Posted: May 26, 2017
On June 1st, 2017, at 11:00am, Natural Resources Canada’s Mary-Lynn Dickson will be holding a live video chat with high school students in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia about Canada’s final scientific survey to map the seafloor and subsoil of the Arctic Ocean.
A graduate of Simonds High School, in Saint John, N.B., Mary-Lynn was Chief Scientist of the 2016 Canada-Sweden Polar Expedition, a 47-day scientific survey in the Arctic Ocean that used the Canadian Coast Guard Icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent and Swedish Icebreaker Oden. The survey’s goal was to collect geophysical and bathymetric data, rock and sediment cores to show the extended continental shelf is part of the Canadian continental landmass. Mapping the seafloor in the ice-covered Arctic presents unique logistical, operational and technical challenges. Mary-Lynn will discuss the practical aspects of conducting scientific surveys in a remote, harsh and geologically complex setting, the significance of the acquired data, some exciting preliminary findings will be shared, and the next steps in delineating Canada’s last international boundary will be presented.
Space is limited.
About Canada’s Extended Continental Shelf Program:
About Canada’s Extended Continental Shelf Program (classroom material)
About Mary-Lynn Dickson:
Mary-Lynn Dickson holds science degrees from Dalhousie University, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Oregon State University. Prior to joining Natural Resources Canada, she was a research scientist whose work focused on understanding how climate change may affect the biological carbon pump in the oceans. She has spent 850 days at sea conducting research in all the world’s oceans, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Later, she held research management positions at universities in Canada and the United States.
In her current role as Director of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Program, she is responsible for program management and leadership of the scientific team that is defining the full extent of Canada’s extended continental shelf. Canada expects to file its new outer limits for the Arctic Ocean to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in the next two years