In this issue:
The Canadian Geoscience Council (CGC) held its 105th meeting from January 26-27, 2001 at the BC and Yukon Chamber of Mines in Vancouver. CGC has existed for almost 30 years and is charged with ensuring "...the effectiveness and influence of the geosciences... in Canada." Yet many geoscientists know little about us and what we do. We hope that use of electronic media, including this Listserv and our Web-page (www.geoscience.ca) will allow us to communicate better with our constituency – you, the geoscientists of Canada – and for you to communicate with each other. Jeremy Hall, President CGC, Memorial University.
The CGC Listserv is run at no cost from a server at the University of Ottawa. It is a moderated list meaning that messages between members, or from CGC to you, pass through the electronic hands of the list editor (CGC Committees Director Antoni Lewkowicz). If, as a member, you want to send a message to the list, you address it to CGC@listserv.uottawa.ca. We have obtained all the e-mail addresses from respondents to the CGC Census and currently there are about 400 recipients. There were problems with the instructions on how to join the list given on the CGC census form, so if you know someone who might like to join, please ask them to contact Antoni Lewkowicz, alewkowi@uottawa.ca, with the message "Add CGC e-mail address First name Last name". Correct instructions are also now given on the CGC Website.
Full minutes of the meeting will be posted on our Website by mid-February. This is a summary of the main points.
New Members
CGC has 12 member organisations representing 10,000 geoscientists. In Vancouver, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) and the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists (CSPG) joined as Associate Members. Council also voted in principle to change the subscription costs of membership and to link them to voting rights.
Nominations for Board of Directors
Would you like to serve on the CGC Board of Directors? We are looking for nominations for President-Elect, Administrative Director and Issues Director. These positions have two-year terms (one year for President-Elect). Nominations should be made by member organisations of CGC so if you're interested, please contact the executive of your professional organisation as soon as possible. For more details, please contact Dirk Templeman-Kluit, CGC Past-President and Chair of the nominations committee at dirktk@direct.ca.
Funding Cut to IUGS and IGCP
CGC is the adhering body of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) through CNC-IUGS which is a standing committee of CGC. After considerable debate during the last three council meetings, members societies of CGC voted to decrease Canada's level of membership in IUGS from Level 7 (same as Germany, UK, France, etc.) to level 5 (same as Australia). This gives us fewer votes in IUGS but it will save CGC more than $10, 000 per year in dues. A subsequent vote capped the total funding for CGC for international programs at $20,000 per year, effective budget year 2001-02 (down from $45,000 this year). This will have the effect of reducing funding to support participation by individual Canadians in International Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP) projects.
It would be fair to say that these were controversial and painful decisions. On the one hand were intangible benefits involving Canadian geoscience prestige internationally and the more definite benefits to Canadian gesocientists who are given small amounts of seed money to allow their participation in IGCP projects. Weighing heavily on the other side was CGC's own budget problems with a substantial current account deficit. It is hoped that international programs will be supportable at an increased level at some point in the future as CGC's own budget is brought back into the black. In the meantime, these reductions buy CGC some time since they will cut its deficit in half for the upcoming year.
Canadian Geoscience Education Network (CGEN)
One of CGC's core activities is support of CGEN. Paul Robinson is finishing his term as head of CGEN and CGC Education Director in May and it is planned that John Clague will replace him in these positions. One of the major activities of CGEN in the next two years will be planning the Fourth International Geoscience Education Conference to be held in Calgary in 2003. For more information on the conference, please visit www.science.uwaterloo.ca/earth/geoscied. If you would like to help with the organisation or sponsorship of the meeting, contact Alan Morgan (avmorgan@uwaterloo.ca) or Godfrey Nowlan (nowlan@gsc.nrcan.gc.ca).
Northern Research
Council voted to endorse the findings of the Joint NSERC-SSHRC Task Force on Northern Research (www.nserc.ca/news/2000/p000921.htm). The importance of geoscience to the Canadian North is well documented in this report which proposes to set up northern research chairs, develop scholarships for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows and to fund collaborative interdisciplinary projects. CGC is writing letters to cabinet ministers, as well as the Presidents of NSERC and SSHRC, endorsing the report and offering our assistance to bring its recommendations to fruition.
Sub-aqueous Disposal of Mine Tailings
Tom Pedersen of the University of British Columbia gave CGC a very interesting presentation on the sub-aqueous disposal of sulphide-rich mine tailings. He convincingly demonstrated that this waste can be put in the bottom of lakes with few negative environmental effects. He requested that CGC endorse consideration of this method of tailings disposal based on its low level of environmental damage and zero long-term maintenance. A vote will be taken at the next CGC Council in St. Johns in May. The position paper on this subject appears on the CGC Website at Position Paper on Storage of Radioactive Waste.
Support of NEPTUNE
As LITHOPROBE winds down, what next? Maybe NEPTUNE. John Madden and Verena Tunnicliffe gave a presentation on this proposed international project to study the oceanic lithosphere and the ocean itself off the west coast of North America. The Canadian section would cover the Juan de Fuca plate with a fibre optic network that would allow direct monitoring of crustal movement, hydrogeology, edimentation, changes in the water column and in the atmosphere off the coast of Vancouver Island. The big scientific advance will be in obtaining time series data instead of the point data that is normally obtained through ocean drilling. Education and public awareness will also be important components of the project: imagine directing a sea-bottom camera off the west coast from a museum in Halifax! Additional details are given at www.neptunecanada.ca. All around the table were impressed with the scope and level of science linked to NEPTUNE and CGC agreed to write letters of support for the project.
Nuna Conference on Mineral Deposit Research
There will be a Nuna Conference at Queen's University on March 15-16, 2001entitled Future directions in Canadian Mineral Deposit and Metallogenic Research. The purpose is to design a network for the Canadian mineral deposit research community and to encourage co-operative science, especially integration of industry's needs into academic and government objectives. Further information is available at www.gac.ca/ANNMEET/nuna.html.
Census
Some intriguing numbers have come from the first 250 responses to the CGC census of Canadian geoscientists. (Many more responses have been received but have not yet been analysed). 88% are male, 75% are employed as geoscientists, 56% are a member of a provincially registered organisation, almost half are more than 50 years old, and more than half of those who completed the salary question make $75000 per year or more. The lucky few (4%) make more than $150,000. We will report the results in greater detail in a future electronic bulletin.
