Friday's opening of the Evergreen Line is sure to have many commuters excited, but geologists have been excited about the Evergreen Line for a different reason: science.

Lionel Jackson is an adjunct professor at SFU's Department of Earth Sciences, and he and some colleagues have been sifting through sediment samples that were dug up during the line's tunnel excavation.

What they say they have found is a wealth of geological history about the area dating back thousands of years.

"I was quite amazed, because I realized the tunnel was going completely through sediments, not rock," he told On The Coast's Michelle Eliot. "For me, [it was] an incredible opportunity to study the record of glaciations that would be recorded in those sediments."

Jackson says one particularly exciting finding from the cores was an indication that Burnaby Mountain and central Coquitlam were probably separate islands at one time when sea levels were higher. "That was quite interesting."

'Like going into a time machine'

Drilling cores contain a wealth of materials and information, Jackson says. The ones he has from the Evergreen construction include soil, gravel and even wood — evidence of an ancient forest.

Lionel Jackson shows of some of his drilling cores from Evergreen Line construction. (Michelle Eliot/CBC)

The cores' shifting colours tell the stories of the many glaciation, and even volcanic, events the Lower Mainland has seen over the millennia..

"It's amazing," Jackson said of the chance to study the cores. "It would just be beyond our resources as scientists to just go out and do this type of drilling. It would be hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and I doubt we'd be able to talk people into being able to drill in their neighbourhoods at the best of times.

"But because it's a public works project, they did all kinds of drilling and this came to us at absolutely no cost."

Jackson says he plans on being on one of the first Evergreen Line trains open to the public, and will be thinking a lot about the geological forces that created the mountain he and other passengers are riding through.

"It's like going into a time machine."

With files from Michelle Eliot and CBC Radio One's On The Coast

To hear the full story, click the audio labelled: Hardcore! Sediment cores from Evergreen Line tunnelling provide wealth of information