Michael Raiwet

Subglacial lakes are important components related to ice sheets and have likely played important roles in shaping past environments, especially as the result of sudden catastrophic drainage. Herein, brief summaries are given to describe this phenomenon. Evidence for subglacial lakes from prior glaciation periods are examined and accounts for subglacial lakes that have actively been researched in Antarctica and Greenland are observed.

The Isua Supracrustal Belt (ISB) located in southwestern Greenland is an Archaean aged (3900–3800 My) greenstone belt and occurs within the Isukasia terrane in the North Atlantic Craton (Henriksen et al., 2009; Rink and Thompson, 2015). It is a well-preserved and relatively undeformed region that is largely comprised of metavolcanic amphibolites from island arc tholeiite and picrite protoliths, as well as smaller amounts of clastic and chemical sediments that includes quartz-magnetite banded iron formation, metachert, dolomites, and rare felsic schists and pelites of volcanic-sedimentary origin. The ISB is an geologically important region that has been studied extensively due in part to the presence of relatively well-preserved primary Eoarchean igneous and sedimentary structures, the possibility of finding early traces of life and because of evidence suggesting that its formation was attributable to horizontal plate tectonics.

As the need for petroleum products steadily increased during the onset of the twentieth century, access to petroleum reserves became strategically important for all nations. This presented a problem for Germany, a country that during the time had become known for its increasingly more isolationist policies, because Germany has limited domestic petroleum resources. In turn, Germany began investing in alternative forms of energy to adjust for inadequacies in its energy sector, that ultimately resulted in the development of coal hydrogenation processes. These processes became even more essential during WWII, when access to foreign oil became heavily restricted.

A relatively small section (~5.7^-1 × 10 km²) of the Amisk Group located southeast of Creighton, Saskatchewan was analyzed and later mapped over a period of three days in September, 2015. In total twenty-eight stations were examined for lithological, structural, metamorphic and economic geological data. As a result, six supracrustal units and two intrusive units were interpreted with many stations show relationships between structural faulting and shearing. Potential economically valuable minerals make be associated with rhyolitic volcanics and volcaniclastics located in the west of the study area.

This report looks at population, hospital and health region data for Saskatchewan and Canada. The data was derived from database files and ArcMap shape files containing valuable information such as tables, polygonal shapes and coordinates relating the information. These files were provided to complete the project. The data related to hospital locations in Canada is from DMTI Spatial. All other data is from Statistics Canada's 2006 Canadian Census. In total, three maps were produced, two spatial autocorrection reports were performed, two average nearest neighbour reports were performed and two multi-distance spatial cluster analyses were performed. Additionally, statistical information was gathered calculating the minimum values, maximum values, counts, means and standard deviations for hospitals per 10,000 persons and populations in health regions. Essentially each of these products represents information for Canada as a whole and Saskatchewan in isolation.

The sanidinite metamorphic facies is associated with very high temperature and low pressure conditions. They are most typically found in contact aureoles near surface, although relative to other metamorphic rocks, sanidinite facies are not volumetrically abundant. It is because of these reasons and more that they are not often discussed in petrologic textbooks and when discussed in studies, they are only briefly discussed. In this report, the sanidinite facies is discussed in detail regarding its history, occurrence and its common mineral assemblages. Three case studies that were shown to involve rocks that experienced conditions that of sanidinite facies are discussed herein.

The Frenchman Formation in the Chambery Coulee is predominantly composed of two lithostratigraphic units: a sand-dominated unit and a clay-dominated unit. These repeating units are found throughout the valley. Five vertical transects were performed between May 15–16, 2015. The features, textures and structures of the strata were described and subsequently correlated on a cross-section. The clay-dominated sedimentary units for far more frequent in the section of the valley studied. This is believed to be related to a relatively low energy depositional environment. Thereby, sand-dominated units indicate periods of higher energy due to fluvial activity and/or infrequent high energy events in the floodplain.

Lithostratigraphic and sequence stratigraphic analyses performed from data collected from four wells located in the Steelman Bienfait area in southeastern Saskatchwan, Canada. Lithologic units are separated into three distinct facies: Mudstone Facies (MS), Dolostone Facies (DF) and Evaporite Facies (EV). Related to these facies, the lithostratigraphic units were correlated to a cross- section which used the top of the Midale Beds as the datum. A sequence stratigraphy model seems to better correlate the depositional history of the shallow depositional ramp. In shallow depositional ramp settings, small fluctuations in eustasy will lead to a significant response in what types of sediment will be deposited. Portions of oxidation staining and abundant evaporite minerals are indicative of subaerial exposure and thus represent periods of non-deposition and/or unconformity boundaries. If the overlying vertical profile shifts to deeper marine facies, this point becomes more clear.

Globalization, which can be considered as the growing interdependence between separate states, has taken many forms over history. Whether discussing the establishment of the Silk Route, which occurred some millennia ago, or the more recent discovery of America, globalization connects different regions in various forms such as trade, communications and commerce. More recently, advents such as shipping containers and the internet have allowed globalization to spread faster and further than before though possible, allowing consumer products to travel greater distances in much shorter periods of time and communications to travel virtually instantaneously. Corporations can now smoothly operate their businesses from separate sides of the globe and executives can spend their entire careers without ever stepping onto an assembly line or warehouse. As well as businesses, products too have been globalized, as raw materials can be mined, processed and manufactured all in separate continents. Globalization is rarely consider as solely good and negative aspects, such as development issues, are important in any discussion when dealing with the expansion and integration of markets. A larger, more foundational negative issue, one that affects all parties equally, is the concern of environmental degradation and climate change. Climate science, which is sometimes be speculative in nature, has become quite polarizing over the last few decades. This essay investigates globalization's function in environmental issues and attempts to raise some of the solutions that have been proposed to address climate change.