Student Opportunities at Dal-CNEF

  • students may apply for fall or spring semesters
  • experience in chemistry or isotopes is not necessary

For information about graduate student applications or student funding through Dalhousie University, please email Ms. Jane Barrett (department co-ordinator)

Dalhousie stuff:

Dalhousie Graduate School

Perspective Dalhousie Students

Student summer employment

We no longer have undergraduate positions available for 2003 summer. Dal undergrads Sonja Goold, Andrew Hilchey, and Jennifer McIntosh have expressed interest in working with Dal-CNEF beginning this winter.

Honours student projects

An honours degree will make you more competitve for employment and may result in a higher starting salary. Most Canadian M.Sc. geology programmes require an honours degree. There are numerous opportunities for senior B.Sc. geology students to conduct honours research with CNEF. Thesis projects can have field, laboratory, and modeling components and explore aspects of geomorphology, surficial processes, active tectonics, glacial geology, paleoclimatology, environmental geology, digital terrain analysis and GIS, or cosmogenic nuclide exposure methods. Additionally, undergraduate students are encouraged to participate in graduate and staff research projects as field and laboratory assistants. Please contact Gosse for examples of projects currently available.

Relevant undergraduate courses:

Students wishing to conduct honours thesis research with Gosse should consider taking some of the following courses offered at Dalhousie in addition to the required courses for a Geology B.Sc. degree: Quaternary Environments, Geomorphology and Landscape Evolution, Calculus II, GIS, Remote Sensing, Hydrogeology, micropaleontology, or Quaternary Dating and Paleoclimatology.

M.Sc. students

Currently there are several funded M.Sc. opportunties at Dalhousie. The thesis subject will usually be a component of a larger CNEF project. Independent research projects supervised by Gosse or other Quaternary geologists in the Atlantic region focus on applications of cosmogenic isotopes to solve questions related to active tectonics, glacial processes, paleoclimatology, environmental geology, and late Cenozoic landscape evolution. Every student in the graduate programme will be expected to conduct or assist in research involving field, laboratory, and numerical analyses. Normally an honours degree in geology or equivalent is required for an M.Sc. International students are encouraged to apply.

Relevant courses:

Students intending to conduct M.Sc. research with Gosse will be required to complete at Dalhousie or have completed elsewhere the following courses: Geomorphology and Landscape Evolution, Tectonic Processes, and Quaternary Dating and Paleoclimatology. M.Sc. candidates should also consider upper level mathematics, computer, and GIS courses relevant to their field. Lawrence Plug is offering a graduate course in different approaches to modeling a variety of surface processes. Other courses more relevant to the students research are offered as 'selected topics' courses.

Ph.D. students

We seek quantitative independent-thinking individuals who are interested in applying cosmogenic isotopes to solve interesting geological questions.
Ph.D. students are funded with fellowships, research assistantships, or teaching assistantships. Funding for Ph.D. research may be provided by CNEF, Dalhousie, or grants. The dissertation topic must be original and can be related to one of the ongoing CNEF research projects but more often will be a separate study. Every student in the graduate programme will be expected to conduct or assist in research involving field, laboratory, and numerical analyses. International students are encouraged to apply.

Ph.D. students at Dalhousie are not required to take more than the two required core courses. However, the Ph.D. candidate is expected to make use of the published literature and available courses to become proficient in the tools that are required to conduct the proposed research.

Other reasons to consider a degree in Quaternary geology at Dalhousie

1. Exposure to multiple international projects
The CNEF group have their own current research projects. Additionally, we are involved in other projects as collaborators or subcontractors. These projects include:

  • incision history of the Grand Canyon (Dr. Joel Pederson, Utah State U.)
  • glacial history of northern Russia (Dr. Jan Mangerud, U. Bergen)
  • deformation of Pyrenees forebasin, Ebro Basin, Spain (Drs. Claudia Lewis and Eric McDonald)
  • arroyo development in northern Arizona (Dr. Les McFadden and others, U. New Mexico)
  • glacial history of Ellesmere Island and adjacent regions (Dr. Wes Blake, Geol. Surv. Canada)
  • incision history of the Salmon River, Idaho (Dr. Grant Meyer, U. New Mexico)
  • glacial chronology of the Southern Alps, New Zealand (Dr. Don Easterbrook, W. Washington U.)
  • evolution of a late Pleistocene transpressional ridge, Nevada (Dr. John Whitney, U.S.G.S.)
  • LIS deglacial history in Quebec (Dr. Jean Veillette, Geol. Surv. Canada)

All of these projects involve multiple scientists working on aspects of active tectonics, glacial geology, fluvial geology, or landscape evolution. Student interaction in the field, laboratory, and modeling aspects of these studies is encouraged.

2. Bi-weekly Quaternary brown-bag lunches. CNEF hosts the biweekly Quaternary lunch when local and visiting Quaternary scientists present ideas and data for open discussion.

3. Dalhousie is the top ranked Canadian research/medical university in Atlantic Canada. It also boasts among the highest international undergraduate and graduate enrollments of research/medical universities in Canada.

4. Dalhousie Geochronology Centre offers the following capabilities to students and researchers:

  • thermal and optically stimulated luminescence (Dr. Dorothy Godfrey-Smith)
  • electron spin resonance (we are in the process of acquiring an ESR spectrometer) (Dr. Dorothy Godfrey Smith)
  • cosmogenic nuclide exposure methods (currently 10Be and 26Al, and 3He and 36Cl by collaboration)
  • fission track analysis (apatite and zircon) (Dr. Marcos Zentilli)
  • (U-Th)/He thermochronology (facility grant applications pending, submitted in Sep. 2002) (Dr. Peter Reynolds; M. Zentilli, J. Gosse)
  • K-Ar and Ar/Ar dating and thermochronology (Dr. Peter Reynolds)
  • U-Pb monazite dating (Dr. Barrie Clarke and Dr. Rebecca Jamieson)

5. Our Earth Science Department is growing! Recent new hires:

  • D. Gjuric, 1999, tectonics, active tectonics, Himalayas, geodynamics
  • J. Gosse, 2001, geomorphology, Quaternary geology, active tectonics, cosmogenic nuclides
  • L. Plug, 2002, Quaternary geology, surficial processes, numerical modeling
  • G. Wach, 2002, sedimentology, sequence stratigraphy, glacial sedimentology, petroleum geology
  • A. Dyke, 2002?, nominated by department for Northern Research Chair, Dalhousie.

6. Employment of students advised by Gosse

graduate students whose committee I have chaired:

  • Jane Willenbring (Ph.D. expected 2003)
  • Sophie Baker (M.Sc, expected 2004)
  • Chris Spies (M.S., 2002, now at ExxonMobil, Houston, TX)
  • Dan Jackofsky (M.S. 1999, now at ExxonMobil, Houston, TX)
  • Jill Fyte (M.S. 1997, now at Phillips Petroleum, Bartlesville, OK)

students whose committee I served:

  • Jeremy Dillon (Ph.D., expected 2002; asst. prof. Univ. Nebraska at Kearney)
  • Brent Zaprowski (Ph.D., 2001, asst. prof., Salisbury University)
  • Heather Woods (M.S. 2001, Kansas City Env. and Eng. Co.)
  • Kato Dee (M.S. 2001, Colorado Environmental Company)
  • Gregory Baker (Ph.D., 2000, asst. prof., SUNY Buffalo)
  • Danielle Sipes (M.S. 1997, U.S. Soil Conservation Survey)

7. Halifax

Halifax is situated on the east coast of Canada and is the largest Canadian city east of Quebec City. Winter temperatures are moderated by the ocean but rarely reach as low as -10oC (18oF). Summer temperatures can reach as high as 35oC (95oF). Dalhousie University is situated within walking distance of the downtown and harbour area.