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Wednesday, May 24, 1995

The St-Robert meteorite

What is the St- Robert meteorite?

On the evening of June 14,1994, around 8:00 p.m. EDT, thousands of people in Ontario, Québec and the northern United States witnessed a spectacular fireball accompanied by a very loud sonic boom. Some 10 to 20 kilometres above the Earth's surface, the meteor exploded, showering fragments over southern Québec. Minutes later, one of these was recovered by Stephane Forcier on his family's farm in St-Robert de Sorel, east of Montréal. The following day, this piece was confirmed by the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) to be a meteorite.

Wednesday, May 24, 1995

Building's coming - A home for Earth Sciences

Ten architects are under consideration to design UWs next major building, a home for research and teaching with an environmental and water theme.

The building also has a new name, the UW board of governors was told last week. It will be the Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, said UW president Dr. James Downey.

He hinted that another word - a personal name - might go in front of the word Centre by the time the building opens, on the same principle as the William G. Davis Centre for Computer Research.

Wednesday, May 24, 1995

Global warming? We must worry!

"No need to worry" was the consensus of the United Nations Climate Conference which closed in Berlin in early April. However, we do have cause for concern about carbon dioxide buildup and global warming and on Earth Day 1995 it is appropriate to explain why.

Wednesday, May 24, 1995

Where the glacier kame and went

KAME
KAMES are irregular hills of sand and gravel with steep slopes. Glaciers pick up rock debris as the ice flows along. Glacial meltwaters carry sand and gravel from the glacier. Where the meltwater streams experienced rapid drops in flow rate, as when they emerged from a tunnel under the ice, or reached level ground at the ice edge, some of the load of sand and gravel was piled up to form a kame.

Wednesday, May 24, 1995

Kettle Holes

kettle holes
As the last glacier melted away, sometimes blocks of ice were stranded and became buried as meltwater covered them with outwash sand and gravel. Later, as the ice block melted, the overlying sediment collapsed and left a depression in the ground surface. Some of these kettle holes have ponds of lakes in them kettle lakes). They usually have steep side slopes, and over time accumulate sediment in the bottom.

Wednesday, May 24, 1995

Your automobile came from the mines!

Minerals and how they are used

This information was compiled to accompany an exhibit sponsored by The Smithsonian Institution, General Motors and the Michigan Mineralogical Society. The exhibit includes a Chevrolet Lumina Minivan cut away and painted to show the places where the various minerals are used, and mineral specimens. The exhibit was featured at the gemshow last held last May in Waterloo. The exhibit will be on display soon at the Cranbrook Institute, in the Bloomfield Hills section of Detroit.

Wednesday, May 24, 1995

Radar and sonar - A primer for the geophysically-challenged

Remote sensing tools such as radar and sonar allow us to map topography and surficial characteristics of volcanoes and other geologic features in inaccessible (or cloud-covered) locations, including other planets and the seafloor. The following is a brief introduction and comparison of these two systems for those who have familiarity with one but not the other, or who sometimes use radar/sonar data but are a little hazy about where it comes from and what it really means.