TSE Seminar Series
An informal way to meet colleagues, professors, and guest speakers
Learn about ongoing research and issues related to the environment
Free and open to all members of the Trent Community and the public. Please attend masked and prepared to social distance.
If you are not a member of the TSE community and are interested in attending one of the events, please email Ian Power
Wednesday, December 8th, 3:00-4:00 pm, The Student Centre Room 2.02 (West Bank)
Galen Halverson, Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University
What can Rocks Tells Us about the Early Evolution of Eukaryotes?
Molecular phylogenetics has generated vast amounts of genomic data and driven extraordinary advances in our understanding of the origination and early diversification of eukaryotic lineages. By contrast, the geological record yields few and more fragmentary data bearing on evolutionary relationships in deep time. Nevertheless, the Precambrian rock record can yield key insights, which when integrated with molecular approaches, have the potential to clarify the picture of the early evolution of complex life, from the appearance of the first eukaryotic common ancestor to the origin of animals.
On Wednesday, October 13th, 2021, a small but mighty group of TSE students, faculty and staff met for the first in-person TSE Seminar since March 2020. Jenine McCutcheon, Assistant Professor from
University of Waterloo, visited the Trent Symons Campus to talk to us about microbe-mineral-fluid interactions: small-scale processes with large-scale impacts.
The presentation encompassed research based in Australia (Great Barrier Reef, Queensland and Woodsreef Asbestos Mine, New South Wales) and south-western Greenland. Her research helps us understand natural environments, solve industrial challenges, and forecast complex global systems. In the context of climate science, Dr McCutcheon commented that, “everything in the environment is interconnected. Understanding this connectivity on a global scale will help us predict and mitigate the impacts of climate change.”
Trent offers many opportunities for gaining hands-on research experience. Dr McCutcheon encourages students interested in research to seek out opportunities in topics that excite them. This could be through field courses, an Honour's thesis, or a summer research position. These early experiences can be the starting point for a career in environmental science.
On Wednesday, November 10th, we met again for Dr Mark Gordon's lecture on atmospheric deposition of oil sands pollutants to the boreal forest. Between June 2017 and October 2021, a 100 ft tall, instrumented tower was installed in a jack pine forest north of Fort McMurray, Alberta. The primary goal of the study was to determine the deposition rate of aerosols, SO2, and ozone to the forest. We also investigated the exchange of CO2 in the boreal forest in close vicinity to oil sands mining and upgrading facilities and studied the dynamics of mixing within the forest canopy. This presentation will outline different methodologies to measure atmospheric deposition of trace gases and aerosols, including eddy-covariance, flux/ gradient relationships, and inverse modeling studies. Some preliminary results include size-resolved deposition velocities of aerosol particles, demonstration of canopy-decoupling, characterization of CO2 exchange, and estimation of SO2 and ozone deposition velocity using vertical gradients measured with passive samplers.
