[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Stoesser_Marianne1.jpg” caption=”Marianne Stoesser, a fourth-year student in earth and environmental sciences, created the McMaster Rocks website. She is standing in front of a wall of mudstone in the MDCL atrium. Photo by Susan Bubak.”]Granite, sandstone and igneous are just some of the rocks that you'll find on McMaster Rocks, a new website that showcases the wide variety of stone used as building materials and landscaping on campus.

Developed by Marianne Stoesser, a fourth-year student in earth and environmental sciences, the website features an interactive map of campus where visitors can click on markers that identify the type of rock located there and its origin.

“Creating this website was one of the ways to increase interest and awareness about our program as well as teach the campus community about the origin of some of the rocks that we all walk by every day,” said Stoesser, who plans to pursue graduate studies in geology.

The website was launched late last summer. Stoesser spent a week researching the various types of stone used in campus buildings and gardens, taking photos and posting her findings online.

Some of the rocks featured on the website include mudstone used in the waterfall in the MDCL atrium, packestone used in the benches in the Divinity College courtyard and granite boulders in the Oasis Garden.

“I think it's a great site,” said Stoesser's supervisor, Carolyn Eyles, professor in the School of Geography & Earth Sciences. “It makes students and other visitors to our site aware that there's a lot of geology on our campus. It's not just out in the wilderness.”

Stoesser will display her work on another research project at the annual Undergraduate Student Research Awards poster session on Tuesday, Jan. 15 in the MUSC Marketplace. Her project, entitled Into the Ancient Deeps: A sedimentological analysis of the argillite at Whitefish Falls, Ontario, will be one of 40 USRA projects on display from 12 to 2 p.m.