| Nov/13/2024: |
Myer Horowitz Theatre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta |
- 45 Years of Hunting Dinosaurs Around the World, talk by Phil Currie.
Very enjoyable presentation, reviewing career highlights and significant dinosaur
finds. Well prepared slides. This year Currie celebrated his 75th birthday, and this
lecture was one of the events that marked that milestone. Attended online.
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| Oct/18/2024: |
Alberta Palaeontological Society, Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alberta |
- The History and Prehistory of the North American Buffalo, talk by Cory Gross.
Well illustrated talk reviewing the palaeontological record of bison, mainly from
western North America. Attended online.
|
| Oct/15/2024: |
Earthx speaker series, Department of Earth, Energy, and Environment, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta |
- The Ice Age Time Traveller, talk by Jeff Bond, Elizabeth Hall, and Debbie Nagano.
Described the find of Nun cho ga (Big animal baby), a baby woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) found by
placer gold miners in the Klonndike area of the Yukon in 2022. Attended online.
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| Mar/07/2014: |
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta |
- Ancient North American: The Discovery and Interpretation of Kennewick Man, illustrated lecture by Douglas Owsley,
Physical Anthropology Division, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, USA
Lecture was part of the Association of Graduate Anthropology Students' 22nd
Annual Richard Frucht Memorial Lecture Series.
Dr Owsley outlined his involvement with the research on the skeleton remains, and
summarized some of the techniques used in the investigation and the results.
He noted that there is a book in preparation (900 manuscript pages) that will
pull together the research so far. He noted that "few skeletons are more
expressive than Kennewick Man". The skeleton is remarkably almost complete.
Skeleton is radiocarbon dated around 9300 yr BP. Found lower in section than Mazama
ash, which is present in this area.
Remains are from a robust sturdy man, wide-bodied and muscular, about 161 lb weight,
about 5'7" to 5'8" in height, and about 39 years old at time of death. His teeth
were heavily worn but he had all of them. His skeleton showed several traumatic but
healed injuries, including broken ribs. Some injuries healed poorly and were probably
still painful. He also had pathology on shoulder articulation, similar to that
found on baseball players, suggesting he was regularly throwing something, possibly
an atlatl. Muscle development greater on right-hand side of upper body, suggesting that
he was right-handed. Most significantly, he had a broken projectile point embedded in the top
of his hip (iliac crest). The bone had healed around it, but it did not heal well.
There is ongoing discussion about the point type; it may be a Cascade point or a
reworked point of a different style. Further study may provide information about
its lithology, which may also be useful in determining geographic movements of Kennewick
Man. Owsley used various lines of evidence, including carbonate deposits on bones, to show
that skeleton was face-up, lying flat, with head slightly higher than feet. Parts were
likely only exposed for a few weeks before it was found (algal growth on upper surfaces
of some bones, evidence of corrasion on some bones). Isotope studies, especially
N isotopes, show that the man ate a diet rich in marine-derived foods, such as seal.
Points to coastal area as the region where he lived, rather than the interior
Washington area where he was found.
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| Nov/17/2013: |
Royal Alberta Museum, Edmonton, Alberta |
- Alberta's Government House, illustrated lecture by Jane Ross, historian and retired Curator of Western Canadian History
A lecture to celebrate the publication of a new book, Alberta's Government House: A Vice-Regal Residence,
a history of one of Alberta's most treasured buildings, which commemorates the centennial of Government House. The lecture
included a brief survey of the history of the House, including biographies of the Lieutenant Governors who lived
there, and its use as a long-term care home for indigent military personnel, before its most recent incarnation
as a government meeting and conference centre. The talk included lots of interesting historic photographs.
|
| Oct/31/2013: |
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta |
- The past matters: retrospective studies of human influences on lake ecosystems, illustrated lecture by John Smol, Queen's University, Ontario, Canada
The first of a day-long series of six lectures held to celebrate the career of David Schindler. The event was called
Letting in the Light: Science to Guide Public Water Policy in the 21st Century.
Smol gave the opening keynote presentation and gave an engaging over-view and summary, highlighting some recent and not-yet-published research showing
anthropogenic impacts on lake ecosystems in North America. Smol also emphasized the influence of Schindler on limnological studies in North America and
his concerns for environmental issues and policy directions.
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| Jul/29/2013: |
Chateau Lacombe, Edmonton, Alberta |
- Fireballs Producing Meteorites: From Chelyabinsk to Tagish Lake, illustrated lecture by Peter Brown (Western University, London, Ontario)
This Barringer Invitational Public Lecture formed part of the program at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society.
This was a very engaging and entertaining public lecture by an excellent speaker. The talk focussed on three events: the Tagish
meteorite which fell in January 2000 in northern British Columbia, the Almahatta Sitta meteorite which fell in northen Sudan in 2008,
and the Chelyabinsk fireball of 2013. He talked about the different methods used to estimate parameters about these meteorites, such
as the size of the incoming object, its speed and trajectory, and the force of the impact.
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| Mar/19/2013: |
Royal Alberta Museum, Edmonton, Alberta |
- Norway's High North Strategy, illustrated lecture by Her Excellency Mona Elisabeth Brøther, Norwegian Ambassador to Canada
The lecture was held in connection with the feature exhibition called Cold Recall: Roald Amundsen's Reflections from the Northwest
Passage. The talk emphasized Norway's and Canada's common interests in the north and advocated a perspective from rather than to the
north for assessing development.
|
| Sep/22/2012: |
Royal Alberta Museum, Edmonton, Alberta |
- 100 Years of Understanding the Earth (and living with it), illustrated lecture by Sir Keith O'Nions
The lecture formed part of the 100 Year Anniversary celebrations for the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta.
An isotope geochemist by training, holding a PhD from Geology Department at University of Alberta, Sir Keith is
President and Rector of the Imperial College London. His lecture focussed on his personal selection of significant
developments in geoscience and current important issues, including food, water, and energy security, all exacerbated
by run-away human population growth. Geoscientists have important roles to play in all these sectors, especially resource
and energy areas.
|
| Oct/27/2011: |
Stollery Executive Business Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta |
- Beyond Athabasca Pass, illustrated lecture by author Jack Nisbet
Eleventh Annual Western Canadian History Lecture, arranged by the Department of History and Classics
The lecture focussed mainly on David Thompson and his travels across the Athabasca Pass, emphasizing that the
Pass formed part of a well-travelled and well-known routeway and that this was not a strange and deserted
landscape at that time. Also touched on David Douglas and plant knowledge in the west.
|
| Oct/04/2007: |
Stanley A. Milner Theatre, Edmonton Public Library, Edmonton, Alberta |
- Wild About Weather, an evening with David Phillips
An illustrated lecture sponsored by The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS)
Slides of weather events, and folksy humour around Canadian weather.
|
| Dec/1987: |
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta |
- The Search for the Lost Franklin Expedition, illustrated lecture by Dr Owen Beattie, presented by the Strathcona Archaeological Society
Owen Beattie is a professor at the University of Alberta,
who specialises in forensic osteology (study of the human skeleton) and has been
working in the Arctic exhuming the bodies of the members of the Franklin Expedition.
This was a major expedition to the arctic that vanished in the mid 1840s. Much
arctic exploration was done in the following decades searching for the expedition
and trying to solve the mystery of why it failed. Several bodies of the crew have now
been found - including the body of a crewman called John Torrington. Dr Beattie is
finding that some of the bones and other body tissues show very high levels of lead
which he thinks might be associated with lead from the primitive methods of tin-canning
food, particularly meat, that the expedition members were eating, and might also be
due to short-cuts by the contractor who was supplying food to the expedition. It was
an interesting talk and was well-attended.
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| 1981: |
London, Ontario |
- Illustrated lecture about his life and art by Robert Bateman
Likely in conjunction with the book tour for The Art of Robert Bateman. He showed
slides of his fieldwork and talked about how he designed his wildlife paintings. He also showed slides of some
of his artworks in progress. He discussed the development of his hyper-realist painting style and how he
actually creates the paintings.
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| This list does not include the hundreds of lectures attended as part of professional conferences and other events. |
