My apologies for the slight blogging hiatus over the last little while. I have been preparing for a conference and then attending and so I had to put blogging on the back seat for a few weeks to prepare properly. However, the conference is done, my talk is given so now I can get back to blogging…at least until the next one…which starts on Tuesday (tomorrow). Luckily, I get to just watc ...[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #33
The photo of the week this week is of a very special place in Canada. Yes, predictably, it is the Yukon. However, this part of the Yukon is unique. It is a special region known as Beringia, which extends into Alaska and Siberia and it is the only part of Canada that was not covered by kilometers of ice during the last glaciation. Beringia is a special place because it is believed that that first h ...[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 and this is a particularly fine/large example mainly be ...[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #31/Science Travels
Sorry for the brief hiatus from blogging. This past week I was in Kenora and Dryden, Ontario getting into some great science outreach with an organization from uOttawa called Science Travels. Science Travels is a science outreach organization that sends science graduate students from the University of Ottawa and Carleton to northern communities to give presentations about a variety of science topi ...[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #30
The photo for this week was taken in Quebec near the town of Thetford. These are a really beautiful example of pillow basalts. Pillow basalts form during underwater volcanic eruptions and have the unusual quality of appearing bulbous and rounded. The ones pictured below have had their tops shorn off and are therefore visible in plane view. e.g. You’re looking down at them from above after th ...[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #29
The photo this week is of another self collected beauty. I collected this piece below at the Marmoraton Iron Mine in Marmora, Ontario a few years ago. When I found it none of the garnet crystals you see were visible. They were all covered by a thick layer of calcite. I could just make out the edge of a broken crystal at the side. However, I have been collecting at Marmora a lot and I knew that thi ...[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #28
Happy April Fools/Easter everyone! I know that I am a day late, but yesterday was a holiday in Canada. Spring is also in the air, not today actually since it is -7 currently, but we have no more snow, and we had a few nice days over the Easter weekend. It is therefore appropriate for the photo of the week to be something eggy. This photo is of a fragment of Pleistocene age emu egg shell that was f ...[Read More]
Photo of the Week #27 – Someone’s had a few too many
The photo of the week came to me this morning on my walk to school. Yes, it is now warm enough in Ottawa to comfortably walk to school! All the melting ice and the slight smell of spring and undergrad panic in the air got me thinking about permafrost degradation and nights out during my undergrad. An odd combination of thoughts, I grant you. Well, what do these two very separate things have in com ...[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 much, much thicker. Procoptodon, stood around 2m tall and weighed in at a massive 230 ...[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 after he found it. I should also mention that they were repaired and enhanced by a professiona ...[Read More]