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  Fossil [Lat fossilis, "dug up"], trace of an ancient animal or plant preserved in the Earth's crust. Palaeontology is the modern, scientific study of fossils, but these curious objects have attracted attention since ancient times.

Glaciation is the formation, movement and recession of glaciers. Glaciation was much more extensive in the past, when much of the world was covered in large, continental ice sheets. Currently, glaciers cover about 10 per cent of the world's land area (14.9 million km2).

For centuries people have argued about the age of the Earth; only recently has it been possible to come close to achieving reliable estimates.

Earth is 70.8% covered by water, but only with the development of sonar techniques has it become possible to describe the solid earth below the oceans. With increasingly sophisticated satellite observations, relatively fine structural details (eg, areas of volcanic activity) can be seen.

Canadian Geographic is the bimonthly magazine of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS), which was founded in 1929 under stimulus from geologist Charles CAMSELL and explorer Joseph B. TYRRELL, who served as the society's first honorary president.

The main objective of the multidisciplinary expedition was to carry out a geological survey of the ridge. Researchers, therefore, brought a veritable geotechnical arsenal to bear on the polar ice to gather seismic, gravimetric, bathymetric and other data.

Thanks to the progress that had been made in identifying and mapping the Palaeozoic rocks (570-245 million years old) of western New York and northern New England, Logan was able to establish the broad correlations of the formations in the St Lawrence region.

Burgess Shale is an area of layered rock featuring fossils from the middle of the Cambrian period (505–510 million years ago). In Canada, sites featuring Burgess Shale fossils are found in Yoho and Kootenay national parks. The name “Burgess” comes from Mount Burgess, a peak in Yoho National Park near where the original Burgess Shale site was discovered (the mountain is in turn named for Alexander Burgess, an early deputy minister of the Department of the Interior). Burgess Shale sites are the clearest record of Cambrian marine life because they contain rare fossils of soft-bodied organisms. The original Burgess Shale site is one of the reasons seven parks in the area were designated the Canadian Rocky Mountains UNESCO World Heritage site (the parks are Yoho, Jasper, Banff and Kootenay national parks, and Mount Robson, Mount Assiniboine and Hamber provincial parks).

Ecology is subdivided into 3 fields of study: autecology (relations of individual species or populations to their milieu), synecology (composition of living communities) and dynecology (processes of change in related communities).

Metamorphic rock is one of the 3 major classes of rock comprising the Earth's crust, the others being SEDIMENTARY and IGNEOUS ROCKS. Metamorphic rock has been transformed, while in the solid state, by pressure, temperature and deformation.

The Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN), designated as a crown corporation in 1990 under the Museums Act, is the national museum of natural history.

Muskeg (from Cree maskek and Ojibwe mashkiig, meaning “grassy bog”) is a type of northern landscape characterized by a wet environment, vegetation and peat deposits. Chiefly used in North America, the term muskeg escapes precise scientific definition. It encompasses various types of wetlands found in the boreal zone, including bogs, fens, swamps and mires. In Canada, muskeg and other peatlands cover up to 1.2 million km², or 12 per cent of the country’s surface.

Palynology is the study of spores and pollen, has many applications in botany, geology and medicine.

The explorers amassed astronomical, meteorological, geological and magnetic data, and described the country, its fauna and flora, its inhabitants and its "capabilities" for settlement and transportation.

 For those researchers working in the field of human history, the chronology of events remains a major element of reflection. Archaeologists have access to various techniques for dating archaeological sites or the objects found on those sites.

The first animals were microscopic in size and left no known fossil remains. The oldest animal fossils occur in sediments deposited under shallow equatorial seas over 600 million years ago.

A river landform is a feature resulting from the movement of water on the Earth's surface.

Sand and gravel are unconsolidated, granular mineral materials produced by the natural disintegration of rock caused by weathering. The terms sand, gravel, clay and silt relate to grain size rather than composition. Sand is material passing through a number 4 (4.

In 1961, fragments of a human infant skull from were recovered from the banks of the Oldman River near Taber, Alberta.

Geomatics Canada, along with the Geological Survey of Canada and the Polar Continental Shelf Project, became part of the Earth Sciences Sector of the Department of Natural Resources in the mid-1990s. It was formerly known as the Surveys, Mapping and Remote Sensing Sector.