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Riches in Alberta's Rocks and Minerals 

Rocks and minerals are fundamental to Alberta's economy. In some parts of the world, people have used rocks and minerals for weapons, tools and adornment for over a million years, and in Alberta, stone artifacts have been discovered that are over 11,000 years old. The demand for rock and mineral resources is greater today than ever before; they are necessary to maintain our highly advanced and technological civilization. Alberta is underlain by thousands of metres of rocks which hold many valuable resources and, in fact, the resource production in this province is more than half of Canada's total production. The vast majority of Alberta's mineral industry consists of energy resources, or fossil fuels, including coal, oil, gas, and gas byproducts, such as sulphur. The province is also a significant producer of cement, sand and gravel, lime, salt, and gold. Therefore, the study of rocks is more than an academic pursuit, and Alberta has justifiably earned the title of "Canada's energy province".

Reprinted from A Traveller's Guide to Geological Wonders in Alberta by Ron Mussieux and Marilyn Nelson with the kind permission of the authors and the Provincial Museum of Alberta.

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