Photostory #336: Studying Four Million Square Miles and Half of Eternity: Radioactive Rocks Tell Canada's Secrets

Photographers
Chris Lund
Maker
National Film Board of Canada
Release Date
April 30, 1963
Collection
CMCP fonds
Credit Line
Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives
Main Text
Fragments of radioactive rocks from across Canada are telling the country's geologists that parts of Canada are nearly 3,000,000,000 years old. In the laboratories of the Geological Survey of Canada specimens of rock are analysed to find the amount of radioactive residue that has gradually formed in them over many millions of years. From these delicate measurements scientists pin down the actual ages of various rocks and learn more about Canada's geological history than ever before. Their new found knowledge will add greatly to the future of the nation's vital mineral industry by helping prospectors look more successfully for rich mineral deposits. Other radioactive studies find what types of plants absorb such metals as gold and zinc when growing over mineral bodies. This study may bring a new type of prospector into the exploration field -- a mineral seeker who collects plants instead of rock samples in his hunt for mineral wealth. Canada, with almost 4,000,000 square miles of land and an economy heavily dependent on mineral wealth, has ever been a geologist's country. Twenty-five years before the nation was born through Confederation, the parliament of Upper and Lower Canada (in 1842) resolved that money be granted for a geological survey. Since then many famous geologists have come and gone, many new techniques have been evolved to carry out their monumental task. Helicopters, balloon-tired aircraft, air-photography, geochemistry, have all helped quicken Canadian geology to a pace that would astound an old-time geologist. Yet, as every mineral deposit found by conventional methods makes future prospecting that much harder, geology must expand into ever wider fields of knowledge. Taking full advantage of the space-age's technological and-scientific advances, Canada's geologists are gaining a deeper insight into the mystery of the earth's beginnings, are using it to accumulate information for tomorrow's search for mineral wealth.
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