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Dorian is a PhD student in geophysics in the seismology field. She is developing a novel automatic numerical approach to recover the rupture mechanisms of small earthquakes. The identification of rupture mechanisms of a large number of earthquakes is then used to identify potential hazardous faults and gain a better understanding of the forces governing the tectonic plates.

Read the UBC Science article by Geoff Gilliard: UBC students wade into Lost Lagoon’s water woes.

After carp die-offs in Vancouver’s Lost Lagoon the past two summers, UBC EOAS students went out to test the human-made lake’s murky waters.

A team from UBC’s Community Projects in Environmental Science, Logan Hwang, Samantha Kortekaas, Yinzhi Li and Annabel Tse, were recruited to assess Lost Lagoon’s water quality by Dacyn Holinda, the Stanley Park Ecology Society’s (SPES) conservation projects manager and Dr. Tara Ivanochko, UBC EOAS professor and co-instructor of UBC’s Community Projects in Environmental Science.

Left to right: UBC students Yinzhi Li, Annabel Tse, Dacyn Holinda, Logan Hwang and Samantha Kortekaas.

The students provided the project scoping, fieldwork, research and analysis. Samples from the biofiltration ponds and the lagoon would be tested for metal and hydrocarbons based on B.C. Ministry of Environment Water Quality Guidelines. Their results showed high concentrations of aluminum, tin and chromium in the water samples, suggesting that the ponds don’t appear to be filtering these three metals effectively, and that the sediments may be saturated with these metals due to lack of maintenance. Concentrations of phosphorus — which causes eutrophication and phytoplankton blooms — exceeded the guidelines at all sites. The good news is that the levels of copper, zinc and cadmium were within safe limits and that hydrocarbons (gas and oil) and 6PPD-quinone (from tire particles) were also found to be below levels deemed to be harmful.

The students recommend taking measurements of pollutant concentrations in the sediments of the ponds, and that dredging sediments more frequently would decrease toxicity in Lost Lagoon. They also suggested that after dredging, more tests on metals and nutrients should be conducted in December 2023 and February 2024.

“The results from this project are a great start,” Holinda says. “From here, we can start to narrow in on the sources of contamination, with the ultimate goal of finding solutions which the Park Board can implement to improve the health of the lagoon and surrounding area.”

Read the UBC Science article by Geoff Gilliard: UBC students wade into Lost Lagoon’s water woes | Focus
Watch the video from UBC Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tekgZpxmp6M
Read the full report: Water Quality Analysis of Lost Lagoon and Associated Biofiltration Ponds at Stanley Park.

The Central Andean Plateau is unlike any other place in the world. It is the largest plateau of its kind on Earth, sitting over 3 km in elevation. This unique formation has presented many mysteries to geologists attempting to explain how the plateau formed. 

In his recent article, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, EOAS Associate Professor Joel Saylor and his coauthors propose a new model to describe the formation of the Central Andean Plateau. Scroll down to watch our interview with Dr. Joel Saylor. To study the plateau, Dr. Joel Saylor and his team collected rock samples from different rock layers within the region. Here, at the University of British Columbia, the rocks were crushed and processed to isolate minerals known as zircon. The zircon was then analyzed at the Pacific Center for Isotopic and Geological Research within the Earth, Oceans, and Atmospheric Science department. The isotopic analysis allowed the team to determine the age of the rocks and therefore the ages of the different layers they had sampled. With these insights, they were able to put together a picture of how the Central Andean Plateau may have formed through shallow, flat slab subduction. 

Dr. Joel Saylor in the PCIGR lab displaying a zircon sample. credit: Junyi Sun

Head to Earth and Planetary Science Letters to read the full article titled, ‘Basin formation, magmatism, and exhumation document southward migrating flat-slab subduction in the central Andes’.

Brooke is an environmental geochemist that studies metal cycling by analyzing animal tissues and byproducts, known as biomonitors. By measuring lead isotopes and metal concentrations in biomonitors a more detailed picture of how metals move through the environment can be seen. Brooke works with honey from Vancouver, chum salmon from the Pacific ocean, and bowhead whale baleen plates from the Hudson Bay, all of which tell a unique story about metals in the various settings.

This summer assistant EOAS professor Dr. Kendra Chritz is headed to the Turkana Basin in Kenya in search of ancient hominin fossils. Specifically, Dr. Chritz and her colleagues from the Lothagam Research Project are on the lookout for hominins dating back 6-10 million years, close to the time when our lineage diverged from chimpanzees. Members of the Lothagam Project will use clues contained within fossils, including morphological features and chemical isotope markers, to reconstruct the ancient climate, ecosystem, and diet of our earliest ancestors. 

The aptly named Lothagam Research Project will bring crews of local and international scientists to Lothagam, an iconic paleontological site within the Turkana Basin. As part of the East African Rift system, diverging continental plates around the Turkana Basin are splitting apart to reveal fossils that have been preserved in layers of ash and sedimentary rock for millions of years. Heavy sampling in Lothagam throughout the 1960s to the early 1990s led to an abundance of mammalian fossil discoveries, dating from 5 million years and older, the target age and location likely to yield fossil evidence of human-chimpanzee evolutionary divergence. Now, around three decades later, the paleontologists of the Lothagam Research Project are returning with the hope that 30 years of erosion have revealed more clues of the life and environment of some of the earliest hominins. 

Head to our youtube channel to hear Dr. Kendra Chritz describe her research as part of the Lothagam Project. 

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has announced their newest cohort of College of Fellows Distinguished Lecturers. EOAS Professor Dominique Weis has been selected for the academic year 2023 – 2024. Participating in the Distinguished Lecture Series is an honour bestowed on a talented and articulate sub-set of AGU Fellows who are high-profile ambassadors for AGU and the Earth and space sciences AGU represents.

You can now request Dominique to attend your institution for a one-off specialist lecture at no charge (click here).

AGU's College of Fellows Distinguished Lecture Series connects AGU Fellows, known for their exceptional scientific contributions, with students worldwide. The lectures provide a high-level synthesis of specific fields, focusing on grand challenges and societal impacts. The lectures are typically given virtually and last 45-75 minutes, including a question-and-answer period where students can interact with the speaker.

Dominique was selected by the AGU section 'Study of the Earth's Deep Interior’ and her abstract title is 'Mantle Plumes as Compositional Probes of Earth’s Interior’.