May 2, 2019
The Geological Association of Canada has announced this year’s winners of the Léopol Gélinas Medal. Among them, Yellowknifer Rebecca Canam, a summer student with the NWT Geological Survey (NTGS) who was recognized with a bronze medal for her undergraduate thesis on the structure, origin and age of a unique NWT rock formation.
The medals are awarded as follows: Gold for the best PH.D. thesis; Silver – best M.Sc. thesis and Bronze in recognition of the best B.Sc. thesis
Rebecca is a Physiology graduate from McGill and is currently pursuing her second degree at the University of British Columbia in Geological Sciences. In this pursuit she spent several weeks in the field last summer mapping at NTGS’ Jolly Lake and Nonacho Lake projects.
Rebecca’s thesis focused on an unusual bedrock exposure she discovered while working as a summer student on the Nonacho Lake mapping project. Rebecca used a variety of analytical techniques to identify the rock in question; determine its age and what type of tectonic environment the rock formed in.
Her thesis concluded that the rock is a type of lamprophyre called an Appinite. It is about 2.45 Ga (billion years old) and the source of the magma that intruded the crust to form this rock came all the way from the mantle of the Earth (the area that lies between the earth's dense, super-heated core and its thin outer layer, the crust).
Rebecca will be coming back to work with the NTGS this summer as a graduate student and pursuing a Master’s degree at Simon Fraser University. Her next project will focus on determining the timing of deformation in a less-understood region of the southeastern corner of the NWT.
NTGS continues to support and train the next generation of geoscientists; fostering excellence in home-grown geoscience talent while working to provide geoscience information about the Northwest Territories (NWT) to inform decisions regarding the responsible development of mineral and energy resources, use of the land, and environmental stewardship.
