Tyndall Stone is a registered trademark name by Gillis Quarries Ltd. Tyndall Stone is a dolomitic

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

that is quarried from the Selkirk Member of the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

Red River Formation in the vicinity of Garson and Tyndall, Manitoba, Canada. It is a cream-coloured limestone with a pervasive mottling of darker dolomite. The mottling gives the rock a tapestry-like effect, and it is popular for use as a building and ornamental stone.Glass, D.J. (editor) 1997. Lexicon of Canadian Stratigraphy, vol. 4, Western Canada including eastern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba. Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Calgary, 1423 p. on CD-ROM. . Tyndall Stone is highly

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

iferous and the fossils contribute to its aesthetic appeal. It contains numerous fossil

gastropods Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and from the land. Ther ...

brachiopod Brachiopods (), phylum (biology), phylum Brachiopoda, are a phylum of animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear e ...

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan Taxonomic rank, class Cephalopoda (Greek language, Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral symm ...

trilobite Trilobites (; meaning "three-lobed entities") are extinction, extinct marine arthropods that form the class (biology), class Trilobita. One of the earliest groups of arthropods to appear in the fossil record, trilobites were among the most succ ...

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

s, stromatoporoids, '' Receptaculites'', and others. The mottling results from burrowing by marine creatures that occurred during and shortly after limestone deposition. The identity of the burrowing organisms is not known, but fossil burrows of this type have been given the name '' Thalassinoides''. Tyndall Stone was first used in 1832 for building Lower Fort Garry, and has since become popular for building purposes throughout

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The

Canadian Parliament Buildings The Canadian Parliament Buildings are the parliament buildings housing the Parliament of Canada, located on Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Parliament Buildings The Parliament Buildings are three edifices arranged around three sides ...

Ottawa, Ontario Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

, the

Saskatchewan Legislative Building The Saskatchewan Legislative Building is located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and houses the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. History The Saskatchewan Legislative Building was built between 1908 and 1912 in the Be ...

Regina, Saskatchewan Regina ( ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province, and is a commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. As of the 2021 Canadian census, ...

, the

University of Saskatchewan The University of Saskatchewan (U of S, or USask) is a Universities in Canada, Canadian public university, public research university, founded on March 19, 1907, and located on the east side of the South Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon, Saskatch ...

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...

, the Queen Elizabeth II Building in

Edmonton, Alberta Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

, the

Canadian Museum of History The Canadian Museum of History () is a national museum on anthropology, Canadian history, cultural studies, and ethnology in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. The purpose of the museum is to promote the heritage of Canada, as well as support related res ...

in Gatineau, Quebec, the

Manitoba Legislative Building The Manitoba Legislative Building (), originally named the Manitoba Parliament Building, is the meeting place of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, located in central Winnipeg, as well as being the twelfth provincial heritage site of Manitoba.< ...

Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

, the Banff Springs Hotel, the Empress Hotel in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Gre ...

, the Appartements le Château in

Montreal, Quebec Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and many others include Tyndall Stone in their construction. The Tyndall Stone quarry is operated by Gillis Quarries Ltd. and is located approximately 40 kilometres northeast of

. The quarry has been in operation, and owned by the same family, since 1910. In 2023, Tyndall Stone was designated as a

Global Heritage Stone Resource The Global Heritage Stone Resource (GHSR) designation seeks international recognition of natural stone resources that have achieved widespread utilisation in human culture. Details of the "Global Heritage Stone Resource" proposal were first provid ...

, the only one of Canadian origin.

Cultural reference

Author

Carol Shields Carol Ann Shields (née Warner; June 2, 1935 – July 16, 2003) was an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her 1993 novel ''The Stone Diaries'', which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as t ...

described Tyndall Stone in her

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

winning

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

, '' The Stone Diaries''.

References

External links

{{Wiktionary
Tyndall Stone at Manitoba Industry, Economic Development and Mines

Tyndall Stone® at Geological Survey of Canada

GeoCache of Tyndall Stone® building with fossil descriptions
Quarrying Limestone Dolomite (rock) Building stone Architecture in Canada Geologic formations of Manitoba