This year, our Museum foyer has featured an exhibit of unusual fossils in the New Acquisitions Case. This exhibit, Finding the Impossible: Unique Tropical Fossils from William Lake, Manitoba, included a video “slide show” that documented the expeditions during which we collected these fossils. My colleague remarked to me the other day that this slide show should be shared widely using the Museum blog; this post, and some subsequent ones,…
Tag Archives: Tyndall Stone
Finding the Impossible, Part 1: Getting There
Posted in Geology & Paleontology Also tagged fossils, Grand Rapids, Manitoba, Ordovician, paleontology Comments closed
The Fossils Surround Us
Those of us who live in Winnipeg know that fossils are never far away. Many Winnipeg structures feature surfaces clad in Tyndall Stone, a fossil-rich dolomitic limestone of Late Ordovician age (about 450 million years old). Tyndall Stone covers public buildings such as the Manitoba Legislative Building and the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and commercial buildings in the downtown core, but it can also be seen in thousands of homes in…
Posted in Geology & Paleontology Also tagged fossils, museum, Ordovician, paleontology, Winnipeg Comments closed
New Guidebooks Published
Following on from my recent post about the geology of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, it seems entirely appropriate timing that another piece of architectural geology work has just been published. Last week, a guidebook to the geology of the Manitoba Legislative Building, by Jeff Young, Bill Brisbin, and me, finally appeared in downloadable form. The entire file (20 megabytes) can be found here. This book was published as…
Posted in Geology & Paleontology, Research Also tagged Manitoba Legislative Building Comments closed
Geology of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights: Part 1
The construction of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg has been the subject of tremendous public interest and media coverage. As opening nears for this institution, our first national museum outside the Ottawa area, I have read discussions of the planned exhibits and galleries, conversations concerning the relationship between the museum and local communities, and assessments of the architecture of the spectacular building. I have not, however,…
Posted in Geology & Paleontology Also tagged alabaster, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, museum, Winnipeg Comments closed
The Old Museum Lives On
Winnipeg has a long and complicated history of museums featuring natural history collections. Our current museum was a centennial project, opened in 1970, but we are very fortunate that we possess vestiges of those earlier museums, such as minerals from the Carnegie Library collection and mounted animals from some of the early taxidermists. The most visible and best-documented of these “inheritances” are pieces that were exhibited in the old…
Posted in Collections & Research, Exhibit, Geology & Paleontology Also tagged cephalopod, fossils, paleontology, plesiosaur, skeleton Comments closed
