News

Maurice Dusseault, PEng 
Department of Earth Sciences

Over the last ten years, new options for permanent disposal of noxious or toxic wastes have been developed in the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Waterloo.

A four-ton grey syenite rock striped with deep blue sodalite arrived on the Waterloo campus by truck last May, and settled into the Geological Garden among 50 tons of other rocks, mainly from Ontario locations. Tended by Peter Russell, the rock garden has been growing since 1986. The new rock was donated by Andy Christie, owner of the Princess Sodalite Mine, east of Bancroft. It will be dedicated to the memory of Elizabeth Edwards, an Earth Sciences staff member who died in 1997.

Dave Young, reporter for The Saint John Times Globe (with some editing by Randy Miller, Curator of Geology and Palaeontology, New Brunswick Museum).

For more than a century, New Brunswick has played a key part in giving scientists a sense of how things came to be as they are today.

If you strolled along the base of the cliff it would be virtually unnoticeable, a shallow hollow in the miles of rock along the Bay of Chaleur.

What you are looking for is sedimentary rocks. These are the ones that look like they have layers. They do. The rocks were created layer after layer as dirt or animals fell to the bottom of a lake, marsh or sea. Granite and rocks that were formed from volcanoes generally do not contain fossils. It was just too hot.

I joined Earth Sciences about 8 months ago, moving back to Waterloo from Sudbury where I worked in Klohn-Crippen's Mining Group for several years, consulting on a variety of issues related to Rock Stability Assessment and Improvement, as well as Mining and the Environment. Prior to that time, I worked for a number of years in Geological Engineering Research with the University of Toronto, CSIRO in Australia and the Geomechanics Research Centre at Laurentian University. I have also dabbled in permafrost research and highway construction and design along the way.

by: Duncan Mackay

The lacy blanket of the cedars casts shadows and timeless sunbeams on the river bed. And, where the sun reaches the bottom, the stones are golden and liquid in the crystalline blanket that dances its way to infinity. I am struck by the moment. My thoughts are fast and fleeting, but they leave me with a feeling of nostalgia.

... or reasonable facsimile of the beast that once roamed southern Ontario. Colby Morat, 4, visiting from Florida this summer, toured the Waterloo Earth Sciences Museum with the Waterloo YMCA Adventure Days camp, gingerly coming face to face with the newest acquisition, a replica of a mastodon skull. Nearly two metres long, the cast was purchased with the help from the Waterloo Science Equipment Fund, generated by undergraduates to assist the purchase of teaching tools.

Quartz is our most common mineral. Quartz is made of the two most abundant chemical elements on Earth: oxygen and silicon. Atoms of oxygen and silicon join together as tetrahedrons (three sided pyramids). These stack together to build crystals. Billions of tetrahedrons are needed to build even a small crystal. Quartz is an almost pure chemical compound with constant physical properties.

A new Earth science centre to open on Vancouver Island, BC
Rick Hudson

Plans are underway to build a new 7000 square foot science centre on the waterfront in the town of Sidney-by-the-Sea, close to Victoria, BC. The facility, which will be housed in a new 16,000 square foot retail development, will be breaking new ground in a variety of ways.

This is the fourth and final article covering the 1963 to 1973 eruptions in the Westmann Island group of the south coast of Iceland. Previous commentaries have mentioned Surtsey (WAT ON EARTH, Spring issue 1997), the start of the eruption on Heimaey (WAT ON EARTH, Fall issue 1997) and the closing stages of the Eldfell eruption (WAT ON EARTH, Spring issue 1998).