Information on Loughborough

The Wonders of Geology

Posted on 02/03/2009
University of Leicester

The Geology Department (Bennett Building) at the University of Leicester will be open 11 am to 2 pm on Science Activity Day, Saturday 7 March, with hands on activities and displays for visitors plus the opportunity to see a short presentation about Jane, the new dinosaur exhibit.

Activities on the day for young and old alike include:

Rock-doc surgery. Bring in your unidentified rocks, minerals and fossils to see if our experts can help you work out what they are!

Fossil-hunt. Use microscopes to find tiny micro-organisms in an ordinary-looking sample of beach sand. Take home your finds with a free poster!

Explore the microscopic world. Visit our Scanning Electron Microscope to see how we can investigate the wonders of the microscopic world that are normally invisible to us. It can magnify thousands of times!

Earths energy resources. How does coal form? What is oil made of? How is uranium found? Find out about the origin of Earths energy resources and the environmental problems that sing them can cause; see if you can spot the radioactive rock!

If its not grown, its mined. Learn about how Earth materials are used all around us and how find metals such as nickel, zinc and gold!

Want to become a geologist?. One of our admissions tutors will be available if you have any questions about what a geology degree involves and careers it can lead into. If you need advice on GCSE and A-level options, or qualifications for study as a mature student this is for you!

Meet Jane the T-rex (11.30 and 12.30; 13.00 if demand). Dr Mark Purnell of the Geology Department will give a ~20 minute presentation about the new dinosaur display "Flying dinosaurs..and the origin of birds" featuring Jane a cast of a 21-foot long Tyrannosaurus rex and will discuss how we can work out what animals ate by looking at their jaws and teeth.

There will be additional displays of spectacular minerals, rocks and fossils from around the world and through geological time.