PACS Lab 

The Permafrost ArChive Science (PACS) lab is Canada's first formal permafrost archive and analytical lab., It provides access to a superb collection of permafrost cores and research facilities.  These facilities enable the standardized and comprehensive physical, biogeochemical, and biological characterization and analysis of permafrost and frozen materials allowing new insight into processes and impacts of climate and environmental change in permafrost regions. Research foci include the development of novel core characterization approaches, the development of paleoenvironmental records that frame past responses of permafrost regions to climate change, novel genomics from permafrost, and an understanding of the impacts of biogeochemical cycling and permafrost fluxes of legacy nutrients and contaminants on local and downstream communities. 

The PACS Lab was funded through a successful application to the Canadian Foundation for Innovation led by researchers at the University of Alberta, northern partners and collaborators from across Canada. 

PACS Lab is actively engaged in community-based research in the north, focused on the impacts of permafrost thaw on communities, infrastructure, transportation corridors and traditional territories. Funding for these initiatives comes from northern partners, including GNWT, NWT Geological Survey, NWT Cumulative Impacts Monitoring Program (CIMP), Transport Canada, NSERC Discovery grants, and NSERC Alliance grant programs.

Principal Investigators

Duane Froese, Director and Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Nicholas Beier, Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering

Fabrice Calmels, Permafrost and Geoscience Research Professor, Yukon University

Jeff Kavanaugh, Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Brian Lanoil, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences

David Olefeldt, Associate Professor, Department of Renewable Resources

Hendrik Poinar, Professor, Department of Anthropology, McMaster University

Alberto Reyes, Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Suzanne Tank, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences