With the recent rock slide on the Sea to Sky Highway, I thought this would be a good opportunity to highlight the research profiles of Dr. Oldrich Hungr and Dr. Erik Eberhardt who are both from the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences.

Dr. Hungr’s research deals with issues related slope stability analysis and risk assessment.

Geertsemaa, Marten; Hungr, Oldrich; Schwab, James W.; Evans, Stephen G. A large rockslide–debris avalanche in cohesive soil at Pink Mountain, northeastern British Columbia, Canada. Engineering Geology 83(1-3): 64-75

Dr. Eberhardt’s research deals with rock engineering as it pertains to rock slope failure and the prediction of rock mass behaviour.

Eberhardt, Erik. The role of advanced numerical methods and geotechnical field measurements in understanding complex deep-seated rock slope failure mechanisms. Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 45(4): 484-510.

Posted by kevin.lindstrom@ubc.ca Earth and Ocean Sciences liaison librarian.

As part of the UBC Library’s mandate to archive undergraduate research, three EOSC honors theses have just been added to the Earth and Ocean Sciences Community in cIRcle – UBC’s Information Repository.

Bayliss, Sandra M. 2008. Uranium-Lead, Argon-Argon, and Lead Isotopic Constraints of Magmatism and Associated Mineralization within the Stikine Terrane, on the Williams Gold Property, North Central British Columbia. Undergraduate Honours Thesis. Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. University of British Columbia.

Kushnir, Alexandra R.L. 2008. Understanding Multi-Peak Anomalies for Unexploded Ordnance Discrimination. Undergraduate Honours Thesis. Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. University of British Columbia.

Cleven, Nathan R. 2008. Role of Dolomite Content on the Mechanical Strength and Failure Mechanisms in Dolomite-Limestone Composites. Undergraduate Honours Thesis. Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. University of British Columbia.

If you are interested in contributing your undergraduate thesis to cIRcle, please contact me directly kevin.lindstrom@ubc.ca

The 6th International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH) is an international conference that takes place every three years. This year’s conference took place in Vancouver from July 6-20.

Select conference papers presented at ICGH 2008 are now available online at cIRcle, the UBC Library’s Information Repository. This collection continues to grow as authors contact me about adding their papers to the ICGH 2008 archive.

Dr. Peter Englezos from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering is a member of the International Scientific Committee for the 6th International Conference on Gas Hydrates.

Participating organizations includes

China University of Geosciences
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Colorado School of Mines
Geological Survey of Canada
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Japan
National Research Council of Canada
Technical University Berlin
United States Department of Energy
United States Geological Survey
University of British Columbia
University of Toronto

as well as a host of other universities, institutes, organizations, and companies.

If you have presented a conference paper at the ICGH 2008 conference and would like it uploaded to cIRcle, please contact kevin.lindstrom@ubc.ca directly.

The Council of Canadian Academies was asked by the federal Minister of Natural Resources to assess the challenges for an acceptable operational extraction of gas hydrates in Canada in terms of: economic impact, social acceptability, and accessibility? As a result, the Expert Panel on Gas Hydrates was appointed by the Council to address the question and provide an account of the science and technology relevant to the safe extraction and use of gas hydrates in Canada.

The expert panel, chaired by John Grace (FRSC, FCAE), held its first meeting on May 8 and 9, 2007 to discuss the question with the sponsoring department (Natural Resources Canada); to agree on an outline for the assessment report; and to coordinate research and writing tasks. The question addressed by the panel is as follows: “What are the challenges for an acceptable operational extraction of gas hydrates in Canada in terms of: economic impact, social acceptability, and accessibility?”

UBC Members of the Expert Panel include

John Grace, Chair
Professor, Chemical and Biological Engineering and Canada Research Chair in Clean Energy Processes, University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC)

Peter Englezos
Professor, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC)

The Report in Focus is now available with the Full Report to be released in August 2008 from the Council of Canadian Academies website.

Dr. Tom Pedersen has co-authored an interesting editorial published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin looking at natural sewage treatment as it relates to the city of Victoria’s current policy of discharging screened sewage into the ocean environment.

“Despite scientific evidence that there are no major environmental or human health impacts, this discharge of ‘untreated’ sewage has been a constant irritation to the city’s US neighbours and to environmental groups, has resulted in a large number of lay opinions in the popular media (radio, television, newspapers, magazines), and finally resulted (July 2006) in the British Columbia Minister of the Environment directing the CRD to move to secondary sewage treatment.”

For more on this topic, have a look at Peter Chapman’s editorial Science, politics and ideology – The Victoria (BC, Canada) sewage issue.

Dr. Tom Pederson is a professor in UBC’s Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences.

On 4 July 2008 Science had an editorial about peer-review process.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/321/5885/15

Written by the Science editors, including Bruce Alberts – the Editor-in-Chief, it is indeed an interesting read! Have a look..

** Photo by selva

Geography Professor Emeritus Timothy R. Oke is appointed to Order of Canada.
He is recognised for his research in meteorology and urban climatology, and his mentoring of generations of geographers.
http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/extras/2008/08jul02.html

**Photo from this page: http://www.geog.ubc.ca/~toke/

On June 15, 2008 Thomson Reuters ISI has published a short report about Canadian Science. Canada’s world share of science and social-science papers over the last five years is expressed as a percentage of papers in each of 22 fields in the Thomson Reuters ISI database. Also, Canada’s relative citation impact compared to the world average in each field, in percentage terms.

http://sciencewatch.com/dr/sci/08/jun15-08_2/

It is a very interesting read that shows that Canadians scientists are most prominent in Psychology/Psychiatry and Ecology/Environmental and least prominent in Chemistry and Physics. Frankly, the whole thing surprised me very much!

What do you see in this report? Does it surprise you?

** Photo by jmv

This long awaited report by the US Climate Change Science Program analyzes the effects of global change on natural and human environments, agriculture, water resources, social systems, energy production and use, transportation, and human health. It analyzes current trends in global change, both natural and human-induced, and it projects major trends for the future.

On their site – http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/scientific-assessment/ you can find the full report, the executive summary and other related materials.

** Photo by Enzo D

The Open Atmospheric Science Journal is an open access, peer reviewed, online journal, which publishes research articles, reviews, and letters in all areas of climate research and atmospheric science. It aims to provide the most complete and reliable source of information on current developments in the field. The emphasis will be on publishing quality papers rapidly and freely available to researchers worldwide.

http://www.bentham.org/open/toascj/index.htm

UBC Professor Douw Steyn and Stefano Galmarini from European Commission Joint Research Centre have published “Evaluating the Predictive and Explanatory Value of Atmospheric Numerical Models: Between Relativism and Objectivism” in this new open access journal.

** Photo by selva