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Early in 2000 I happened to be driving through the Inman Valley, south of Adelaide in South Australia when the sign "Glacier Rock Restaurant" caught my eye. I must confess that I am not intimately familiar with Australia's Quaternary history, but even from my meagre knowledge of Antipodean geography I seemed to be a little too far south of the Flinders Ranges and way too far west of the Snowy Mountains to imagine that this was some glacial relic.

The majority of geoscientists believe that most oil has an organic origin, derived ultimately from the remains of organisms (mainly microscopic marine phytoplankton) that were buried with ancient sediments deposited on the sea floor. Although there are trace amounts of this buried organic matter in almost all sedimentary rocks, unique geological and geochemical conditions are required to generate, expel and trap significant amounts of oil.

By: Christine Kulyk

When something big from outer space
Collides with Earth, it leaves a trace--
Supreme celestial punctuation
Carving out an indentation
To scar the planet's face.

The years that pass with stately pace
May steadily obscure the trace
Of crater outlines and location,
And so obstruct investigation
With forces that efface.

Most of the readers of Wat On Earth will be unaware of a wildly successful Geological Survey of Canada initiative launched by the Vancouver Office and titled "Geoscape Vancouver". Bob Turner and John Clague were the prime movers, ably assisted by many others in the Vancouver Region. The product is a large, extremely colourful, wall poster suited for classroom use and public viewing that demonstrates different aspects of the geological and physiographical setting of Vancouver and its environs.

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.