Customs officials at Edinburgh airport must have done a double-take when U of T students’ luggage turned out to be full of rocks.
But that was the most effective way for the undergrads taking Daniel Gregory’s third-year Geological Capstone Fieldtrip course to continue their research from Scotland. There, they took part in geological mapping of the country’s west coast through Arts & Science’s Research Excursion Program (REP).
Three students joined Gregory, an associate professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s Department of Earth Sciences, working alongside local students from St. Andrews University to study part of the coastline of the Isle of Mull.
Home to approximately 3,000 residents, Mull is the fourth-largest island in Scotland covering 875 square kilometres with 480 kilometres of coastline.
The students’ field research focused on collecting samples from the island’s volcanic sites, which Gregory explained, are “relatively recent” — formed in the last billion years, just a fraction of the planet’s 4.5-billion-year history.
Rocks are like the pages of a book. Each layer of the rock is a different page, and it tells the story of the history of our planet.
The students studied and gathered samples of igneous rocks — a type of rock that forms from the cooling and solidification of molten rock, either magma or lava. Igneous comes from the Latin word ‘ignis,’ meaning fire, reflecting the rocks’ fiery origin.
“There are three main eruptive centres,” says Gregory. “And the students’ research was to better understand how these volcanoes were formed. That has applications when we're trying to understand modern volcanoes that are partway through this evolution.
“Studying these sites can help us anticipate future volcanic activity in areas that can be dangerous for people. And for the students, it’s a chance to deepen their understanding of what's happening when rocks are forming on our planet.”
It's one thing to read about an area’s geology in papers but actually seeing the landscape with your own eyes and getting up close to the rocks adds a sense of discovery to what you’re doing.
The group also mapped about three kilometres of the island’s coast, identifying rock and sediment changes, as well as sea level fluctuations.
Why Scotland? Geologically speaking, compared to Ontario, Scottish rocks are a lot newer.
“The rocks on Mull that we were interested in were from the Tertiary period which means they were 2.6 - 66 million years old,” says Gregory. “The rocks at our field school in northern Ontario are 1.8 to 2.7 billion years old. “It’s worlds apart — the rocks in Scotland are more than two billion years younger.
“Without having exposure to this multitude of different rocks, you miss a crucial perspective,” adds Gregory. “Getting exposure to as many different types of geology as possible is key for our students.”
Arman Ghazarian, a third-year geology specialist student with a geographic information systems minor reveled in the research and loved the field work.
This REP came with a new set of responsibilities not found in the classroom — things like field mapping, measurement taking, rock sample collection, as well as more familiar responsibilities like note taking and identifying and labeling rocks.
“This REP came with a new set of responsibilities not found in the classroom — things like field mapping, measurement taking, rock sample collection, as well as more familiar responsibilities like note taking and identifying and labeling rocks,” says Ghazarian, a member of New College.
“It's one thing to read about an area’s geology in papers but actually seeing the landscape with your own eyes and getting up close to the rocks adds a sense of discovery to what you’re doing.”
The field trip came with physical demands, from hiking up and down mountains, to walking along the island’s rugged shoreline, to having to avoid highland cows along their travels to research sites.
We weren't able to use GPS. We needed to use landmarks to figure out where we were. So it was a good opportunity for the students to see how you work through problems like that.
“Hiking up hills and mountains, I'm not used to that terrain,” says Ghazarian. “However, the hikes were still manageable and the views made it worth it.”
They also had to rely on older methods for way-finding as some of their modern navigation tools didn’t work.
“We weren't able to use GPS,” says Gregory. “We needed to use landmarks to figure out where we were. So it was a good opportunity for the students to see how you work through problems like that.”
But all the challenges were minor compared to the payoffs.
You don't really get an appreciation of how the different rocks interact with each other without going into the field and seeing them in a larger context.
“Seeing those landscapes in person was definitely the highlight of the trip for me,” says Ghazarian. “Western Scotland has so much to offer from mountains to beaches and cliffs rising out of the ocean. I also benefitted from the practical skills gained by working in a group and gained an appreciation for field work, seeing it as an important part of science even if it isn’t in the lab.”
Broadening learning as well as skillsets was exactly the outcome Gregory was hoping for.
“Whenever we do something in a class environment, it is a little bit contrived in that every year students go to the same area of rocks and map it,” he says. “You don't really get an appreciation of how the different rocks interact with each other without going into the field and seeing them in a larger context.”
Gregory and his students returned to Toronto with their stony cargo for further research and are learning new types of analysis such as petrographic microscopy — a technique using a polarized-light microscope to study the mineral composition and texture of rocks.
“I have a colleague who wanted to get samples to develop new materials for his undergraduate course in igneous petrology,” says Gregory. “And one of my students is going to do her undergrad thesis on some of these samples.”
The students presented their findings at the Arts & Science undergraduate research poster fair earlier this month, showing what can be learned and discovered through geological study.
“Rocks are like the pages of a book,” says Gregory. “Each layer of the rock is a different page, and it tells the story of the history of our planet.”