Vincent Vertolli

Bio

BASc., Geological Engineering, University of Toronto, 1973

Vincent Vertolli is an Assistant Curator of Geology in the Department of Natural History.

Upon graduation from university in 1973, Vincent worked for the Geological Survey of Canada, the Ontario Geological Survey, and with the University of Toronto as a research assistant. A main component of all three positions was field-based research, which meant spending roughly half the year, from mid-May to mid-October, in remote areas identifying and mapping the rocks of the Canadian Precambrian Shield. Vincent was involved with projects that took him to the famous mining camps of the Timmins-Kirkland Lake area, Sudbury, north-western Ontario and northern Manitoba.

It was while completing a research project at the University of Toronto in 1978 that Vincent was approached by the then-Head of the ROM’s Geology Department, Dr. Sydney B. Lumbers, who invited him to join the department and become involved in a new, long-term research program in the little-understood Grenville Province of the Canadian Precambrian Shield in Ontario. The Grenville Province occupies much of southern and central Ontario and is most familiar to the general public, especially those who live in south-western Ontario, as “Cottage Country”. Much of this area was previously unmapped and was referred to, even in geology text books, simply as a ”Sea-of-Gneisses”. Vincent accepted the position and along with his new ROM colleagues, began field mapping in Renfrew County along the banks of the Ottawa River in 1978. By the mid 1990s, they had mapped areas across the province as far as the shores of Georgian Bay.

One result of this long-term research and field work has been the publication of 25 geological maps that show the different types of rocks and their distribution throughout this area of the Grenville Province. These maps not only benefit ROM Geologists' research, but also that of other geologists from industry, government and universities interested in petrology, tectonics, crustal evolution, the search for mineral deposits, and environmental and land-use studies. Six of these maps, which are the first comprehensive geological maps available that cover the famous Muskoka region of Ontario, are listed below.

Vincent was actively involved in developing the ROM's new Teck Suite of Galleries: Earth's Treasures, which opened in December of 2008. He is responsible for the curation of the ROM’s Petrology Collections and continues his research on the Grenville Province.