2023
March
Congratulations to Maggie Whelan who has just completed her MSc!
February
Our NSERC International Alliance Grant with Josh Davies (UQAM) and Marc Laflamme (U Toronto) in collaboration of Frits Hilgen for a project in Namibia was just funded.
2022
September
Congratulations to Wilder Greenman(McGill), Mollie Patzke (Laurentian) and Fred Dufour (UQAM), who all successfully defended their PhD theses, thus bringin to a close a successful NSERC Strategic project in collaboration with the Canada Nunavut Geoscience Office.
August
After a nearly three year hiatus, the PROPS group resumed fieldwork with an epic trip to the Ogilive and Wernecke mountains in Yukon and a return to Namibia.
May
Congratulations to Will Wong who has completed his MSc thesis!
2021
December
Congratulations to Shen Chen, who has successfully defended his PhD thesis and started a position as a research scientist at the CNOOC Research Institite in Beijing.
September
Welcome to Charlotte Spruzen who just started her PhD with a Tomlinson Fellowship.
Welcome to Ajani Bissick who just started her MSc.
2020
August
It was a big field season, with PROPS trips to Yukon, Northwest Territories, NW Greenland, and Australia.
2019
August
It was a big field season, with PROPS trips to Yukon, Northwest Territories, NW Greenland, and Australia.
2018
November
Congratulatiosn to Wilder who has passed his oral qualifying exams.
September
Welcome to four new PROPS members, as of September 2018: Teegan Ojala (MSc), Angelo dos Santos (PhD), Chen Shen (PhD), Victoria Houde (PhD).
August
Congratulations to Kelsey Lamothe who has completed her MSc! Wilder and Galen return from Baffin Island in one piece and with plenty of rocks. Tim Gibson, PROPS alumni, begins post-doc with Justin Strauss at Dartmouth College and embarks on his first Svalbard field season.
July
Wilder and then Galen embarked on the initial fieldwork as part of the CNGO Fury and Hecla Geoscience project, supported by an NSERC Strategic grant to Galen, Alessandro Ielpi (Laurentian), and Ross Stevenson (UQAM). Camp was set up at Gifford River, north of Fury and Hecla Straight and about an hour's helicopter flight WNW from Igloolik. Kelsey and Wilder returned from a 6-week field season in Namibia with Paul Hoffman.
June
Galen and a group of colleagues set off for the Yukon for 2.5 weeks of fieldwork in the Wernecke Mountains. It was a very successful field season, even if the weather left much to be desired. Stay tuned for results.
May
Galen co-taught the France Field School in the Massif Central and Tim Gibson successfully defended his PhD.
March
The 2018 Spain Field Trip was a success, despite less satisfactory weather than we had come to expect follow previous trips.
January
Tim Gibson's Geology paper on the age of the oldest known fossil alga is now published. And it has generated some press! Check out links to articles on CBC and Radio Canada International.
2017
October
Galen gets a new hip.
Peter Crockford successfully defended his PhD thesis. He moved on temporarily to WHOI to finish up a project on Ba isotopes and will begin an Agouron Institute post-doc in the new year.
September
A 3-year NSERC Strategic Grant for work on the Bylot basins of northern Baffin Island is funded, with lead PI Halverson, co-PI's Ross Stevenson and Alessandro Ielpi, and strategic partner Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office
August
Field crews return safely from NWT and Nunavut.
May
The PROPS group organized the first workshop on the record of early eukaryotic evolution in northern Canada, bringing together the co-PI's on the Agouron project, their students, and other researchers. The workshop took place in Kingston, Ontario, following the annual GAC-MAC conference.
2016
September
Malcolm Hodgskiss has completed his MSc and moved on to a PhD at Stanford.
July
Boz has left McGill and PROPS to begin a new position in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado.
June
Marcus Kunzmann successfully defended his PhD thesis. Shortly thereafter, Marcus and family relocated to Darwin, Australia, where Marcus will begin a post-doc with CSIRO.
A quorum of PROPers participated in the annual Tour de l'Ile de Montréal.
May
Malcolm Hodgskiss completes his MSc thesis on molar tooth structures.
February
Galen and colleagues have received a grant from the Agouron Institute to support their project on early eukaryotic evolution in northern Canada.
January
Kelsey Lamothe joins PROPS as an MSc student working with Galen. Her project will be on the expression of the Islay carbon isotope excursion in northern Namibia.
2015
May
The 2015 Joint Assembly (GAC-MAC-AGU-CGU) runs successfully in Montreal
Congratulations to Grant Cox, who defendes his PhD thesis.
Malcolm Hodgskiss begins his MSc thesis.
April
Boz and family arrive in Perth for a three month stay supported by a Gledden Fellowship from the University of Western Australia.
January
Vivien Cumming joins the PROPS group as a post-doc working on Re-Os geochronology of Meso–Neoproterozoic basins of northern Canada.
2014
December
Galen is off to Australia for his sabbatical year in Perth.
November
Congratulations to Dr. André Pellerin, who has successfully defended his PhD thesis.
October
Congratulations to Kirsten, Marcus, and new junior PROPS member, Erik Kunzmann!
September
Congratulations to Hao (Dr. Bui), who has successfully defended her PhD thesis.
July
Everybody returned safely from northwest Canada and preparations are underway for Baffin Island!
June
The crew set out for fieldwork in Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
Permits are rolling in, and it looks like it will be a busy field season in northern Canada this summer. Stay tuned for photos and stories.
May
Congratulations to Peter, Marcus, Tim, Jessie, and LuMa, all of whom have recently been awarded EPS graduate scholarships.
April
Peter Crockford and Sarah Wörndle have passed their doctoral qualifying exams!
Undergraduate students Malcolm Hodgskiss and Emily Griffiths have been awared NSERC SURA's to work with PROPS for the summer.
February
Mônica Mendes, a visiting PhD student from UFMG Brazil has just joined our group and will be here until July working on iron isotopes in Brazilian iron formation.
January
The semester has started! Boz is teaching Stable Isotope Geochemistry this term and Galen is teaching Sediments to Sequences and Earth and Life History.
2013
September
Welcome to new PROPS members, Timothy Gibson (PhD), Sarah Warndle (PhD), Peter Crockford (PhD), Ben Wyman (Honours), and Nickolas Dudeck (Honours).
July
The crew has completed another successful field season in the Ogilvie Mountains, Yukon and northern B.C.. Fieldwork for some continues in the Cordillera.
June
A sizeable crew will soon be off to the Cordillera and Yukon for summer fieldwork 2013. Check back later this summer for new photos and preliminary results.
Félicitations à Pierre, qui a gagne un concours de Maitre de Conference à Brest. Il va y commencer le 1 septembre!
Congratulations to Marcus, who has been awarded the 2013–2014 Wares Graduate award, the top McGill EPS scholarship.
Congratulations to Timothy Gibson, incoming PhD student who has been awarded the inaugural Mountjoy Scholarship, given annually to the top graduate student pursuing research in sedimentology.
May
Undergraduate students Kasparas Spokas, Michelle Vokaty, and Coleman Robertson have recently joined our group.
2012
Marcus' Geology paper on the Zn isotope composition of Neoproterozoic cap dolostones is now published on-line.
Boz and his family have left on sabbatical for the 2012–2013 academic year. The are currently living in the Seattle area and Boz commutes daily to the University of Washington by boat.
Congratulations to Marcus Kunzmann, Thi Hao Bui, and Lucie Théou-Hubert who won department graduate scholarships this year.
Grant Cox has been awarded a prestigious Vanier Fellowship (2012–2014).
2012 Northeastern Geobiology Symposium was hosted at McGill March 23–24. Paul Hoffman kicked off the event with a Freaky Friday presentation at the Redpath Museum on Friday night. The symposium continued Saturday, with a full of day of presentations by students and post-docs and a subsequent poster session. Download the program and abstract volume here.
Geological Society Fermor Meeeting: Neoproterozoic Era: Evolution, Glaciation, Oxygenation. London, UK, September 19–21.
2011
The long awaited GSL Memoir 36, The Geological Record of Neoproterozoic Glaciations, is now published! Also, check out the associated on-line photo atlas.
Post-doc Clint Scott has authored/co-authored a pair of recently published papers on seawater chemistry in the Archean and Mesoproterozoic.
Congratulations to Libby Sharman, who has successfully defended her PhD thesis!