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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.

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.

Drumlin, smooth, half egg-shaped or ellipsoidal hill which formed beneath Quaternary GLACIERS. Drumlins [Gaelic druim, "hill"] were first described in Ireland. They lie parallel to the direction of ice movement, the blunt (stoss) end facing up-glacier, the lee sloping down-glacier.

​An earthquake is a vibratory motion generated from the movement of rock along a fault line beneath the Earth’s surface.

An esker is a ridge (Gaelic eiscir, "ridge") of gravel and sand emplaced during glacial melt by the deposition of sediments from meltwater rivers flowing on the ice (channel fills) or beneath a glacier (tunnel fills).

A periglacial landform is a feature resulting from the action of intense frost, often combined with the presence of permafrost. Periglacial landforms are restricted to areas that experience cold but essentially nonglacial climates.

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.

A karst landform is a geological feature created on the earth's surface by the drainage of water into the ground.

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.

Between about 100 000 and 12 000 years ago, the whole area of Québec as well as a major part of the northern hemisphere was covered with a thick layer of ice. In the late PLEISTOCENE era, just over 12 000 years ago, Québec underwent a gradual warming of the atmosphere.

Early formed, dense crystals may separate from the magma, causing a change in the composition of the residual melt.

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.

Coal is a fossil fuel that has been used as a source of energy in Canada since the 18th century. Canada is home to 0.6 per cent of the world’s coal resources. Most of the country’s coal reserves (over 95 per cent) are found in Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan. In recent years, the environmental movement has opposed the coal industry for disrupting local ecosystems, creating adverse health effects and for its large contribution to the carbon-dioxide emissions that drive climate change. In an effort to curb harmful emissions, the federal government has signalled its intention to phase out traditional coal-fired electricity by 2030, and Alberta has a plan to achieve the same goal as a province.

Early land plants have long been known from Eastern Canada, thanks to pioneering work by Sir J. William Dawson, father of Devonian palaeobotany and principal of McGill University from 1855 to 1893. But this record poorly represented the earliest phase of land colonization.

Scotian Shelf, a 700 km section of the Continental Shelf off Nova Scotia. Bounded by the Laurentian Channel on the NE, and Northeast Channel and the Gulf of Maine on the SW, it varies in width from 120 to 240 km; the average depth is 90 m.

A spring is a point of natural, concentrated groundwater discharge from soil or rock.

 A volcano is an opening in the crust of a planetary body through which liquid, gaseous or solid material is expelled; also the structure formed by eruption of this material.

 FOSSIL bones were first discovered in 1978 in the rocks formed in the now vanished Haughton Lake.