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Corey Wall is the Facilities Manager and U-Pb geochronologist for the Pacific Centre for Isotopic and Geochemical Research, at the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia. He is interested in determining the age of rocks using minerals that can be extracted from them. He aims to extract minerals such as zircon and determine the age of the rock by precisely measuring the elements Uranium and Pb on mass spectrometers. Before joining EOAS, Corey was a post-doctoral researcher and a research scientist at the Isotope Geology Laboratory at Boise State University, Idaho. Corey provides analytical services to faculty member, government geological surveys, and private sector exploration and mining companies.

Kelly Russell, Benjamin Edwards, Marie Turnbull and Lucy Porritt

Kima' Kho tuya is a Pleistocene (1949 ± 63 ka) (ka: kilo annum; one thousand years) glaciovolcano in the northern Cordillera of British Columbia. In a new EOAS research published in Quaternary Science Reviews, Professor Kelly Russell and his co-authors, Benjamin Edwards (Dickinson College), Marie Turnbull and Lucy Porritt, reconstructed the englacial lake dynamics attending the volcanic evolution and growth of Kima' Kho volcano, including a massive, catastrophic deluge.

Volcanic eruptions, when interacting with the cryosphere (i.e., snow, ice, firn, permafrost, and meltwater), produce edifice morphologies and deposit lithofacies that directly reflect their eruption environment. These glaciovolcanoes represent a proxy for local and global paleoclimates and they are the only evidence of ancient ice masses coinciding with the time and location of the eruption in many cases.

“Passage zones” are stratigraphic surfaces found in littoral settings separating volcanic deposits diagnostic of subaqueous environments from overlying sequences of subaerial deposits. In glaciovolcanic settings, these surfaces are important because they unequivocally record the heights and depths of sustained within-ice lakes of meltwater (i.e. syn-eruptive englacial lakes), thereby informing on the presence and nature of the enclosing ice sheet.

Definition of the term “passage zone”. Cartoon from Jones (1968) shows the formation of passage zones in glaciovolcanic environment and field photograph shows one of the passage zones preserved at Kima’ Kho where lavas erupted into a dry environment have flowed over and capped contemporaneous pillow-lava breccia beds that are deposited in a deep englacial lake of meltwater.

Kima' Kho is unique as it is one of only a few well-documented tuyas that hosts multiple and diverse passage zones. Three temporally distinct passage zones record the interplay between growth of the volcanic edifice, syn-volcanic melting of the enclosing ice sheet, and fluctuations in the depth of the englacial lake. The earliest passage zone (PZ1) was formed during the initial explosive phase of eruption when the tephra cone became emergent from the 340 m deep englacial lake. Two subsequent passage zones (PZ_2-3) occur at lower elevations, indicating a major draining of the englacial lake followed by refilling to depths of 230-180 m and 260-280 m, respectively. The substantial decline in lake level between PZ₁ and PZ₂ suggests a massive, catastrophic deluge (i.e. jökulhlaup) of 1-2 km³. Lastly, the reconstructed glaciovolcanic evolution of Kima' Kho demands the presence of a regionally extensive ice sheet overlying the Kawdy plateau at ~1.9 Ma and representing an earlier incarnation of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS).

Passage zones preserved in Kima' Kho edifice. Top panel: Field photograph of Kima' Kho tuya looking to the west. Middle panel: Corresponding geological cross-section showing projected distribution of the main volcanic lithofacies (Lt₁/Lt₂: subaqueously and subaerially deposited lapilli tuffs representing an explosive onset to the eruption. Tb_1-3: subaqueously deposited and steeply inclined beds of tuff breccia dominated by pillow lava fragments. L_1-3: stacked sheets of subaerial pahoehoe lavas) defining several passage zones (1-3). Bottom panel: Stratigraphic logs showing lithofacies variations used to define three separate passage zones (PZ: 1-3) and their elevations.

Conceptual summary model for the temporal evolution of Kima' Kho volcano and associated englacial lake. 

Mark Jellinek is a Professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia. He is an internationally-recognized geophysicist who works on problems in magmatic and volcanic processes and hazards, geodynamics, long-term climate change, surface processes and the evolution of Earth and other rocky planets. Mark is deeply committed to education and outreach, as chair of the Public and Internal Relations Committee and recipient of various prestigious teaching awards, including the UBC Killam teaching prize. In his spare time, Mark can be found mountain biking or backcountry skiing in British Columbia’s Coast Mountains.

Laura Lukes, Shandin Pete, Sarah Bean Sherman

In the recent 2021/22 UBC Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund (TLEF) and the Faculty of Science’s Strategic Initiatives Fund (SIF) competitions, four projects developed by EOAS faculty members were selected and funded.

The Earth Science Experiential and Indigenous Learning (EaSEIL) project is funded by TLEF and led by Laura Lukes and Shandin Pete. The project aims to create space for collaborative reflection among students, instructors, staff, and community members to reimagine, develop, and transform field-based experiential learning across multiple programs, departments, and faculties at UBC, including geological sciences. The focus of transformation is on three foundational pillars: increased opportunities for interdisciplinary education; the respectful integration of Indigenous Knowledge, histories, and ways of knowing into course content; and an increase in accessibility and inclusion through the development of online field-based learning options.

Laura Lukes is also the project lead for Developing a toolkit for assessing student understanding of how Indigenous issues intersect with their field of study (funded by SIF). A key part to successfully designing and implementing an Indigenized curriculum is having the ability to determine the impact on student learning and experience. This initiative will produce a performance measure toolkit for instructors and unit leads across the Faculty of Science to measure impact on student learning and progress towards ISP goals. The data produced from toolkit utilization will inform efforts to redesign courses or graduate research traineeships. It will also assist the broader faculty of Science community in identifying evidence-based practices for indigenizing the curriculum.

Shandin Pete also leads the SIF-funded project Developing relationships and partnerships with Indigenous undergraduate and graduate students in UBC Science. This project aims to engage and partner with Indigenous undergraduate and graduate students in UBC Science to learn more about their experiences, needs, and desires with respect to curriculum, pedagogy, research, educational programming, and advising. This project stems from the interests of Indigenous faculty and students in UBC Science who crave more opportunities to engage with one another, to share their ideas and concerns, and to advise on decolonization and reconciliation work in UBC Science.

Bean Sherman is part of the team that will carry out the SIF-funded initiative Teaching & Learning in Science through the lens of Indigeneity, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. This project is a guest speaker series that features prominent and influential thought leaders in inclusive STEM education. The series will feature guest speakers who will address topics relating to their expertise in inclusive STEM education that are of interest to the UBC Science teaching and learning community. Speakers will represent various disciplines (biology, chemistry, physics, geology, etc.), identities (IBPOC, 2SLGBTQIA+, etc.), and specialties (curriculum, pedagogy, research).

Qi Yang is a PhD student in Dr. Curtis Suttle’s lab, also known as the Marine Molecular Microbiology and Virology Lab, at the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia. She is interested in finding viruses in the ocean that infect protists for which viruses are unknown and in the role of the viruses in marine ecosystems and nutrient cycles. She aims to isolate a virus that infects ecologically important marine protists and characterize the virus in terms of genome, phylogeny, and diversity in natural environments. Before joining EOAS, Qi received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biotechnology at the Ocean University of China. Beyond her research, Qi is passionate about communicating science, such as engaging with people in different disciplines of Earth Sciences and reaching out to broad audiences.