News

Congratulations to Roger for this exceptional honour and achievement. To quote from the web site of the Royal Society of Canada: 'The fellowship of the RSC comprises distinguished men and women from all branches of learning who have made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public life. Since 1882, new Fellows have been nominated and elected by their peers who are themselves Fellows of the Society. Over 3,700 scholars and artists have been inducted into to the fellowship over the past hundred and thirty years'. Roger is being recognized for his pioneering research on particle and sediment fluxes in the ocean using stable and radioactivenuclides which has provided fresh insights into algal production and nutrient recycling as well as the rates of the ocean's overturning circulation in the past.His work has opened new windows on the evolution of Earth's global carbon system.

An estate gift by emeritus Professor of Carbonate Petrology, Ted Danner will support outreach and undergraduate education in EOAS.The gift, valued at $1.1 Million, includes a mineral and gem collection housed in the Pacific Museum of Earth (pme.ubc.ca), as well endowments for undergraduate studies in the form of an entrance bursary and awards for excellence in field mapping.Prof. Danner taught at UBC from his appointment in 1954 through to well beyond retirement.He passed away in 2012. He is remembered by many for his enthusiastic introductory geology courses that drew countless students to further study in the earth sciences. Please have a look at UBC Press Release for more details.

Roger Francois, Philippe Tortell and 9 other EOAS researchers (including 4 graduate students) are currently on the Coast Guard Ship Amundsen involved in a GEOTRACES expedition to gather data on climate change and its impact on the physics, chemistry and biology of the Arctic Ocean. Persistent harsh conditions in Hudson Bay that resulted in the late formation of sea ice have caused the isolation of some northern communities where fuel and food supplies are getting low. The Amundsen had to be diverted to help.See this report in the Globe and Mail for more details. The EOAS group has also published an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail highlighting the difficulties being caused by the inadequate logistical support of our Arctic presence (see here). We hear that after a long delay, the Amundsen will soon be steaming back to the GEOTRACES station. We send best wishes to all the shipboard scientists for the remainder of their expedition.

The GEOTRACES Scientific Steering Committee and Data Management Committee have been held from 13-17 July at UBC hosted by Maite Maldonado. GEOTRACES (www.geotraces.org) is an international study of the marine biogeochemical cycles of trace elements and their isotopes. Scientists from 35 nations have been involved in the programme, designed to study all major ocean basins over the next decade. So far, 747 stations have been sampled during 52 cruises resulting in more than 1000 data sets of hydrographical and geochemical data. To facilitate access to these data, the first GEOTRACES Intermediate Data Product is freely available on-line (http://www.bodc.ac.uk/geotraces/data/idp2014/). Digital data is accompanied by an electronic atlas (www.egeotraces.org) that provides 2D and 3D images of the ocean distribution of many of the parameters.

Once again Mark Jellinek and his team have produced a remarkable newsletter. quot;A major initiative of the public relations committee over the last year was to produce the second volume of this EOAS annual report, which will be distributed electronically to alumni, donors, potential donors, other institutions and friends around the world.quot; (M.Jellinek)

Gavin Black, Savanna Herman, Shammai Ugalino, and Aron Zahradka came in second in the Undergraduate Student Report (Group) competition. The competition entry was for their EOSC 445 design project titled "Long Lake Project: Tunnel versus Rock Cut Design - Option Analysis", which was sponsored by Charles Hunt of Tetra Tech EBA.