Northwest Territories Research Database

Principal Investigator: Pratt, Brian R.
Licensed Year(s): 2019
Summary: Sedimentary rocks of Cambrian age (~500 million years old) are the oldest Phanerozoic strata in the Mackenzie River valley region and record the spread of a shallow sea over much older strata. The approximate age of these rocks is known via trilobite fossils based on reconnaissance collections made in the 1960s and 2010s. The purpose of the project is to make more closely spaced fossil collections...

Principal Investigator: Fedorowski, Jerzy A.
Licensed Year(s): 2019 2018
Summary: The principal aim of this project is to examine the settlement, development and decline of the fossil corals as a response to environmental conditions in the Liard region during Mississippian to Early Pennsylvanian times (358.9 to 314.6 million years ago). The study will be conducted against the background of the worldwide expansion of corals in the Viséan age (346.7 - 330.9 million years ago) and...

Principal Investigator: Pisaric, Michael FJ
Licensed Year(s): 2018 2017 2016
Summary: The objectives of this research are to examine the frequency and severity of past wildfire and drought (drought-like) conditions in the southern Northwest Territories. Specifically, the research team will examine the following questions: 1) how frequent and severe have fires been in the past; 2) are fires becoming more frequent/severe due to the impacts of climate change; 3) what impact does wildf...

Principal Investigator: Gosse, John C
Licensed Year(s): 2017 2016
Summary: Our main goals of this research project are: 1.) to collect sediment samples that will be used to provide ages of the sediment in the Beaufort Formation on Prince Patrick Island; and, 2.) to collect samples of fossil material (wood, plants, bone) that can be analyzed to produce climate reconstructions for the Pliocene. The research team will travel to approximately 5-6 site locations. The t...

Principal Investigator: Smith, Martin R
Licensed Year(s): 2016
Summary: The objectives of this research project are to measure continuous sedimentary sections spanning Proterozoic-Phanerozoic transition; to use geochemical approaches to precisely constrain the age and depositional conditions of the strata; and, to obtain Small Carbonaceous Fossils and Small Shelly Fossils from temporally-constrained strata in order to determine the rate of evolution through the Cambri...

Principal Investigator: Dearden, Richard P
Licensed Year(s): 2016
Summary: The research team will visit the site, as specialists in vertebrate palaeontology, in the hope of finding more of these well-preserved cartilaginous fishes. This will hopefully result in more fossil material, which will be collected and taken back to the institutions for study. The work would involve searching for more fossils: this mainly consists of hiking over the rocky exposures above the t...

Principal Investigator: Vavrek, Matthew J
Licensed Year(s): 2016
Summary: The research team will be travelling to the Anderson River via helicopter, approximately 220 km due west of Inuvik. The team will be camping in a small fly camp while in the field. Two weeks will be spent in the field, searching the exposed rocks along the banks of the Anderson River for fossils of extinct marine vertebrates. All work will be done on foot. Any fossils that are found are important ...

Principal Investigator: Fiess, Kathryn M
Licensed Year(s): 2014 2013
Summary: To identify a vertebrate fossil of Carboniferous age recently found in the Golata Formation in the Liard Basin. The research group is studying outcrops of Devonian to Carboniferous age shale to establish the hydrocarbon resource potential for the NWT, BC, and Yukon regions of the Liard area. Scientific investigations include measuring rock outcrop sections and taking small (approximately 100 ...

Principal Investigator: Quinlan, Roberto
Licensed Year(s): 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013
Summary: This study will examine the effects of permafrost and flooding on the ecological structure and carbon exchange of contrasting lakes in the Mackenzie River Delta. Patterned ground marked by ice-wedge polygons is formed by freezing and thawing of the soil, which forms cracks into which ice can spread and cause the soil to uplift. These processes have effects on the hydrology and water chemistry of a...

Principal Investigator: Henderson, Donald M
Licensed Year(s): 2013
Summary: The objectives of this research project are to: 1) excavation of the body fossil(s) and their careful packaging for removal and travel; and 2) make latex rubber peels of the fossilized trackways left on a fine-grained limestone. If the quality of the tracks merits it, the rock slabs hosting the tracks may be removed for safe-keeping and public display. The fossil will be collected using standar...