flame, a potentially lethal explosion could occur. The safety lamp reduced this danger. It has a flame surrounded by a glass cylinder topped with a ventilated metal cap. This allows oxygen to circulate down to the flame but restricts flammable gases from coming in contact with the flame.
This is a photo of a head frame of a mine. A head frame covers the main entrance or mine shaft that goes underground into the mine. The mine shaft is like a big elevator: used to transport workers, material, equipment and ore. It is also important for ventilation.
Carbide lamps are so-named because the fuel they burn is produced by a chemical reaction between calcium carbide and water. Each lamp has two chambers: the upper one holds water and the lower one holds calcium carbide powder. The lamp slowly allows water to drip from the upper chamber into the lower chamber. When water and calcium carbide come into contact with each other, acetylene gas is produced. The acetylene gas rises into the front of the burner where a spark is created when the steel striker wheel is flicked against a flint, thus igniting the gas and creating a flame.
My name is Mark Rehkopf, I’m an illustrator, painter, sculptor, and what people would call a paleo artist. A paleo artist, is someone who recreates scenes from pre history, from fossilizations and taking the idea of adding life to what we find in fossils. That’s a very basic description but just creating an image of living creatures or plants or scenes or landscapes that would have existed back hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago.
This is a piece of silver ore that was taken from the Cobalt Silver Mines. Ore is a term used when a rock has valuable minerals throughout, such as gold, silver, or copper. The miners extract the rocks from the mine as raw ore. The ore then goes through the process of smelting to separate the valuable ore minerals from the worthless components of the rock. The valuable minerals are then processed into bars, bricks, or ingots in preparation for sale.
My name is Stephanie and I am currently a Masters student at the University of Western Ontario, and I am doing a project with a gold mine in Val-d’Or, Quebec. I did my undergraduate degree at Waterloo, so that’s how I became involved at the museum, and I studied geology for my Bachelor’s degree. I grew up in Southern Ontario, and then I was attracted to Earth Sciences and geology because I enjoyed science topics but I also really liked that geology was very hands on, you could physically touch samples look at them, I’m also a visual learner so I found identifying rocks and minerals by sight and other properties, I found that to be something I was very interested in and had a knack for, so I decided to pursue that. I also liked that it gave you some fun facts to share on road trips or when travelling with friends, I definitely enjoy doing that as well.
Tyrannosaurus Rex was longer than a city bus, tall enough to stick its head into a second story window, and as heavy as 3 elephants. They were carnivorous, or meat-eating dinosaurs who lived during the Cretaceous period, 68-66 million years ago.
Stegosaurus dinosaurs were not an easy meal for predators. They had the defence mechanisms of 17 to 22 plates on their back, and spikes on their tail that were up to one metre long! Stegosaurus is a herbivore, or plant-eating dinosaur, that lived between 150 and 155 million years ago during the Jurassic period.
This Styracosaurus, pronounced "sty-RAK-oh-sore-us", has an impressive nose horn and six spikes that extended from its neck frill. It is similar to a rhinoceros but grew to be twice as large and three times a rhinoceros's weight! Styracosaurus were herbivores, or plant-eating dinosaurs who lived during the Cretaceous period about 75 million years ago.
Triceratops means “three-horned face”. It was a plant-eating dinosaur that first appeared about 68 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. Triceratops had a bird-like beak on its mouth, three horns, and a bony frill on its head to fight off predators.
These four paintings are illustrations created by Paleo-artist Mark Rehkopf. An illustration is what an artist creates by using their skills and knowledge of the world to explain something. Paleo-art is an illustration created to interpret what prehistoric animals and their environments may have looked like. Mark finds inspiration for his art by reading about new dinosaur discoveries and speaking to palaeontologists. Palaeontologists study fossil remains and the history of life on Earth.
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A lot of people think that Dimetrodon was a dinosaur, but in fact this animal lived 60 million years before dinosaurs existed on Earth. They are classified in a group of animals called Synapsids and were not related to dinosaurs at all.
As in most careers, there are different disciplines of work for a geologist to specialize in. Each calls for the use of specialized technology, equipment, and safety gear. Many disciplines of geology involve some amount of "field work". Field work is when the geologists take tools and equipment outside to a study area to collect data for their research. Some examples of field work tasks include:
- collecting rock and mineral samples
- creating a geologic map
- collecting water quality samples
- measuring physical properties of the ground.
While geologists are working outdoors, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is critical in protecting them from hazards. PPE can include items such as:
- steel-toed boots, to protect their feet from sharp rocks and to provide ankle support
- a hard helmet, to protect their head from falling rocks or low areas underground
- safety glasses, to protect their eyes from airborne rock particles produced when hammering rocks
- a high-visibility safety vest, which helps them to be easily seen by people driving past, emergency rescue crews, or other people that may also be working in the area
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Mineral collecting is fun, exciting, and adventurous! Some collecting locations are very accessible and easy to find, but some places are extremely remote and difficult to get to. It is always a good practice to bring along a first aid kit, just in case.
Audio Transcript
Definitely, you want to plan your trip ahead and so you want to use the Internet. All the resources you can find: old books, all that kind of stuff to plan ahead. Because a lot of these places might be somewhat remote and so you need to ensure you're looking at satellite images and all this kind of stuff and you also need to prepare because a lot of these sites, even though they say they might be available for collecting, they may be on private property, or they might be closed mines, so you always have to be careful.
You always need to make sure that the spot you're going to visit is available to visit and that you know where you're going.
As well, you want to make sure you're safe. You know a lot of these places might be remote, as I had said, and so they might be difficult to get to.
You want to make sure you go with a friend for sure, because you always want to have someone with you if you're going somewhere remote and a lot of these places as well might have old mineshafts or trenches, so you really got to be careful about where you are, so you need to you need to do the research and find out what the dangers are.
As well as wildlife all that kind of stuff depending on where you are. And I always make sure I bring enough food and water because I'm a hungry guy and it's tough work.
Stalactites grow from the ceiling of a cave and stalagmites grow from the floor. They are formed when water drips continuously from the ceiling of a cave, leaving small traces of minerals behind after each water drop.
Pictured: cross section of a stalactite.
Mineral collectors use an "acid test" to determine if a mineral belongs to the carbonate family. Carbonates are minerals made of carbonate (CO3) such as dolomite or calcite. The test involves placing a drop of dilute hydrochloric acid (HCl) directly onto the mineral. When carbonate minerals come in contact with the acid, a chemical reaction occurs, and carbon dioxide (CO2) is produced. Little bubbles appear on the surface of the mineral: this is called effervescing. If the mineral effervesces, it is part of the carbonate family.
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We learn a lot of information as we are growing up, at home or at school. It can be very satisfying applying that knowledge in real life and even more satisfying when you get a beautiful mineral specimen to show for it! Listen to Jim share the story of an exciting mineral find that resulted from using his knowledge to test a theory.
Audio Transcript
How did I become interested in mineral collecting? Well, I think I was probably like a lot a young kids, and initially fascinated with the shiny stones in our driveway. But, that wasn’t what really sparked it; I was always a science buff when I was a kid, and my favourite uncle was a professor at Queens University, so he was always prodding me to read more about science, and he was always telling me interesting science stories. And, when I combined some readings with my love of being outdoors, I started to become more sophisticated and started looking at the rocks in the driveway. And I think it was 1967 when the Royal Ontario Museum opened up their first big mineral display, it was a brand new display at that time, and it was something very different for a museum to show. So, I got my dad to take us down there and to have a look, and it was unbelievable. The specimens and the way they had displayed them were just truly amazing. I was sort of hooked at that point, and I said to my dad, “boy wouldn’t it be neat if we could go out and find some stuff like this ourselves.” And it got started there and went on from there and fifty years later I still have a passion for it.
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If you go on a mineral collecting adventure and are lucky enough to find a beautiful specimen, you need something to bring it home in. Sample bags are used to separate, label, and transport individual specimens. These sample bags are made of cloth, but zip-top plastic bags work too. In this audio clip, Aimee describes how as a child she became interested in mineral collecting. She didn't use sample bags originally, but it worked just the same!
Audio Transcript
I don’t have a distinct memory of the very first time I was collecting, I can’t remember, but my guess is that it was a probably place like Bancroft. I started collecting young enough that I couldn’t get into some of the quarries yet, because you had to be a certain age to get in. So some of those Bancroft trips probably would have been the first trips that I did in around the time I was ten, and I remember going on those field trips and being covered in dirt and pulling stuff out. We would carry around our little six quartz baskets, they were wooden back then, that you would get your peaches in and we’d go out and we’d bring our specimens back in that. So those are my kind of early memories of collecting.
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A field notebook is the main record of the events that occurred while you were in the field. It should contain the date and information about your location (coordinates or description). As well as, other things that might help your memory when re-reading your notes in the future, such as who you were with or the weather. Keeping an organized field book with detailed descriptions is very important. Knowing where a mineral specimen was collected is critical when it comes to determining its properties, formation process, and significance. It is also handy to have very detailed notes if you plan on returning to the area to collect more in the future!
This stripey rock is called Banded Iron Formation, or BIF for short. This is a sedimentary rock that formed at the bottom of the ocean. This rock is formed when minerals precipitate from water high in dissolved iron and silica. Typically, BIFs consist of alternating layers of iron-rich minerals and silica-rich minerals. Iron-rich materials are materials such as magnetite or hematite. Whereas, silica-rich minerals are minerals such as chert, jasper, or flint.
Oxygen levels in the ocean control which mineral precipitate out of the same element-rich ocean water. High oxygen levels in the water, lead to black minerals (hematite or magnetite) precipitating out of the solution and settling to the bottom of the ocean floor. Low oxygen levels in the water, lead to the red mineral (jasper) precipitating out and settling to the bottom. This creates a red layer which forms on top of the black mineral layer. As oxygen levels fluctuated, repeating layers of black and red minerals are created.
This mineral specimen has two parts to it: the mineral of interest, and the host rock. The mineral of interest is the green mineral, apatite. It grows in long, skinny, hexagonal-shaped columns and can be many different colours, including green, red, blue, and brown. Apatite is known as an "accessory mineral". This means that it is not a typical rock-forming mineral, but it is commonly found in rock outcrops. Very often, mineral collectors will use chisels and hammers to chip away at the rock that the mineral of interest is growing on in hopes that it will preserve the mineral specimen. Sampling in this way also preserves the context of mineral growth, and gives the mineral crystal a built-in display stand!
Gypsum is a very soft mineral. When scratched with your finger nail it makes a soft white powder. People use gypsum to make many products, including:
- cement for sidewalks
- fertilizer to help crops grow
- gyprock (also known as drywall or plasterboard) to build homes
- plaster to make medical casts for people or animals that have a broken bone!
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Biotite is a common mineral found in igneous rocks, but did you know you can find it in your household items too? Biotite is part of the mica family, which is a group of minerals that all share very similar physical properties. These minerals grow in thin, elastic sheets and are very reflective. Mica minerals are often crushed into a fine powder and used in "sparkly" objects, such as eye shadow, car paint, or nail polish. They are also used in insulation, plastic, and rubber products.
Hardness is described as the ability of a mineral to resist being scratched. It is measured using a qualitative scale called Moh's hardness scale. The scale, developed by a German mineralogist Freidrich Moh, is a set of 10 minerals that increase in relative hardness from 1 to 10. To determine the hardness of a mineral, you take #1 in Moh's hardness kit and scratch it onto your unknown sample. If it makes a physical scratch or groove on the unknown sample, that means the #1 mineral has a higher hardness than the unknown sample. If there is not a physical scratch or groove on the unknown mineral from #1, that means the unknown sample has a higher hardness than #1. Next, try the #2 mineral on the scale. This process is repeated until a physical groove or scratch is left in the unknown mineral, and the hardness is determined.
This kit is a set of double-ended pens that have a small piece of the hardness minerals secured to the end. This allows the user to easily see where they are scratching on the unknown mineral.
Oh, hey there! Interested in learning about minerals? Well, you have come to the right place! We have a fantastic collection of minerals from all over the world, including places close to home here in Waterloo! This room is one of the teaching laboratories used by university students in the Earth and Environmental Sciences department. Here, we teach students how to identify rocks and minerals using many of the tools laid out on the lab bench for you to explore.
This mineral is called calcite. It is commonly found in rocks that formed in oceanic environments, such as dolostone and limestone. It commonly grows in empty cavities in these rocks, where there is plenty of room for the crystals to grow. Lucky for us, most of the bedrock in southern Ontario is dolostone and limestone! This sample was collected just outside of Hamilton, ON at Dundas Quarry by one of our museum staff members.
This rock was formed about 2.4 billion years ago as pebbles, cobbles, and uranium-rich sediments naturally gathered together in streams or braided rivers. Over time, the pebbles, cobbles, and uranium elements were buried and eventually became a solid rock that we call a conglomerate. This is a piece of Matinenda conglomerate from the Blind River-Elliot Lake area. It was mined as uranium ore between the 1950s and 1990s initially to supply the Cold War nuclear arms race and later used for electricity production. To examine a large piece of Matinenda conglomerate, visit our Peter Russell Rock Garden.
Halite is a mineral that we are all familiar with: salt. Halite is used on our roads and sidewalks to prevent us from slipping when it’s icy and snowy. It is also in everyone's kitchen to add flavor to our food. This specimen is from Rocanville, Saskatchewan, Canada and presents beautiful square edges showing halite’s natural cubic form.
Just as the maple leaf is symbolic to Canada, each province and territory has symbols that are representative of that part of Canada. These symbols can be things such as colours, birds, trees, tartans, and our favourite, minerals.
Amethyst was adopted as Ontario’s official mineral in 1975. It is representative of Ontario because it is abundant throughout the province. Amethyst is a form of quartz that is typically purple to pink to reddish brown. It commonly grows in clusters and is found throughout northern Ontario, concentrating around the area of Thunder Bay. Amethyst crystals near Thunder Bay formed in cavities and cracks within the rocks, called vugs. They were created over one billion years ago. If you want to see a specimen of amethyst that was collected near Thunder Bay, head over to the Peter Russell Rock Garden to take a look at our amethyst in granite breccia.
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This is a pair of Thunder Egg nodules. The nodules formed when holes in a rock called rhyolite filled with water rich in silicate minerals. The silicate minerals in the water formed on the edges of the rock holes and continued to fill in the hole completely creating a Thunder Egg.
This mineral was named by the Indigenous peoples of central Oregon, U.S.A. They believed that these strange stones were thrown by fighting "thunder spirits" who lived on local mountains. These rivaling spirits hurled large numbers of the round-shaped rocks at each other in fury during thunderstorms (adapted from statesymbolsusa.com). To hear where and how Thunder Eggs are collected, listen to Jim's story about collecting in Oregon.
Audio Transcript
I looked at my collecting buddy and I said, “why don’t we let mother nature give us a hand here?” He said, “well what do you mean?” I said, “I’ll bet that there are a lot of thundereggs located inside old tree roots.” And the area had bogged many years ago so there was lots of old rotting stumps around, I said “let's go find a big stump, and start digging around it, and I bet the roots will have loosened up the soil in the volcanic layer, and I bet we’ll find some thundereggs.” Well, sure enough, it took us about 15 minutes to start digging around this stump. We had a pick axe and a shovel, and a rake, and we started finding thundereggs. I’m sure we found 30 or more of them, some of them as big as a football. And each thunderegg locality has different colours, so in some localities you’ll find some lovely tans and browns inside, in other ones you’ll find deep blue and light blue. And in the area we were at it’s characterized by some beautiful creamy white and brilliant yellow colours on the inside. So, each area seems to be different, and it seems like it’s dependent on the chemical minerals that were present in the groundwater, which silicified these nodules.
Sometimes you set out to collect a certain mineral, but instead you end up finding something completely different (but equally cool!). That was the case with this sample, a rock that has experienced high amounts of stress and strain. These forces that were acting on the rock deep underground, resulted in the rock being deformed, changing from its original shape. There are two types of deformation: ductile (bending) and brittle (breaking). The stripes seen on the rock are layers that were originally horizontal and parallel to one another. Ductile deformation of the rock folded the layers in half, creating this "U" shape seen on the rock.
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This beautiful microcline feldspar specimen came from a mineral-collecting site close to the town of Bancroft. The area around Bancroft has been and continues to be a hotspot for mineral collectors. Bancroft is considered to be the mineral capital of Canada, and is host to the Gemboree, Canada's largest gem & mineral show. In this audio clip, Jim Reimer shares a story of his experience leading up to discovering this microcline specimen.
Audio Transcript
Mom, and Dad, and I, and my collecting buddy, we had decided to go up to Bancroft, Ontario for the weekend to attend the Bancroft jamboree, which is an annual out door mineral show held in Bancroft, and we were excited to go and see what that show had to offer. So, we were at the show on the Saturday morning, walking around and looking at the rocks and speaking to the vendors, and folks who were displaying stuff, and we were asking several of them where would be a good place in Bancroft area for an afternoon. And we had decided that on that Saturday afternoon that we would go somewhere and collect some minerals. So we asked one of the vendors “well what do you think about collecting along the road cut on highway 62 just north of the town of Bancroft? It’s easy to get to, you can get out of the car and start collecting right away”, well the vendor, I think he was surprised we would ask him this, and he scoffed and said “well you won’t find anything there anymore, it’s all been picked over.” But undeterred we decided to go around to the side of the road cut, I believe it was at the south end of the roadcut, and we started raking and digging in the soil looking for fissures and fractures or any kind of holes or vugs that might contain some minerals. While we were scraping the grass back with a rake and we were using our shovels to dig around and poke around and it didn’t take long and we unearthed a huge cavity beneath the soil, it was amazing it was absolutely full of perfect microcline feldspar crystals, some of these crystals the size of your fist.
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Even though dinosaur trackways can tell us a lot about the dinosaur that created the tracks, it cannot always tell you what species of dinosaur made them.
Take this trackway, for example. This is a replica of a Grallator trackway from Connecticut, U.S.A. Try finding that "dinosaur" on the internet and it just won't happen! That's because the name Grallator is only used to describe the fossil footprints of small 3-toed dinosaurs. Was it Coelophysis? Was it Velociraptor? With just tracks it's really hard to tell.
Audio Transcript
Dinosaur trackways are fantastic fossils of hand or footprints that capture a moment of time in a dinosaur’s life. Trackways allow you to picture a dinosaur in your mind, perhaps walking or running in some muddy riverbed leaving a trail of footprints behind it. A trackway can tell us so much about a dinosaur—how big they were, how long their stride was, if they were running or walking, and whether they were bipedal, like velociraptor who walked on two feet, or quadrupedal like ankylosaurus, who walked on all fours. In some special places, like Tumbler Ridge UNESCO Global Geopark, in British Columbia, there are trackways in the same area, made by multiple dinosaurs. These fossils can tell us about the dinosaur groups that lived in the same environment. They can also tell us whether they travelled on their own, or were moving in herds, like pack animals do today.
What are my top three mineral collecting/mineral collecting hunting tips? First one, of course, join a club. The second one is bring along all the tools you can, and the third one is you need to really become a little bit of a scientist, a little bit of a geologist maybe, it’s always good to do some reading and research beforehand to sort of understand what your looking for and how the minerals at the particular site you’re going to, how those minerals exist in the rocks.
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Large sledge hammers and small chisels are common tools used by mineral collectors worldwide. It is important, though, to gain enough experience or get enough advice to help determine when you need a big powerful sledge to get to a mineral and when that’s a bad idea! Minerals are delicate and won't be valued, by you or anyone else, if smashed to pieces. Choose your tool wisely. In this audio clip, Jim describes the most unusual tool he's ever used to collect minerals.
Audio Transcript
… And I recall the time that we went down to collect at the rock candy mine, which is located near Grand Forks, British Columbia. It’s a private operation, it’s another one of these pay-to-collect operations, so we phoned the owner and made an appointment to go down and meet them and go into the mine to do some collecting. The mine is world famous for fluorite and barite crystals, beautiful fluorite and baryte crystals. But he said something odd to us while we were booking the trip, and he said “make sure to bring some chopsticks.” “Chopsticks?” I said. “Yup,” he said “Bring plenty of chopsticks.” So I can tell you I have never before went mineral collecting with chopsticks. Anyway, the night before we were to go into the mine we went to the local Chinese restaurant and had a great dinner, and I asked the waiter, “do you mind giving me a couple extra sets of chopsticks?” He looked at me kind of funny, but he was glad to oblige. The next day we went into the mine with the owner and went up on to the collecting area, and I immediately realized why we needed chopsticks. The fluorite and the quartz and the barite crystals are located in some very narrow cavities. You can stick your hand into these cavities, but you can only probably get it down the depth of your fingers, so if you want to get in deeper, where the really good stuff is, you need a delicate instrument to go in and pry the mud loose and to pull the crystals out very delicately. And, it turned out the chopsticks are the perfect instrument for doing that. So, I am happy to say now that my rock collecting tool kit always includes a pair of chopsticks.
Welcome to the Mineral Room!
Welcome to the University of Waterloo's Earth Sciences Museum. This building is a gathering space where researchers, students, and the community share knowledge of the Earth we live and depend on. Since its opening in 1967, the museum collections have grown to close to 10,000 specimens. Each of them tells a story of the Earth, its history, its resources, and the environmental issues facing each of us today. Over 200 scientists and Earth history enthusiasts have contributed to the collections. This audio commentary guides you through the major elements of the museum, including prehistoric life, life sustaining water resources, rocks, minerals, and mining. The exhibits here may encourage you to explore further into what we know about them and how they fit into Earth's processes. Along the way, experts and enthusiasts will talk about the histories, practices, and behind-the-scenes stories of the displays. You can use this commentary to choose your own adventure from room to room and explore more about the particular objects and topics that interest you most.
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This is a rock with a lovely vein of shiny molybdenum and white quartz. Where did this specimen come from, you ask? If only we could tell you! This specimen came to the museum as part of a collector’s larger mineral donation. This particular specimen didn’t have any information associated with it: no label to tell us what it was, where it came from, when it was collected, or who collected it. Listen to local mineral collectors, Gary and Aimee, discuss what you should do to keep track of your minerals.
Audio Transcript
Yeah, that would be the other bit of advice, is label everything and label it when you get it, because even though you think you will remember, years go by, and you’re like, “oh yeah, I collected that,” like you don’t even know how many decades ago that was and where it was. So, label everything, collect with egg cartons because they’re handy and join a club, and mine other people for their knowledge.
This is a big garnet specimen! Garnet is a metamorphic mineral that has many varieties and colours, depending on the exact chemical composition that makes up the mineral. This specimen is the fairly common variety, almandine. You may have heard of garnet before, as it is January's birthstone.
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Say Hello to Albert, our Albertosaurus. If you thought this dinosaur was the fossil of Tyrannosaurus Rex... think again! Albertosaurus was a close relative of T-rex but not as large. A full-grown adult was about 9 metres long from the tip of its nose to the end of its tall. If it were alive today it could look into a 2-story building. Albertosaurus lived during the Late Cretaceous, between 76 and 74 million years ago.
Audio Transcript
The Albertosaurus skeleton replica is really old, around 75 million years old, but the way scientists positioned its bones is also really old—an old way of thinking, that is! Originally paleontologists thought that dinosaurs dragged their tails on the ground behind them, but then they looked more closely at how the bones fit together and realized they had it wrong. Dinosaurs didn’t drag their tails like a heavy sack of potatoes, their tails were strong and flexible, and helped them move and jump. Paleontologists also realized that if dinosaurs had dragged their tails, they should find long snake like tail prints beside fossil footprints and tracks. Now, there is some evidence of fossil tail prints found with footprints, but out of thousands of footprints found, there were only a few tail prints… Not enough evidence to support the tail dragging idea, which is how our Albertosaurus skeleton is built. You may be wondering then as to why our Albertosaurus still positioned this way if it’s scientifically wrong. There are a few reasons for this, number one, our museum doesn’t have the funds to pay for a new one, and two, this version tells a really good story about how our understanding and knowledge of dinosaurs evolves, just like the dinosaurs did.
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This is an older model of Velociraptor, pronounced "Vel-OSS-ee-rap-tor", as it was understood by paleontologists before the 1970's.
Compare this to a more modern velociraptor model in the far corner of this room.
Audio Transcript
Most of us are curious about what dinosaurs really looked like, but it’s hard to know what a dinosaur looked like without seeing its skin, or any of its soft body parts. Hard body parts like bone and teeth fossilize better than soft skin, which is why soft skin is much rarer to find, and why up until recently, paleontologists have relied on artists to imagine what they looked like. The eyes of this velociraptor model are portrayed here as gleaming red, because that is what the artist imagined them to look like, but we don’t really know that they were in fact red.
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This model is a representation of what we now think Troodon looked like.
In 1855, a Paleontologist found a single dinosaur tooth in Montana, U.S.A. It was one of the first dinosaur teeth discovered in North America. Even though there was no skeleton to go with this tooth, the Paleontologist assigned a name to the creature that owned it. He named the dinosaur Troodon formosus which means 'wounding tooth'. The shape of Troodon's body was originally thought to be similar to a lizard. But when paleontologists found similar teeth and bones in Alberta, Canada, it was realized that Troodon was actually a small meat-eating dinosaur.
360 million years ago during the Devonian time period, a large part of Southern Ontario, including Waterloo, was a shallow muddy sea. Corals, crinoids, and brachiopod seashells lived here. The fossils from which this reconstruction was made are found at Thedford and Arkona, Ontario. This area is world famous among fossil collectors because of the variety of fossils and how well they are preserved.
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This is a model of Velociraptor as it is currently understood by paleontologists. What differences do you see between the two models on display? Scientists are excited to discover new things that change our understanding of what dinosaurs looked like or how they behaved.
Audio Transcript
You might be wondering why we have not one, but two velociraptors in our paleo pit. The first velociraptor model represents what paleontologists knew about the dinosaur 50 years ago. They interpretated that they stood on two legs, had sharp teeth and claws, and scaly skin covering its body. Today, paleontologists know a lot more about this small but fearsome creature, which is why we have the second velociraptor model. The second model is thinner with an engaged tail that helps the dinosaur keep its balance while running and jumping. It also has feathers because even though a velociraptor fossil with feathers has not yet been found, the arm bones show where feathers would have been attached. What paleontologists don’t know yet, is what those feathers may have looked like. If a fossil velociraptor with feather imprints is ever found the next model in our paleo pit will look different again.
This lovable, ridable, baby Triceratops was found and purchased at a garage sale by a friend of the museum. It has helped share information about dinosaurs with kids of all sizes for many years!
This Cave Bear was not a dinosaur but a giant ice-age relative of modern bears that lived from about 300,000 to 10,000 years ago. This skeleton is 2.7 metres tall and came from Russia.
Welcome to the Conestoga rowers learning center, otherwise known as the Paleo pit. This area is full of prehistoric life, spanning a time period of from just 10 thousand years ago to 450 million years ago. Most of the creatures and prehistoric evidence in this room are also the fiercest of the bunch: our dinosaurs. You can use this commentary to choose your own path specimen to specimen and explore more about the particular objects that interest you most.
Welcome to our geologist’s office, otherwise known as an Assay Office. This office is based on pre-1960's mining practices. An assay office is where geologists examine rocks and rock core to help determine if a location has a high enough amount of valuable minerals to become a working mine site. When geologists explore for new mine sites they are looking for certain rocks that have high economic value, called ore.
Working underground in mine tunnels to remove large amounts of rock is a challenge on its own. Add the fact that the workspace is completely in the dark, and you see the need for an artificial light source. For millennia, people used oil lamps to illuminate dark pits and tunnels to search for valuable minerals or rocks called ore. Only in the last 250 years or so did science and innovation evolve to use safer and brighter light sources. Throughout the years, miners have used many light types, including covered oil lamps, safety lamps, spout oil wick lamps, candlesticks, carbide lamps and finally electric cap lamps, which are still used to this day.
This is our gneiss monolith that stands at 9m tall! A monolith is a word used to describe one large piece of rock, "mono" meaning "one", and "lith" meaning "rock." This monolith is gneiss, which is a kind a metamorphic rock that formed in an environment with very high pressures and temperatures deep within the earth's crust. This piece is around one billion years old!
This monolith was extracted from a quarry in Bigwood township, close to Subury, and transported to Waterloo on a flatbed truck. Thats a long trip for such a large piece of rock and there was a concern that the rock might break during the transport, so the quarry sent two pieces, just in case! Thankfully, both monoliths made it in one piece and the second monolith now stands as a piece of the World's largest inukshuk, located in Shomberg, Ontario! Check out the 2007 Guiness Book of World Records to find out more information about it.
How did we get such a large piece of rock in this building, you ask? Well, technically, we didn't! Before this building was erected in 2002, the monolith was placed into the foundation as it was being poured and the rest of the building was built around it. Our museum will be the forever home of this giant specimen.
Audio Transcript
Isotopes are a key part of our research. Now, think of elements on the periodic table—each element is defined by having a specific number of protons. So, for example magnesium has 12 protons, that’s what defines magnesium. An isotope is when you have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons. So, magnesium has three stable, naturally occurring isotopes, where there are 12 protons but these are combined with either 12, 13, or 14 neutrons in the nucleus of that magnesium atom. Different isotopes of the same element behave differently in environmental systems and we can measure these isotopes to determine how ancient and modern earth and environmental processes work. So, some of the applications that we have done in this lab include assessing the change in the amount of oxygen in ancient oceans using molybdenum isotopes or evaluating the migratory history of fish using strontium isotopes. And another application is determining the age of rocks and minerals using uranium and lead isotopes.
This piece of Amabel dolostone was collected from a quarry in Wiarton, ON. This sedimentary rock is the caprock, or the rock formation on the very top of the sequence, of the Niagara Escarpment. It formed 400 million years ago during the Silurian time period. This rock is extracted from the Earth in a quarry, and primarily used as a building material. Building material rocks include any rock that is used for construction purposes. Rocks have been a popular building material for centuries. This is because they are readily available and make long-lasting structures. Each kind of rock has different characteristics that make them better or worse for certain projects. For example, granite is a rock commonly used as kitchen countertops because it is hard, durable, and beautiful to look at. Dolostone, is often used as an aggregate in road construction because it is easily crushed into gravel.
Amabel dolostone is the rock used to construct the big staircase inside the Museum.
This piece of Amabel dolostone was collected from a quarry in Wiarton, ON. This sedimentary rock is the caprock, or the rock formation on the very top of the sequence, of the Niagara Escarpment. It formed 400 million years ago during the Silurian time period. This rock is extracted from the Earth in a quarry and primarily used as a building material. Building material rocks include any rock that is used for construction purposes. Rocks have been a popular building material for centuries. This is because they are readily available and make long-lasting structures. Each kind of rock has different characteristics that make them better or worse for certain projects. For example, granite is a rock commonly used as kitchen countertops because it is hard, durable, and beautiful to look at. Dolostone, is often used as an aggregate in road construction because it is easily crushed into gravel.
Amabel dolostone is the rock used to construct the big staircase inside the Museum.
This rock is from Cobalt, ON, and was formed around 2210 million years ago during the Proterozoic. Cobalt is known for its many silver mines that started operating in 1905 and is an important part of Canada’s mining history. Silver is one of the precious metals required to build everyday items, including the electronic device you are using right at this moment! When enough precious metals occur in a rock, we call the rock “ore”. Ore is the raw product that we take from the ground in a mine. It is then processed to separate the waste parts of the rock from the valuable minerals or metals, which are then sold to make a profit. Some examples of valuable ore minerals and their products include:
• Chalcopyrite – copper is used to make plumbing pipes
• Bauxite – aluminum is used in food packaging
• Chromite – chromium is used to make car parts
• Limonite – nickel is used to make pots and pans
• Native silver – silver used to make jewelry
• Native gold – gold is used in electronics
This rock is from Cobalt, ON, and was formed around 2210 million years ago during the Proterozoic. Cobalt is known for its many silver mines that started operating in 1905 and is an important part of Canada’s mining history. Silver is one of the precious metals required to build everyday items, including the electronic device you are using right at this moment! When enough precious metals occur in a rock, we call the rock “ore”. Ore is the raw product that we take from the ground in a mine. It is then processed to separate the waste parts of the rock from the valuable minerals or metals, which are then sold to make a profit. Some examples of valuable ore minerals and their products include:
• Chalcopyrite – copper is used to make plumbing pipes
• Bauxite – aluminum is used in food packaging
• Chromite – chromium is used to make car parts
• Limonite – nickel is used to make pots and pans
• Native silver – silver used to make jewelry
• Native gold – gold is used in electronics
This piece of Amabel dolostone was collected from a quarry in Wiarton, ON. This sedimentary rock is the caprock, or the rock formation on the very top of the sequence, of the Niagara Escarpment. It formed 400 million years ago during the Silurian time period. This rock is extracted from the Earth in a quarry, and primarily used as a building material. Building material rocks include any rock that is used for construction purposes. Rocks have been a popular building material for centuries. This is because they are readily available and make long-lasting structures. Each kind of rock has different characteristics that make them better or worse for certain projects. For example, granite is a rock commonly used as kitchen countertops because it is hard, durable, and beautiful to look at. Dolostone, is often used as an aggregate in road construction because it is easily crushed into gravel.
Amabel dolostone is the rock used to construct the big staircase inside the Museum.
Audio Transcript
One of our key analytical capabilities is measuring very small amounts of metals in liquids and solids. For example, consider bottled water you would buy at the store, each bottle has a table on it’s label that specifies the results of a chemical analysis of that water, and these are usually reported in “ppm,” which stands for “parts per million.” So, for example, if the value beside Mg, standing for the element magnesium, is 7 ppm, this indicated that there are approximately 7 atoms of magnesium for every 1 million molecules of water. So, our lab routinely analyzes concentrations at this level, the part per million level, also the part per billion level, and in some cases the part per trillion level. So, although these are very small amounts, these small quantities of certain elements and metals can really impact our health and the environment.
This tree trunk from northern Arizona formed during a massive petrification event 225 million years ago in the late Triassic. Living organisms become "petrified" when minerals replace some or all of the original organic material, and/or are deposited in open spaces. The result can be a simple "cast" that fills the hole left by the decayed organism and retains only the exterior shape, but sometimes the preservation of detail is outstanding. Growth features like tree rings are often visible in fossil wood, and it's not unusual to see individual cells under the microscope! These little details help us identify the types of trees that lived millions of years ago.
Audio Transcript
Hello everyone, my name is Chris Yakymchuk, and I am an associate professor in the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo, and I am the co-director of this lab: the metal isotope and geochemistry laboratory.
Audio Transcript
Hello everyone, my name is Chris Yakymchuk, and I am an associate professor in the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo, and I am the co-director of this lab: the metal isotope and geochemistry laboratory.
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Jack's hat was the safety helmet of Jacob "Jack" Wolchuck, an exploration geologist who started working in the mines in Sudbury, ON in the 1940's. Jack worked many different jobs during his career including sampler, surveyor, laboratory technician, exploration geologist, and working in the metallurgical department. Throughout his career he worked at many mine sites, including Creighton Mine, Inco mine, Copper Cliff, and the Ore Recovery Plant, where he spent most of his time. Jack wore this helmet for years, and every bump, scratch, and dent on this helmet is proof that the helmet was doing its job, protecting Jack from workplace hazards!
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Cryolophosaurus, pronounced "cry-o-loaf-oh-sore-us", was the largest Antarctic predator from the early Jurassic about 194 million years ago. During the time this dinosaur was living, Antarctica was closer to the equator so it was much warmer and had lots of green plants. It looked very different from the ice covered land mass it is today.
Audio Transcript
There are very few Cryolophosaurus fossils. This is because its fossils have only been found in Antarctica—a place that’s hard to get to, and for the most part, covered in ice. This replica was created from the only Cryolophosaurus fossil skull ever found. It’s not very common for paleontologists to find an entire dinosaur with all of its bones. When cryolophosaurus’ skull was discovered, only half of it was there! When trying to create what a full skull would look like it was a really tricky job, like creating a LEGO masterpiece with only half of the instructions. The real fossil included some of the upper and lower jaw as well as its distinctive crest, but to create the full dinosaur head the rest of the skull was created by looking at another dinosaur: Allosaurus. Allosaurus was used as a reference because it was a similar Jurassic aged, meat-eating dinosaur. As our Earth gets warmer, and more ice melting away from Antarctica’s landmass, paleontologists might find more Cryolophosaurus fossils, and be able to fill in the fossil gaps that are currently educated guesses.
This piece of Amabel dolostone was collected from a quarry in Wiarton, ON. This sedimentary rock is the caprock, or the rock formation on the very top of the sequence, of the Niagara Escarpment. It formed 400 million years ago during the Silurian time period. This rock is extracted from the Earth in a quarry, and primarily used as a building material. Building material rocks include any rock that is used for construction purposes. Rocks have been a popular building material for centuries. This is because they are readily available and make long-lasting structures. Each kind of rock has different characteristics that make them better or worse for certain projects. For example, granite is a rock commonly used as kitchen countertops because it is hard, durable, and beautiful to look at. Dolostone, is often used as an aggregate in road construction because it is easily crushed into gravel.
Amabel dolostone is the rock used to construct the big staircase inside the Museum.
This rock is from Cobalt, ON, and was formed around 2210 million years ago during the Proterozoic. Cobalt is known for its many silver mines that started operating in 1905 and is an important part of Canada’s mining history. Silver is a precious metal required to build useful products such as solar cells. When enough precious metals occur in a rock, we call the rock “ore”. Ore is the raw product that we take from the ground in a mine. It is then processed to separate the waste parts of the rock from the valuable minerals or metals, which are then sold to make a profit. Some examples of valuable ore minerals and their products include:
• Chalcopyrite – copper is used to make plumbing pipes
• Bauxite – aluminum is used in food packaging
• Chromite – chromium is used to make car parts
• Limonite – nickel is used to make pots and pans
• Native silver – silver used to make jewelry
• Native gold – gold is used in electronics
Barnum Brown, known as “Mr. Bones”, discovered the first fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur in 1902 near the Missouri River in Montana, U.S.A. Because of its impressive size, the T-Rex was named "King of the Tyrant Lizards". This is a cast of the T-Rex skull Mr. Bones found.
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This fossil leaf is from a Ginkgo Biloba tree. Ginkgo trees are considered living fossils because they co-existed with the dinosaurs around 200 million years ago but can still be found growing in parks around the world today including the Waterloo region.
Audio Transcript
Isotopes are a key part of our research. Now, think of elements on the periodic table—each element is defined by having a specific number of protons. So, for example magnesium has 12 protons, that’s what defines magnesium. An isotope is when you have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons. So, magnesium has three stable, naturally occurring isotopes, where there are 12 protons but these are combined with either 12, 13, or 14 neutrons in the nucleus of that magnesium atom. Different isotopes of the same element behave differently in environmental systems and we can measure these isotopes to determine how ancient and modern earth and environmental processes work. So, some of the applications that we have done in this lab include assessing the change in the amount of oxygen in ancient oceans using molybdenum isotopes or evaluating the migratory history of fish using strontium isotopes. And another application is determining the age of rocks and minerals using uranium and lead isotopes.
The weigh scale is used to measure the mass of powdered rock samples and the solutions made from dissolving those powders. This scale measures to 0.01 mg which allows us to achieve excellent precision in our masses.
Audio Transcipt
Hi everyone, my name is Brian and I am a professor who runs a Geochemistry lab in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo.
In this lab, we apply chemistry to geology so that we can learn more about the plant that we live on. We can research many different topics using geochemistry. Some of these topics are very important to us. Where can we find the mineral and energy deposit that supports human technology and how do they form? Where are environmental areas that have become contaminated by human activities and how can we fix that? How can we prevent environmental contamination in the first place? Or, at least move the contaminant where it is formed so that it doesn't spread throughout the environment.
Other research topics helps satisfy our curiosity about our planet. When did Earth’s continents first form? When did Earth’s atmosphere and ocean become oxygenated enough to support animal life? Many professors and the students use elemental and data from this lab to try answering these questions. We provide data to other scientists as well as government and industrial organization to help them with their research.
Now, there are two different sections in my life. The first is the clean lab, which, as the name implies, contained filtered air to minimize in background contamination of our samples. In this clean lab we prepare samples for analysis using a variety of wet chemistry methods, such as dissolving sample powders with concentrated acid or isolating one element from others in the sample so we can determine the element isotope composition. The other part of my lab contains the mass spectrometers, used to measure the concentration of different elements in a sample or to determine the article composition of a particular element. This information helps to answer our research questions. I hope you enjoy this virtual tour of my lab, in which you will learn a bit more about the different types of equipment and instruments in the lab.
Milli-Q water is produced using a Milli-Q filtration system. This system uses resin filters to remove ions more effectively when compared to standard deionized water, resulting in water with an electrical resistance of 18.2 MΩ. This is necessary for our analyses because we are measuring very low concentrations of metals down to ppb, sometimes ppt. Having any metals present in the water that we use to prepare samples for analysis could give us inaccurate results.
Audio Transcript
One of our key analytical capabilities is measuring very small amounts of metals in liquids and solids. For example, consider bottled water you would buy at the store, each bottle has a table on it’s label that specifies the results of a chemical analysis of that water, and these are usually reported in “ppm,” which stands for “parts per million.” So, for example, if the value beside Mg, standing for the element magnesium, is 7 ppm, this indicated that there are approximately 7 atoms of magnesium for every 1 million molecules of water. So, our lab routinely analyzes concentrations at this level, the part per million level, also the part per billion level, and in some cases the part per trillion level. So, although these are very small amounts, these small quantities of certain elements and metals can really impact our health and the environment.
The main purpose of a fume hood is to protect the user from hazardous fumes, vapours, and dust. Much of our work involves concentrated acids which are extremely harmful if inhaled.
Paleontologists don't always find full skeletons of dinosaurs. In fact, full skeletons are hard to find. Sometimes they find a bunch of fossils, from different dinosaurs, that have been brought together in one place. One way fossils can move together is when water picks them up and moves them down a stream or river. Just like how sand moves down a river and collects at a beach.
This mess of dinosaur bones and teeth was found in sandstone rock from Wyoming, U.S.A. There are many bones and bone fragments.
Milli-Q water is produced using a Milli-Q filtration system. This system uses resin filters to remove ions more effectively when compared to standard deionized water, resulting in water with an electrical resistance of 18.2 MΩ. This is necessary for our analyses because we are measuring very low concentrations of metals down to ppb, sometimes ppt. Having any metals present in the water that we use to prepare samples for analysis could give us inaccurate results.
Audio Transcript
This very shiny machine is a new plasma 2 multi collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. That’s another mouthful. It is used to measure the various isotopes of individual elements. So, for example, it can measure the three isotopes of magnesium, or it could measure the 4 stable isotopes of the element strontium, or even the 7 isotopes of the element osmium. So, similar to the agilent mass spectrometer it uses high temperature plasma to ionize the elements. These ions travel towards the right side of the machine around a bend. Now, the bend acts to separate the heavy isotopes which travel straighter because of their momentum from the lighter isotopes that more easily curve around that bend. So, this process creates a fan of different masses that we can measure at the same time with a multi collection device—we have multiple collector arranged in an array at the far right side of this machine, this is why it is known as a multi collector mass spectrometer.
These four people collect rock, fossil, and mineral specimens. Click on the silhouettes to hear their stories!
Welcome to the Peter Russell Rock Garden. The rocks in this garden create curiousity and encourage questions from visitors of all ages about the Earth that lies beneath our feet. The garden is also a place where students, employees and community members often come to enjoy the relaxing surroundings, have a coffee break with a friend, or share their lunch break with the resident squirrels. It is a space to share conversations and spend time outdoors in the company of friends or with some of the Museum's "rock" stars.
The Potsdam sandstone is found in Inverary, near Kingston, Ontario. Potsdam sandstone is also known as the Nepean sandstone or Kingston sandstone. It is a type of sedimentary rock, called ripple mark sandstone, that was deposited 500 million years ago in the Cambrian time period. Sedimentary rocks are formed when other minerals “glue together” small pieces of rock material (like pebbles, sand, or mud), called sediments.
Sediments are created when pre-existing rocks break up into small pieces. These pieces may be transported to different locations by forces such as water, wind, and gravity. The sediments come to rest on top of each other in layers, called deposition. Over time the sediments are buried by more layers on top, which compact the layers below. The compacted layers are naturally glued together by minerals to create a solid rock in a process called cementation.
This is a metamorphic rock that was collected from the Marmoraton Mine in Marmora, Ontario. Metamorphic rocks form by transforming a pre-existing rock by exposing it to heat and pressure. When the protolith experiences high temperatures and pressures, some or all of the minerals that make up the rock undergo physical and chemical changes, becoming completely new minerals and therefore a new rock. Think of it like a caterpillar entering its cocoon, and after some time, it emerges as a butterfly!
Audio Transcript
This instrument is an Agilent 8800 triple quadruple inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Yeah, that’s a mouthful. It’s used to measure the trace amounts of metals and other elements in liquid and solid samples, for example the amount of lead in a water sample, or the amount of arsenic in a soil sample. So, “mass spectrometry” simply means measuring the different masses of elements in isotopes that make up the periodic table of elements. The way that this particular instrument works is that some sample, either a liquid or small solid particulates, are injected into a hot plasma, about the temperature of the sun, on the left side of the machine. So, if the machine was on it would be a glowing bright beam of light that indicates that we have a very high temperature plasma in there. We inject the material into the plasma, and the plasma strips the electrons off the atom that make up our sample resulting of atoms of various elements with positive charges, and this is known as an ion. So, we have these positively charged ions, we apply a negative charge to the right side of the machine, and these charged atoms, or these ions, move towards the right side of the machine. As they’re in transit from the left to right side of the machine we apply a series of magnetic filters that sort the ions based on their masses. We measure material on the far right side of the instrument to determine the concentration of these different elements in our sample. We vary the settings on these magnetic filters so we can cycle through many elements on the periodic table very quickly. So, for example, for a lot of samples that we look at actually we can measure most of the table of periodic elements in under one second. Alright, so we do this several different times to build up a lot more data, but we can do this very quickly, and so the whole goal of this is that this instrument can detect new quantities of different elements in both liquid and solid samples.
Audio Transcript
This instrument is an Agilent 8800 triple quadruple inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Yeah, that’s a mouthful. It’s used to measure the trace amounts of metals and other elements in liquid and solid samples, for example the amount of lead in a water sample, or the amount of arsenic in a soil sample. So, “mass spectrometry” simply means measuring the different masses of elements in isotopes that make up the periodic table of elements. The way that this particular instrument works is that some sample, either a liquid or small solid particulates, are injected into a hot plasma, about the temperature of the sun, on the left side of the machine. So, if the machine was on it would be a glowing bright beam of light that indicates that we have a very high temperature plasma in there. We inject the material into the plasma, and the plasma strips the electrons off the atom that make up our sample resulting of atoms of various elements with positive charges, and this is known as an ion. So, we have these positively charged ions, we apply a negative charge to the right side of the machine, and these charged atoms, or these ions, move towards the right side of the machine. As they’re in transit from the left to right side of the machine we apply a series of magnetic filters that sort the ions based on their masses. We measure material on the far right side of the instrument to determine the concentration of these different elements in our sample. We vary the settings on these magnetic filters so we can cycle through many elements on the periodic table very quickly. So, for example, for a lot of samples that we look at actually we can measure most of the table of periodic elements in under one second. Alright, so we do this several different times to build up a lot more data, but we can do this very quickly, and so the whole goal of this is that this instrument can detect new quantities of different elements in both liquid and solid samples.
This is a metamorphic rock that was collected from the Marmoraton Mine in Marmora, Ontario. Metamorphic rocks form by transforming a pre-existing rock by exposing it to heat and pressure. When the protolith experiences high temperatures and pressures, some or all of the minerals that make up the rock undergo physical and chemical changes, becoming completely new minerals and therefore a new rock. Think of it like a caterpillar entering its cocoon, and after some time, it emerges as a butterfly!
Audio Transcript
This instrument is an Agilent 8800 triple quadruple inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Yeah, that’s a mouthful. It’s used to measure the trace amounts of metals and other elements in liquid and solid samples, for example the amount of lead in a water sample, or the amount of arsenic in a soil sample. So, “mass spectrometry” simply means measuring the different masses of elements in isotopes that make up the periodic table of elements. The way that this particular instrument works is that some sample, either a liquid or small solid particulates, are injected into a hot plasma, about the temperature of the sun, on the left side of the machine. So, if the machine was on it would be a glowing bright beam of light that indicates that we have a very high temperature plasma in there. We inject the material into the plasma, and the plasma strips the electrons off the atom that make up our sample resulting of atoms of various elements with positive charges, and this is known as an ion. So, we have these positively charged ions, we apply a negative charge to the right side of the machine, and these charged atoms, or these ions, move towards the right side of the machine. As they’re in transit from the left to right side of the machine we apply a series of magnetic filters that sort the ions based on their masses. We measure material on the far right side of the instrument to determine the concentration of these different elements in our sample. We vary the settings on these magnetic filters so we can cycle through many elements on the periodic table very quickly. So, for example, for a lot of samples that we look at actually we can measure most of the table of periodic elements in under one second. Alright, so we do this several different times to build up a lot more data, but we can do this very quickly, and so the whole goal of this is that this instrument can detect new quantities of different elements in both liquid and solid samples.
This is a metamorphic rock that was collected from the Marmoraton Mine in Marmora, Ontario. Metamorphic rocks form by transforming a pre-existing rock by exposing it to heat and pressure. When the protolith experiences high temperatures and pressures, some or all of the minerals that make up the rock undergo physical and chemical changes, becoming completely new minerals and therefore a new rock. Think of it like a caterpillar entering its cocoon, and after some time, it emerges as a butterfly!
Audio Transcript
The black box in between the two mass spectrometers is an Analyte G2 laser ablation system. Now this is used to turn solids samples into fine particles that can enter the plasma on either the agilent triple quadruple mass spectrometer on the left or the new plasma 2 multi collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer on the right. So how does this work? We first take a sample and place it into the gold box in the middle of the instrument, and then we fire at it a very concentrated high-powered laser on a very small area, about the size of a human hair or smaller, and this explodes that part of the sample into particles that are then sucked into the plasma on the left or the right, where those particles are broken down further and ionized. So, we use this technique to sample small areas of minerals, teeth, ceramics, and almost all other solid materials will work as well. So, we can take almost any solid material, fire a laser at it, send portions of that material to either mass spectrometer for its analysis of its chemical composition using the agilent on the left or the isotopic make-up of the sample using the new plasma on the right, and our most common use is to determine the isotope ratios of uranium and lead in minerals to estimate the age of the mineral or the rock it came from.
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This igneous rock was formed 66-201 million years ago, during the Cretaceous and Jurassic time periods. Granite is the most common intrusive igneous rock found in the Earth's crust! Since granite is such a common rock type, geologists sometimes use specific words in the name of the rock to better describe what is unique about each formation. For example, this granite is called "porphyritic biotite granite". "Porphyritic" means that there are two different sizes of minerals grains within the rock, some are big and some are small. Biotite is a mineral that is found in this rock in large amounts. So, adding "biotite" to the name of this rock tells other geologists about the minerals present in this specific rock.
Audio Transcript
The black box in between the two mass spectrometers is an Analyte G2 laser ablation system. Now this is used to turn solids samples into fine particles that can enter the plasma on either the agilent triple quadruple mass spectrometer on the left or the new plasma 2 multi collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer on the right. So how does this work? We first take a sample and place it into the gold box in the middle of the instrument, and then we fire at it a very concentrated high-powered laser on a very small area, about the size of a human hair or smaller, and this explodes that part of the sample into particles that are then sucked into the plasma on the left or the right, where those particles are broken down further and ionized. So, we use this technique to sample small areas of minerals, teeth, ceramics, and almost all other solid materials will work as well. So, we can take almost any solid material, fire a laser at it, send portions of that material to either mass spectrometer for its analysis of its chemical composition using the agilent on the left or the isotopic make-up of the sample using the new plasma on the right, and our most common use is to determine the isotope ratios of uranium and lead in minerals to estimate the age of the mineral or the rock it came from.
This tree trunk from northern Arizona formed during a massive petrification event 225 million years ago in the late Triassic. Living organisms become "petrified" when minerals replace some or all of the original organic material, and/or are deposited in open spaces. The result can be a simple "cast" that fills the hole left by the decayed organism and retains only the exterior shape, but sometimes the preservation of detail is outstanding. Growth features like tree rings are often visible in fossil wood, and it's not unusual to see individual cells under the microscope! These little details help us identify the types of trees that lived millions of years ago.
The Potsdam sandstone is found in Inverary, near Kingston, Ontario. Potsdam sandstone is also known as the Nepean sandstone or Kingston sandstone. It is a type of sedimentary rock, called ripple mark sandstone, that was deposited 500 million years ago in the Cambrian time period. Sedimentary rocks are formed when other minerals “glue together” small pieces of rock material (like pebbles, sand, or mud), called sediments.
Sediments are created when pre-existing rocks break up into small pieces. These pieces may be transported to different locations by forces such as water, wind, and gravity. The sediments come to rest on top of each other in layers, called deposition. Over time the sediments are buried by more layers on top, which compact the layers below. The compacted layers are naturally glued together by minerals to create a solid rock in a process called cementation.
Audio Transcript
The black box in between the two mass spectrometers is an Analyte G2 laser ablation system. Now this is used to turn solids samples into fine particles that can enter the plasma on either the agilent triple quadruple mass spectrometer on the left or the new plasma 2 multi collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer on the right. So how does this work? We first take a sample and place it into the gold box in the middle of the instrument, and then we fire at it a very concentrated high-powered laser on a very small area, about the size of a human hair or smaller, and this explodes that part of the sample into particles that are then sucked into the plasma on the left or the right, where those particles are broken down further and ionized. So, we use this technique to sample small areas of minerals, teeth, ceramics, and almost all other solid materials will work as well. So, we can take almost any solid material, fire a laser at it, send portions of that material to either mass spectrometer for its analysis of its chemical composition using the agilent on the left or the isotopic make-up of the sample using the new plasma on the right, and our most common use is to determine the isotope ratios of uranium and lead in minerals to estimate the age of the mineral or the rock it came from.
Scroll for audio transcript of video (access Herkeimer Diamonds video by clicking on the video icon on the table).
Although this mineral’s common name is Herkimer diamond, it's not a diamond at all! This mineral is a special kind of crystal-clear quartz that gets its name from where it is found, Herkimer, New York, USA. Its beautifully clear and doubly terminated crystals (pointy ends on two sides of the crystal) are rare to find. This is what makes Herkimer diamonds very popular with mineral collectors.
Audio Transcript
Herkimer is in New York, so if you cross into Buffalo and I don’t remember which interstate you take but you just sort of drive straight across to where Herkimer is, and everyone refers to them as Herkimer Diamonds, which is a bit of a misnomer—they aren’t actually diamonds, they’re quartz crystals, but they come out as double terminated quartz crystals, so they do look like diamonds. I still remember early on, I remember which dealer it was, he has since retired now, I think it was Liz Mark, him saying to me “would you like a diamond?” and I thought "wow this is so exciting!" And he put one in my hand and I was like "hold on a second, this isn’t a diamond, this is a Herkimer," however, I still said thank you and took it, because you don’t take a gift mineral and turn your nose up at it, you take whatever you can get.
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Hadrosaurs, or duck-billed dinosaurs, had an impressive group of teeth, called a battery, on each side of the jaw. Each battery is made of stacks of interlocked teeth that was used as a giant grinding surface to break-down tough plants. A single jaw could be made of over 300 teeth fused together! Hadrosaur teeth did not fall out and get replaced like in other dinosaurs or in you. Each tooth slowly moved towards the chewing surface, making room for new ones at the bottom of the battery. Once they reached the grinding surface, the teeth were eventually ground down as the hadrosaur ate its food.
And the labels—to add—the label needs to be the location, the name of the mineral, and the date. For serious collectors, those are critical pieces of information. You could have the most beautiful specimen or crystal, and if you can’t say the exact location and date that you collected it, its value just drops through the floor, because the serious collectors, as much as they like the specimen, without that information they’re not interested. And when Aimee said “label it,” label it before you leave the site. Not when you get back to your campground and you’re too tired, you think, “yeah, okay I’ll do it the next day,” or not when you get back from your trip, back home, and it’s “yeah, we’ve had a nice trip, but we’ll get to it,” and you never do. So, labelling it early is important.
The first discovery of silver in the area was by Fred LaRose, a local blacksmith. As the story goes, Fred was working away at his forge when he saw a curious fox roaming around his workshop. He threw his heavy hammer towards the fox to scare it away, and as it landed, the hammer knocked off a piece of rock, revealing a sparkling vein of silver! This accidental find turned out to be a huge silver deposit, which then became the LaRose Mine, and prompted prospectors to search the area for other mining opportunities.
In the first 60 years of operation, the Cobalt Silver Mines produced 420,500,000 ounces of silver, which at today's price would be worth over ten billion dollars!
Audio segment included. Scroll for audio transcript.
To prevent dirt or dust from entering the clean lab, technicians need to remove any potentially dirty clothing items, like shoes, and put on clean items. Technicians do this to protect the samples from contaminants so that the lab analysis is accurate.
Audio Transcript
Outside of the clean lab, a person must remove their shoes before entering the gowning room. In the gowning room they will put on a pair of clean designated lab shoes, a lab coat, gloves and safety glasses.
Did you know that the largest trilobite fossil in the world was found in Canada?. This is a replica of the fossil found in Churchill, Manitoba by David Rudkin of the Royal Ontario Museum in 1998.
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Parasaurolophus, pronounced "pa-ra-saw-ROL-off-us", is famous for the crest on its head that extended back for a distance up to 1.8 metres. Inside the crest are two tubes that travel up the crest from the nostrils and travel down the crest to the back of the mouth.
Just like modern birds and reptiles today, dinosaurs laid and hatched from eggs. It's one of the many characteristics that makes a dinosaur, a dinosaur!
This trilobite species, Isotelus, is about 445 million years old from the Ordovician time period. It is the second largest trilobite fossil in the world and was found by a UWaterloo correspondence student, Bill Erickson, in September 1986. It is now part of the Geological Survey of Canada collection.
When we walk through wet sand or soft mud, we are creating footprints and leaving evidence that "we were here"! Finding a fossilized dinosaur footprint tells us the same thing: "dinosaurs were here!".
Many fossil footprints are single prints like this duck-billed dinosaur print. This footprint is a replica of a print found by Hedy Hobberlin during construction of the Bennet Dam in British Columbia.
Audio segment included. Scroll for audio transcript.
Even though dinosaur trackways can tell us a lot about the dinosaur that created the tracks, it cannot always tell you what species of dinosaur made them.
Take this trackway, for example. This is a replica of a Grallator trackway from Connecticut, U.S.A. Try finding that "dinosaur" on the internet and it just won't happen! That's because the name Grallator is only used to describe the fossil footprints of small 3-toed dinosaurs. Was it Coelophysis? Was it Velociraptor? With just tracks it's really hard to tell.
Audio Transcript
Dinosaur trackways are fantastic fossils of hand or footprints that capture a moment of time in a dinosaur’s life. Trackways allow you to picture a dinosaur in your mind, perhaps walking or running in some muddy riverbed leaving a trail of footprints behind it. A trackway can tell us so much about a dinosaur—how big they were, how long their stride was, if they were running or walking, and whether they were bipedal, like velociraptor who walked on two feet, or quadrupedal like ankylosaurus, who walked on all fours. In some special places, like Tumbler Ridge UNESCO Global Geopark, in British Columbia, there are trackways in the same area, made by multiple dinosaurs. These fossils can tell us about the dinosaur groups that lived in the same environment. They can also tell us whether they travelled on their own, or were moving in herds, like pack animals do today.
Audio Transcript
My name is John Spoelstra, I’m a research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada and I’m also an adjunct professor here in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo. So, my area of expertise is biogeochemistry. I consider myself as a biogeochemist, my educational background is a mix of biology, chemistry, and earth sciences. Biogeochemistry is basically the study of how chemicals in the environment interact with living things. Over the years, my research has involved a lot of water quality type research. For instance, looking at how forest streams are impacted by logging, or the impacts of agriculture on groundwater and streams. I’ve also done work in Alberta’s oilsands region, looking at identifying where groundwater comes into the rivers. And currently my research is mostly in the Yukon looking at the climate change impacts on groundwater and specifically on how changes in water affect salmon spawning.
You blew up some rock! Check the rubble to see if you found anything.
The Peter Russell Rock Garden is an outdoor green space located in the heart of the University of Waterloo’s main campus. It was previously known as the Geological Garden. It was created in 1982 to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the University of Waterloo. The garden was started by Professor Peter Russell, curator emeritus of the Earth Sciences Museum. The garden began with twenty-three large rocks representing the diversity of rock formations across Ontario. In the summer of 1999, the Geological Garden was officially renamed the Peter Russell Rock Garden in recognition of Peter’s hard work and significant contributions. His infectious enthusiasm inspired many families, organizations and individuals to grow the garden. It is now the resting place for eighty rocks, with more to come!
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You found ore!
I wonder if there is valuable silver ore in this rock rubble!