Media releases

  • Ontario lake to be studied by Brock-led team as possible geologic time reference site

    Media Release: 9 August 2018 – R00153

    A group of researchers are hoping Crawford Lake in Milton will help confirm a new episode in the world’s geological time scale.

    The Brock University-led team of scientists has identified the Halton region lake as a possible location to define a new geologic epoch called the Anthropocene.

    On Tuesday, Aug. 14, Professor of Earth Sciences Francine McCarthy and researchers from Brock, Carleton and McMaster will collect sediment layers spanning the last millennium from the basin of Crawford Lake.

    If they find what they’re looking for in these sediments, the research team will make a submission to the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), an international group charged with evaluating proposals on where evidence of the Anthropocene can be best seen.

    To define a new geologic epoch, scientists must establish a “golden spike,” an internationally agreed-upon location with a reference point in a section of rock or sediment layers that signals the beginning of a new episode in the geologic time scale.

    McCarthy and colleagues are setting out to prove that the 22-metre-deep Crawford Lake should be that “golden spike.”

    “The lake is small but very, very deep,” says McCarthy, who has been conducting research at Crawford Lake for decades. “The waters don’t get oxygenated all the way to the bottom and that lack of oxygen makes preservation ideal.”

    Because the lake is in a protected conservation area, it has been an ideal location for other studies over the years. Having the core recovered from the lake on Tuesday be designated as a golden spike would mean “scientists from around the world would come to Crawford Lake to see the defining area,” says McCarthy.

    If the AWG were to vote in favour of using the lake, the proposal would then be evaluated by the International Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, chaired by Brock Professor of Earth Sciences Martin Head.

    Head, who is also a member of the AWG, says the calm and anoxic bottom waters of Crawford Lake have produced layers each year that give a very clear geologic record.

    These layers result from the accumulation of dark organic matter after organisms in the upper water column die and tiny calcite crystals that gradually sink to the lake bed.

    “This is essential for any site being considered in defining the base of the Anthropocene,” says Head. “The big question is whether Crawford Lake has a plutonium fallout signal.”

    Researchers use the presence of plutonium 239 — an isotope released during the detonation of nuclear weapons — as a mark of time.

    “The rise of plutonium 239 in the early 1950s seems to give the best global signal,” says Head. “It arises from increasing aboveground nuclear weapons testing at this time and declined in the early 1960s with the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963.”

    The AWG considers some point during the mid-20th century to be the best starting point for the Anthropocene, a suggested new geological epoch distinct from the Holocene in which we are currently officially living.

    This distinctiveness arises from the fact that human activities have shifted the way our planet is now behaving as an integrated system, says Head.

    This shift is known as the Great Acceleration, a mid-20th century phenomenon associated with global industrialization, commercialization and energy use.

    “Plutonium 239 could be a very convenient geological marker for this Earth systems shift,” says Head.

    NOTE: Members of the media are invited to join the researchers at Crawford Lake Tuesday. Please RVSP to ddakin@brocku.ca as soon as possible.

    What: Drilling of bottom of Crawford Lake by Brock-led geological research team

    When: Tuesday, August 14, noon to 4 p.m.

    Where: Crawford Lake Conservation Area, 3115 Conservation Rd., Milton. Ask for directions at the interpretive centre.

    Who: Brock Professors Francine McCarthy, Martin Head and Michael Pisaric; Carleton Professor Timothy Patterson; McMaster Professors Joe Boyce and Eduard Reinhardt.

    Why: To investigate and potentially propose a site that would define the Anthropocene epoch.

    For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

    * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

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    Categories: Media releases

  • Brock Badgers name interim coach for men’s basketball

    MEDIA RELEASE: 8 Aug 2018 – Brock Sports

    A coach with significant university and international experience has been handed the keys to the surging Brock Badgers men’s basketball team.

    Madhav Trivedi, who spent the past five years as an assistant coach at McGill University, has been named interim head coach by Brock Sports Director Neil Lumsden.

    Trivedi will replace Charles Kissi, who is taking a one-year leave to become an assistant coach with Raptors 905, the NBA G League affiliate of the Toronto Raptors.

    “We are very fortunate and excited to have Madhav step in as the interim head coach for our Brock men’s basketball team,” Lumsden said. “He brings a number of great qualities that align well with how Charles has built this program. Our expectation is that we continue to elevate the program, which matches the existing trajectory of the players, assistant coaches and Brock Sports.”

    Trivedi spent four years playing for the Ryerson Rams before joining the coaching staff as a student assistant in his fifth year under head coach Roy Rana, setting in motion a career behind the bench. He was then hired as an assistant coach at Queen’s University before moving to McGill in 2013, where he remained for five years.

    “I got a chance to work with and learn from one of the best coaches in our country,” he said of McGill coach David Deaveiro. “We won four out of five Quebec championships, went to four U SPORTS National Championships and had four all-Canadians. We really had a great run.”

    Away from the university basketball scene, Trivedi has been heavily involved in coaching and recruiting, most notably working as a scout with the Israeli Under-20 national team, which recently won its first-ever European Championship.

    Trivedi decided to move his family back to Ontario from Montreal this summer and thought he was headed back to Ryerson until Kissi called him with the opportunity to coach the Badgers.

    “Coach Charles embodies what I believe the coaching family should be. He’s providing me with an opportunity, which is so hard to get in this country because there are so few jobs. I couldn’t say no,” Trivedi said.

    Kissi has left the Badgers in good shape for his successor. The men’s basketball team won a record-tying 31 games in 2017-18, including a win in the consolation final of the U SPORTS National Championships. Just getting to the Nationals was a huge accomplishment for the Badgers, having not been there since Brock won a national title in 2007-08.

    The Badgers will have to move forward without graduating player Dani Elgadi, who led the team for five years, but Trivedi is confident others are ready to step up.

    “You can’t replace a guy like Dani, but he is who is because of his teammates and I know they are ready to keep this going. Coach Kissi has built a program where every young man is developing as a person, which means there are multiple leaders in the program. Guys here know what it takes to be a Top 5 team in the country and they want to do it,” he said.

    The new coach’s philosophy is that you must look at a team as starting from scratch each year.

    “Even if you’re coaching a team for 10 or 15 years, every season is totally different,” he said. “But with every program, you’re trying to be the best you can and get to Nationals. So for me it’s the day-to-day progress and constantly trying to get better. If you focus on that, you’ll reach your potential.”

    The Badgers 2018-19 regular season gets under way Oct. 26 at home against Wilfrid Laurier.

    Visit gobadgers.ca for gameday and ticket information.

    For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

    * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

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    Categories: Media releases