Geological Survey of Canada
The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) is the government geological service of Canada . It was founded in 1842 to support the Canadian mining industry.
organization
Its headquarters are in Ottawa , where it is also their data center for seismology and the geomagnetic laboratory, as well as Québec , Vancouver , Sidney (British Columbia) , Calgary , Dartmouth (Nova Scotia) . There are the GSC Atlantic (research in the Atlantic Shelf of Canada), GSC Pacific (research in the Pacific Shelf of Canada) and GSC Calgary (for research in Canada's sedimentary basins).
history
The first director and founder was William Edmond Logan ( Montreal headquarters ). Early collaborators also included paleontologist Elkanah Billings , Robert Bell (geologist), and Joseph Burr Tyrrell . Many of the collections in the Canadian natural history museums can be traced back to the GSC's collecting activities. Logan organized exhibitions of Canadian minerals at the World's Fair in London in 1851 and Paris in 1855, and in 1863 the monograph Geology of Canada was published. In 1877 they were given a legal basis as the official authority of Canada and in 1881 they moved to Ottawa to a building near the Byward Market ( former building of the Geological Survey of Canada ).
In addition to mineral resources, the exploration of transcontinental railroad lines was a task of the GSC at the end of the 19th century. The third director, George Mercer Dawson , had British Columbia prospecting and exploring the Klondike area before the gold rush . Robert Bell explored northern and western Canada including Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait for over three decades . Albert Peter Low (1861–1942) explored Labrador and the Ungava Peninsula and discovered large iron deposits there. In 1903/4 he also explored the arctic islands of Canada with the Neptune . Joseph Tyrrell discovered coal and dinosaurs in the Province of Alberta and explored the areas west of Hudson Bay. J. Mackintosh Bell investigated the area between Lake Athabasca and Great Bear Lake around 1900 (he carried out preparatory work for the discovery of uranium deposits in 1930 by the private prospector Gilbert LaBine ).
During World War I and thereafter, the service suffered from financial constraints, which was not changed until the mid-1930s when large government funds were made available under a Canadian version of the New Deal . The service experienced a further boom in the Second World War and then in the prospecting for crude oil (due to an oil industry strike in 1947) and uranium. The uranium exploration in the 1950s resulted in vastly improved knowledge of the Canadian Shield. At the same time, the prospecting of airplanes and helicopters (including new geophysical methods such as geomagnetic exploration from the air) enabled much more efficient mapping (between 1952 and 1958 half as much area was explored as in the entire period before). In 1955 , Operation Franklin , headed by the later head of GSC YO Fortier , explored large parts of the Arctic.
In 1966 the GSC became part of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources and was tasked with estimating mining resources. In the 1970s, environmental protection expertise was added, for example for large pipeline projects. At the same time, exploration of the sea shelves in the 200 mile zone began. This continued into the 1980s, particularly with regard to oil and gas reserves in the ocean and the Arctic. The GSC also coordinated Canada's participation in the international Ocean Drilling Program and from 1984 the geophysical (seismic) exploration of Canada in the Lithoprobe program. 1986 various state geophysical services were integrated (Earth Physics Department of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources).
In the 1990s, the GSC coordinated the National Geoscience Mapping Program (NATMAP), activities in environmental protection (and with regard to climate change) intensified and in the investigation of hazards in the geographic area (floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes, magnetic storms, unstable subsurface). Another focus was digitization and the broad provision of geoscientific information.
In the mid-1990s, they became part of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). The annual budget was $ 60 million with 550 employees.
literature
- Morris Zaslow: Reading the Rocks. The Story of the Geological Survey of Canada, 1842-1972. Macmillan et al., Toronto 1975.
- Robert G. Blackadar: The Geological Survey of Canada. Past and Present (= Geological Survey of Canada. Miscellaneous Report. Vol. 45). The Survey, Ottawa 1986, ISBN 0-660-12175-1 (Also in French: La Commission géologique du Canada. Hier et aujourd'hui. La Commission, Ottawa 1986, ISBN 0-660-91789-0 ).
- Christy Vodden: No Stone Unturned. The First 150 Years of the Geological Survey of Canada. Minister of Supply and Services Canada, Ottawa 1992, ISBN 0-662-19296-6 .