Research Program

Tim Patterson has made ~250 scholarly contributions, including ~135 peer-reviewed research papers. He utilizes micropaleontological, sedimentological and geochemical techniques to:

• study of paleoclimate records in Holocene lacustrine, marine, and bogs to assess the dynamics of climate variability.
  
• assess the impact of anthropogenic land-use change on natural lacustrine systems.
  
  

Current Research Projects:

• Impact of climate change on the long-term variability of the strategically important Tibbitt to Contwoyton Winter Road, Northwest Territories (see advertisement below).
  
  
• Impact of agriculture and urbanization on kettle lakes within the environmentally sensitive Oak Ridges Moraine, north of the Greater Toronto Area.
  
  
• Reconstructing Holocene climate change from fjord/estuarine environments in the northeast Pacific.
• Late Quaternary climate and precipitation records archived in ombrotrophic bog deposits (e.g. Mer Bleue Bog, Ottawa, Ontario).
  
• Late Quaternary sea-level changes on the NE Irish coast.
• Ecology and paleoecology of benthic foraminifera on the NE Irish coast.
• Impact of mining activities on lake ecosystems within the Canadian Shield of northeastern Ontario.
  
• Impact of agriculture and forestry on lake ecosystems in southern New Brunswick.
• Late Quanternary climate change archived in annually deposited varves of meromictic lakes in Ontario (e.g. Teapot Lake, Brampton, Ontario, and Pink Lake, Gatineau Park, Quebec).

 

Qualified graduate Students Sought for Northwest Territories Ice Road Paleoclimate Project

Application deadline: open

Major funding in support of a three-year Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada Strategic Project grant has been awarded to study the "Impact of Climate Change on the Long-Term Viability of the Strategically Important Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road, Northwest Territories". A broad overview of the project and the ojectives is provided below. Graduate students in a number of subdisciplines are sought to carry out the multiproxy analysis. Please address any general queries to Tim Patterson (tpatters@earthsci.carleton.ca).

Recruiting Graduate Students for Northwest Territories Ice Road Paleoclimate Project


The Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road (TCWR) is a 568-km-long annual ice road first constructed in 1982 to service mines and exploration activities in the Northwest Territories (NT) and Nunavut (NU). The TCWR is the world's longest heavy haul ice road and critical to the economy of the region with more than $500 million per year in goods passing over it. It is the only overland route that services mines and exploration camps in the NT, including the Diavik Diamond Mine, the Ekati Diamond Mine, and the Snap Lake Mine. By volume diesel fuel is the most important item trucked north on the road, however, other essential supplies include cement, tires, prill for explosives manufacture, construction materials, and machinery parts. Without the TCWR these important mines sites would most like never have been developed. As mining activity continues to expand in this region it is essential that planners and policy makers have a firm understanding of the natural variability of climate that influences ice cover as well as the nature of potential future climatic variation so that more effective ice road management policies can be implemented.

We will utilize a number of records of late Holocene limnological change contained in targeted lakes along the TCWR to construct a detailed record of climatic cycles and trends for this region at subdecadal resolution. This data will then be used to determine the potential for climate change to impact winter ice cover along the TCWR. By documenting the response of these Arctic freshwater and associated terrestrial ecosystems to climate change this research will provide a basis for forecasting possible future climatic impacts on these ecosystems during the coming decades. This project will also provide guidance for resource utilization activities such as mining and will help policy makers understand the long-term ecological consequences of climate change.