The Geology of Curling Stones

February 17, 2022 rockman Miscellaneous Comments Off on The Geology of Curling Stones
Curling Stones
Image by Peter Miller via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

I don’t know about you, but my family has been very interested in the unique sport of Olympic Curling at this year’s 2022 Winter Olympics. Did you know that 70 percent of the world’s curling stones come from the tiny island of Ailsa Craig in the Firth of Clyde, an inlet along the west coast of Scotland? This island is home to two types of granite that are used in for curling stones, although the last granite quarried on the island was removed back in 2013. Interested in the mineralogy and other details? Check out the details from David Bressan’s blog at Forbes.com (4 articles free, then behind a pay wall).

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Geotechnical Engineering Challenges of British Columbia’s Sea-to-Sky Highway, gateway to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games

February 19, 2010 rockman Project Related Comments Off on Geotechnical Engineering Challenges of British Columbia’s Sea-to-Sky Highway, gateway to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games

Sea to Sky Highway I don’t know about you, but I’ve been enjoying watching the 2010 Olympic Winter games over the past few days. If you have, you know that Whistler is the venue for many of the sports including alpine skiing, luge, skeleton, bobsled, ski jumping, biathlon and cross-country skiing among others. The Whistler area is located about 50-miles or so North of Vancouver. In order to get to Whistler, you need to drive along Highway 99, better known as the Sea-to-Sky Highway.  This highway has a long history of geotechnical problems, including some significant structurally controlled rockslides and landslides.  In the years leading up to these Olympic Games a fair amount of work was done on the highway with some significant geotechnical innovations.

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