News

By:Kelly Snyder and Peter Russell

Nickel, symbol Ni, is a silvery white, magnetic metallic element used chiefly in making alloys. The name nickel comes from the German word "kupfernickel" meaning Devil's copper or St Nicholas's (Old Nick's) copper.

By:Ian Gordon, Science Librarian, Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario

By:Kelly Snyder

If you have ever walked through an open field, down a dirt road, or in the mountains, chances are that you stepped over a meteorite. But it is not likely that you would have taken notice because most meteorites, upon first glance, look like ordinary Earth rocks. Generally, a close and careful inspection is required to show that a meteorite is different from any rock that was formed on Earth.

By:Peter Russell

In this view of the rock cycle the starting materials are in the centre of the diagram these form the sedimentary and igneous rocks in the first circle which in turn form the metamorphic rocks in the outer circle.

By:Words and Music by Chris Rawlings
(c)Cooking Fat Music, 1995

I've been pounded ground down and smashed all around
in the cycle....rock cycle
I've been thrown up and blown up to the ozone
in the cycle..rock cycle
I've been eroded, corroded and motherloaded
Melted and pelted and ore smelted
I've been chipped and dipped and stripped and skipped
in the cycle...rock cycle

By: Alan Morgan

When we look at rocks exposed on the surface of the Earth we do not appreciate that nature is the ultimate recycler. Our present generation of rocks has, to use a cliché, "been through the mill" many times. What is this mill and how can rocks be recycled? The diagram above shows a simplified version of where rocks originate and how they move from one state to another.

By: P.F. Karrow

Figure 1. Short-term monthly water levels. This diagram is provided by the Canadian Hydrographic Service,Department of Fisheries and Oceans. 

By: Richard B. Wells, Consulting Geologist,
Reprinted with permission from the August 1999 issue of The National Drillers Buyers Guide