Well, AESRC is done for another year and with it my role as co-chair of the organizing committee! Thank goodness for that! Hopefully, I can finally get some actual thesis related work done in the coming months…and maybe get back to blogging a bit as well. However, as grateful as I am that AESRC is …[Read More]
Paleontology
Back in Colborne Quarry!
It finally happened! After 10 years of being denied access to one of the all time best fossil collecting spots in North America myself, and a few other lucky geologists were allowed into the quarry with unrestricted access for the day last Thursday! The last time I visited Colborne Quarry was before I had started …[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #32 – Name that squid!
This edition of the photo of the week highlights another piece from my personal collection. This is a cephalopod. More specifically it is a member of the Order Endocerida and the Family Endoceratidae. This creature, which hopefully you can see was pretty large (golf tee for scale) was the largest of the Ordovician cephalopods found in Ontario …[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #26
The photo of the week is another great example of Pleistocene giantism in mammals. In the photo you see a recent (very) leg bone from a kangaroo held next to the fossilized leg bone of a Pleistocene kangaroo, known as Procoptodon. HUGE DIFFERENCE! The bone from the ancient kangaroo is at least 10-15cm longer and …[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #25
The photo for this week is something a bit different. It is a piece from my personal collection that was self collected. Ok, full disclosure, my dad actually found it, but I was over on another rock pile in the quarry and finding jack at the time…so it is self collected….I did help extract it …[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #23
The incredibly colourful photo of the week is a picture that I took at the Canadian Museum of Nature. It shows what has to be one of the most spectacular pieces of ammolite that I have ever seen. Ammolite is a bit of a mysterious substance and it is found in only a few places …[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #22
I have been posting a lot lately about the Yukon. So for a change of pace the photo for this week comes from Australia…about as far from the Yukon as it is possible to get. This is a photo looking down on a mat of stromatolites. They are the round shapes poking up through the …[Read More]
Guest Lecture – Dr. Tim Lowenstein
Our department was recently lucky enough to have Dr. Tim Lowenstein from SUNY Binghamton come give a guest lecture on the changes in the chemistry of seawater throughout geologic time. Originally, we thought that the major ion chemistry in the past was more or less the same as it is today. However, over the last …[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week # 16 – Dec 16-22
It’s photo of the week time! I hope you’re excited…I am! There has been a lot of consternation in the twitterverse and geoscience community lately about the true identity of the Ediacaran biota, particularly the little guy pictured below. The abstract can be found here. The basic proposal is that the Ediacaran fossils are not marine, but rather are …[Read More]
The 46th Ottawa Gem and Mineral Show
A few weeks ago I went to the 46th annual Ottawa Gem and Mineral show. I have always been a dedicated mineral and fossil collector and shows like this allow me to indulge my inner collector and drool over all the fantastic specimens. I have been to a lot of shows, all local such as …[Read More]