Tyndall Stone
Encyclopedia
Tyndall stone is a dolomitic limestone
quarried
from the Selkirk member of the Ordovician
Red River Formation
, in the vicinity of Tyndall
, Manitoba
, Canada
. It was first used in 1832 for building Lower Fort Garry
, and has since become popular for building purposes throughout Canada
and the United States
. The Canadian Parliament Buildings
in Ottawa
, the Saskatchewan Legislative Building
in Regina
, the Canadian Museum of Civilization
in Hull
,the Manitoba Legislative Building
and the Empress Hotel in Victoria
all contain Tyndall stone in their construction. The rock is famous for its cream colour (limestone) with its pervasive coloured mottling (dolomite), caused by the burrowing of marine creatures when the limestone was deposited. It also contains numerous gastropod
, brachiopod
, cephalopod
, trilobite
, coral
, and stromatoporoid fossil
s. The quarry is operated by Gillis Quarries Ltd., and is located approximately 40 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg
.
described Tyndall stone in her Pulitzer Prize
winning novel
, The Stone Diaries
.
Dolostone
Dolostone or dolomite rock is a sedimentary carbonate rock that contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite. In old U.S.G.S. publications it was referred to as magnesian limestone. Most dolostone formed as a magnesium replacement of limestone or lime mud prior to lithification. It is...
quarried
Quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...
from the Selkirk member of the Ordovician
Ordovician
The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...
Red River Formation
Red River Formation
The Red River Formation is a stratigraphical unit of Upper Ordovician age in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.It takes the name from the Red River of the North, and was first described in outcrop in the Tyndall Stone quarries and along the Red River Valley by A.F...
, in the vicinity of Tyndall
Tyndall, Manitoba
Tyndall is a community in Manitoba. It is located in the Rural Municipality of Brokenhead.Tyndall is a community in Manitoba. It is located in the Rural Municipality of Brokenhead....
, Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. It was first used in 1832 for building Lower Fort Garry
Lower Fort Garry
Lower Fort Garry was built in 1830 by the Hudson's Bay Company on the western bank of the Red River, north of the original Fort Garry, which is now in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Treaty 1 was signed there....
, and has since become popular for building purposes throughout Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The Canadian Parliament Buildings
Parliament Hill
Parliament Hill , colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. Its Gothic revival suite of buildingsthe parliament buildings serves as the home of the Parliament of Canada and contains a number of architectural...
in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
, the Saskatchewan Legislative Building
Saskatchewan Legislative Building
The Saskatchewan Legislative Building is located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and houses the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.-History:...
in Regina
Regina, Saskatchewan
Regina is the capital city of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province and a cultural and commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. It is governed by Regina City Council. Regina is the cathedral city of the Roman Catholic and Romanian Orthodox...
, the Canadian Museum of Civilization
Canadian Museum of Civilization
The Canadian Museum of Civilization is Canada's national museum of human history and the most popular and most-visited museum in Canada....
in Hull
Hull, Quebec
Hull is the central and oldest part of the city of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the west bank of the Gatineau River and the north shore of the Ottawa River, directly opposite Ottawa. As part of the Canadian National Capital Region, it contains offices for twenty thousand...
,the Manitoba Legislative Building
Manitoba Legislative Building
The Manitoba Legislative Building is the meeting place of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, in central Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It was originally named the Manitoba Parliament Building, not Legislative. The neoclassical building was completed in 1920 and stands seventy-seven meters tall...
and the Empress Hotel in Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
all contain Tyndall stone in their construction. The rock is famous for its cream colour (limestone) with its pervasive coloured mottling (dolomite), caused by the burrowing of marine creatures when the limestone was deposited. It also contains numerous gastropod
Gastropoda
The Gastropoda or gastropods, more commonly known as snails and slugs, are a large taxonomic class within the phylum Mollusca. The class Gastropoda includes snails and slugs of all kinds and all sizes from microscopic to quite large...
, brachiopod
Brachiopod
Brachiopods are a phylum of marine animals that have hard "valves" on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear end, while the front can be opened for feeding or closed for protection...
, cephalopod
Cephalopod
A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda . These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a set of arms or tentacles modified from the primitive molluscan foot...
, trilobite
Trilobite
Trilobites are a well-known fossil group of extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the Atdabanian stage of the Early Cambrian period , and they flourished throughout the lower Paleozoic era before...
, coral
Coral
Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...
, and stromatoporoid fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s. The quarry is operated by Gillis Quarries Ltd., and is located approximately 40 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
.
Cultural reference
Author Carol ShieldsCarol Shields
Carol Ann Shields, CC, OM, FRSC, MA was an American-born Canadian author. She is best known for her 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award in Canada.-Biography:Shields was born in Oak Park, Illinois...
described Tyndall stone in her Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...
winning novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
, The Stone Diaries
The Stone Diaries
The Stone Diaries is a 1993 award-winning novel by Carol Shields.It is the fictional autobiography about the life of Daisy Goodwill Flett, a seemingly ordinary woman whose life is marked by death and loss from the beginning, when her mother dies during childbirth...
.