Biography:
Aside from a childhood love of the local “Mineral World” attraction, my interest in the geosciences began in a BC Science 10 course in my hometown of Victoria, BC, and I have been studying in this field ever since. This interest led me across the country to study geology at Dalhousie University. After four years in Halifax, I completed my BSc with First Class Honours in Earth Sciences and a minor in French in May 2014. My honours research was conducted in VMS-potential greenstone belts of the Slave province, Northwest Territories, and focused on alteration styles and geochemistry of mafic to intermediate volcanic rocks.
Highlights from my time at Dalhousie include a month-long mapping field school through Nevada and eastern California, and my involvement in our undergraduate student society, the Dawson Geology Club. Wanting to further my learning, I recently returned to the west coast to begin my graduate studies in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria. I look forward to new challenges and experiences as my MSc thesis project progresses over the next couple years.
Project: Petrographic and Geochemical Study of Cache Creek Terrane Ultramafic Rocks, Nahlin Mountain, Cassiar District, BC
The targets of this study are the ultramafic rocks of the Cache Creek Terrane in northwestern British Columbia. This terrane represents obducted segments of oceanic lithosphere, with ophiolitic mantle rocks ranging from fertile lherzolite to depleted dunite that are exposed along several peaks and ridges south and southeast of Atlin, B.C, north of the Nakina fault. This study aims to better constrain the contact relations, alteration (including serpentinization and formation of awaruite), structure, and distribution of these rocks on Nahlin Mountain through detailed mapping during summer 2015.
Field logistics will be assisted in part by the TGI4/GEMS program of the Geological Survey of Canada (A. Zagorevski). Geochemical, petrographic, and mineral chemical investigations by various means (XRF, ICP-MS, SEM) will be conducted at UVic throughout the fall and winter of 2015-2016 to document the thermal history of the ophiolite, alteration history, and conditions for awaruite precipitation, among other themes.
