Quaternary Environments Collections (Royal Alberta Museum)

The Quaternary Environments (QE) lab has three types of collections, the Reference, the Working, and the Archival. The Working and Archival Collections are comprised of thousands of recovered plant microfossils, such as pollen, and plant and animal macrofossils such as seeds, leaves, and snail shells. These plant remains are associated with current (Working) and former (Archival) student and research-based projects from over 380 study sites throughout Alberta, Canada. The projects and associated material spans the postglacial interval, about 13,000 years ago to the present. The Reference Collections are comprised of 10 collections represented by modern and palaeoenvironmental samples of plant and animal remains, including the Pollen, Seed, and Mollusc Reference Collections. These small specimens, anywhere from microscopic to a few millimeters, can provide us with extensive information about past forests and habitats, peoples’ use of the landscape and plants (e.g., berry collecting), and changes in the environment over time. Research conducted and utilizing these collections at the museum currently focuses on the reconstruction of past landscapes in the Canadian Rockies during the past 12,000 years through the identification of subfossil pollen grains and plant macrofossils from lake sediments, organic deposits, 7,000 years old ice patches, and 10,000 years old busy-tailed woodrat middens. We can also use Reference Collections to conduct modern studies such as the type of pollen transported by pollinators in the prairies, and what type of pollen mites ingest for food. Working Collections: soil, sediment, and ice samples, including lake sediment cores and glacial ice cores. Study sites span the postglacial interval (about 13,000 years to present) and are mainly located in Alberta, Canada. Archival Collections: specimens (e.g., seeds, pollen, charcoal, tephra, and shells) extracted from samples, and identified and counted. Most specimens are microscopic to few millimeters and numerous (few to thousands of specimens per sample), with some larger specimens such as wood logs. Seed Reference Collection: 2,858 samples comprising seeds and fruit from 1,339 unique species (57% of Alberta's total recorded vascular plant species), average seed/fruit size is 3 mm. Pollen Reference Collection: 1057 pollen slides from 636 unique species (27% of Alberta's total recorded vascular plant species, both native and established introduced species), average pollen grain size is 35 microns (0.035 mm). Mollusc Reference Collection: Over 32,125 shell specimens of mainly aquatic snails native to Alberta’s Parkland Natural Region.