Grant: Collaborative Research and Training Experience

The supply of energy and mineral resources to a growing global population is a major challenge for the future. To find new resources that can be exploited safely, we need better models of the Earth's crust and its regional endowment. More urgently, we need the skilled geoscientists who can develop those models and apply them in the real world. Critical new knowledge about the origins of the crust and its contained resources is emerging from the study of plate tectonics in the oceans. Acquiring this knowledge and applying it to resource discovery on land requires a new type of training that brings together land-based geologists and marine scientists. We are partnering with German and other European institutions to develop this unique training approach in a new CREATE on Marine Geodynamics and Georesources. Canada, as a global leader in resource development, and Germany, with its state-of-the-art marine infrastructure, are the ideal partners to achieve this goal. Trainees from Canada will participate in unprecedented sea-going research opportunities that combine marine geology, geophysics, and geochemistry to study the Earth's crust as it is forming today in the oceans. Two cohorts of Canadian graduate students and postdoctoral trainees will work together with graduate trainees overseas hosted by the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and other institutions in Germany (67 HQP in total). They will take part in team projects and expeditions around the globe, with expert supervision and access to international marine research infrastructure. Our goal is to take the students out of the classroom and engage them at sea and in the field with world-leading experts in geodynamics and georesources. While working on their own research topics, they will join research cruises and mapping schools and receive hands-on training in the application of marine technology, supported by intensive courses on geodynamics and resources delivered by collaborating centres in Canada and overseas. They will gain significant advantages through national and international networking, professional skills development and engagement with industry and other stakeholders, preparing them for a range of new careers in the Natural Resources and Energy sector.