Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Ship Time

The greatest uncertainties in the Earthquake Hazard Model for Canada's west coast are the frequency and size of megathrust earthquakes, which have the potential to affect millions of Canadians. This Discovery Grant research will help advance our knowledge of the previously unknown earthquake history, known as the as the ""paleoseismic history"", of the central coast area of British Columbia (BC). This information is vital not only for scientists, but also for planners, policy-makers, businesses and the public in order to minimize risks from major seismic events and help plan for a sustainable future. By understanding earthquake activity during the geologic past all along the Cascadia subduction zone, which stretches the length of the BC coast all the way to southern California, we can prepare for sustainable planning in our tectonically active province. This application is for funding ship time for a research cruise to new study areas along the northwest coast of Vancouver Island, where the paleoseismic and paleoenvironmental history has not yet been studied. The paleoclimate and paleoseismic history is better understood for the south coast of BC and the Queen Charlotte Islands area. By studying the seafloor sediments of the central coast region along northern Vancouver Island, we will advance our currently weak regional understanding of past earthquake activity as well as past ocean and climate changes in coastal BC, which are also ""recorded"" in the sediments. During the research cruise, we will retrieve long (10 metre) seafloor sediment cores which represent about the last 10,000 years of Earth's history, map the ocean bottom in the study areas and collect water property oceanographic data which will identify the coastal ocean processes. By identifying changes in the physical properties and micro-fossil content of these seafloor sediments, we can interpret the frequency of major earthquakes over the past 10,000 years, as well as interpret the natural variability in ocean, climate and marine ecosystem conditions.