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The Cape Breton Sedimentology Research Group's interests are broad and wide-ranging. Each project is tailored to the individual student who is working on it. Broadly speaking, we work on reconstructing ancient environments on Earth through the Paleozoic. Some of our current research directions include...
Canada's Potash Resources & Salt Giants
Canada's Potash Resources & Salt Giants
Potash is a critical mineral in Canada, necessary to help increase global food security in times of climate and geopolitical unrest. Our group works to better understand the depositional systems and geohazards of potash across Canada. This includes work both in the Maritimes Basin close to home and in the western Canadian potash of Saskatchewan. We also work on evaporites ('salts') more broadly, with a focus on understanding the unique conditions that have allowed for the formation of 'salt giants' in Earth history, vast areas and times of evaporite accumulation unmatched on today's planet.
Carbonate Depositional Systems Through the Paleozoic
Carbonate Depositional Systems Through the Paleozoic
Whether it is Ordovician carbonate barrier islands, Devonian epicontinental basin carbonates within saline giants, or Carboniferous microbial reefs in Cape Breton, our group is investigating ancient carbonate systems and what they tell us about the evolution of climate and oceanography through geologic time. We work equally on sedimentology, stratigraphy, and diagenesis to better understand the ancient biosphere that these deposits record and the surficial conditions they formed under.
Metalliferous Fe and Mn-bearing Sedimentary Rocks
Metalliferous Fe and Mn-bearing Sedimentary Rocks
Metaliferous sedimentary rocks, including ironstones and manganese-rich sedimentary units, are underutilized repositories of paleo-Earth system information, particularly in the Phanerozoic. On this front, our group is interested in deciphering these unique and poorly understood sedimentary systems throughout the rock record in order to better understand the evolution of Earth's ocean-atmosphere-biosphere system through geologic time. We focus on the Paleozoic and have been recently utilizing these records as proxies of ancient ocean oxygenation and investigating the critical mineral resources contained within them.
Research Experience and Skills our Group employs:
Sedimentologic and stratigraphic fieldwork
Stratigraphic and sequence stratigraphic analyses
Piloting a quadcopter drone and building structure-from-motion photogrammetry and virtual outcrop models
Drill-core description and interpretation
Transmitted and reflected light petrography, including petrographic staining
Cathodoluminescence and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX)
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
X-ray diffraction (XRD) & mineral liberation analysis (MLA)
X-ray fluorescence (XRF)
Laser-ablation ICP-MS
Stable isotopic analyses (δ34S, δ15N, δ13C, δ18O, δD, etc.)
Electron microprobe analysis (EMPA)
Wireline-log interpretation and correlation
ArcGIS and other GIS and subsurface data (wireline logs, seismic, etc.) management software
We have field experience in a variety of tectonic and geomorphic settings including across the Maritimes (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick), western Canada (Alberta, Sasksatchewan and Manitoba), the northern Appalachian Basin (New York, Vermont), St. Lawrnce Lowlands (Ontario, Quebec), Wyoming and Montana (Bighorn and Powder River basins), South Dakota (Black Hills), western Ireland (County Clare), the Canadian Rocky Mountain Front Ranges (Alberta and British Columbia), and more!
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