Biography:
Rebecca is a Ph.D. student at the University of Victoria, working under the supervision of Dr. Dante Canil. She received her B.Sc. degree in applied geology at the University of Calgary, where she completed an honors thesis focused on aqueous geochemistry under Dr. Cathy Ryan. Post B.Sc., Rebecca worked as a hydrogeologist in Calgary, Alberta for 4+ years before heading out west for graduate studies. She completed her M.Sc. (Geology) at Western Washington University under Dr. Susan DeBari, where she studied the plutonic-volcanic connection of the Cretaceous Alisitos Arc (Baja California, Mexico). Rebecca is currently enjoying her time on Vancouver Island, where she gets to continue studying paleo-arc related processes by working (and living!) on the beautiful Jurassic Bonanza arc.
Project: Endoskarn Mineralization Along Magma-Carbonate Contacts in the Merry Widow Mountain Area, Vancouver Island, British Columbia (NTS 092L)
Wrangellia hosts nearly half of all documented skarn deposits within the Canadian Cordillera, with the majority occurring on Vancouver Island. These economically significant (Cu-Au-Ag-Co, and Fe) deposits typically occur at the contact between plutons of the Jurassic Bonanza arc and upper Triassic carbonates of the Quatsino Formation. Though not the focus of previous prospecting and mining efforts, attributes such as bulk composition, heat content, and cooling history of the intruding magma influence the extent and type of skarn mineralization of such systems. Rebecca aims to quantify how these attributes influenced magma-wallrock reaction extent and mineralization using a well-constrained field, geochemical, and thermodynamic approach by studying the past producing Merry Widow mine locality. This research will provide an understanding of which elements are sequestered into the intrusion (endoskarn) and differs from previous efforts that targeted the development of exoskarn (mineralization within the wallrock), where most historical economic deposits were mined.
View Rebecca’s 2019 Scholarship Page
