Natural History

By Brendt Hyde, Mineralogy Technician

It’s that time of year!  ROM for the Holidays is finally here, and we’ve been hard at work in the Keenan Family Gallery of Hands-on Biodiversity (HOB for short) getting some new hands-on activities ready to go.

First up is the brand-new, never-before-seen touch table that we put together in honour of our lost baby bison.

Every day at the museum is a good day, but when a new object-specimen gets added to the collection, it is a great day.  It was a particularly stellar day in Earth Sciences when we were able to acquire this lovely princess cut, 23.24 carat peridot from Myanmar (Burma).

ROM Earth Scientists receive dozens of requests each year to identify possible meteorites. This is especially the case when there is a spectacular fireball similar to the one which recently streaked across southern Ontario on December 12 of this year (the video was captured by astronomers at the University of Western Ontario). Do you think you have found a space rock?

Join us Thursday, December 1 from 11 am to noon EST as we live blog from the ROM during the launch event for the Burgess Shale Virtual Museum of Canada. This online exhibition is the most current and comprehensive resource for knowledge on one of the world’s most important fossil sites.

Originally published in the Summer 2010 edition of ROM Magazine.

Bluecheek Silver grunt

Well, at least, some serious insight into life on Earth…

Where do we come from? What was the world like long before the dinosaurs?

Today, Caleb Brown and colleagues announced the discovery of Canada’s newest dinosaur, Thescelosaurus assiniboiensis – the first new dinosaur species to be discovered in Saskatchewan since 1926. The new dinosaur is named after the historic District of Assiniboia, where it was found. The small-bodied, two-legged plant-eater lived alongside the famed Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, at the very end of the age of dinosaurs.

After three days of successful fieldwork on the chilly Grand Rapids Uplands, we return – toting a fresh batch of fossils – to The Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg. This is the home turf of my colleague, Graham Young, and almost a second home for me.