Welcome to EES!

*Please note that due to Acadia's 4 day work week program the Earth and Environmental Science Main Office will be closed on Fridays from June 13^th, 2025 until August 15^th, 2025. Emails will be answered in order when it reopens on Monday morning.*

Earth and Environmental Science at Acadia offers programs leading to B.Sc. degrees in Environmental Science, Geology and Environmental Geoscience, and M.Sc. degrees in Geology, Environmental Science and Applied Geomatics.

Departmental News

Senior Field School 2022

The first geology course of the new academic year, Senior Field School GEOL 4083 took place on Cape Breton Island last week. Students stayed at the beautiful Gaelic College at St. Anns and conducted a week of mapping exercises in the Goose Cove area.

Dr. O'Driscoll Wins Prestigious Visionary Award

Dr. Nelson O'Driscoll was recently awarded the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment 2022 Visionary Award for his work assessing climate change in Atlantic Canada.

ENVS graduates spend their summer sailing the seas

Shani Inglis and Margaret Sams are sailors on the Bluenose II this summer.

Upcoming Events

Aug

2025

Orientation Week 2025!

Orientation and Welcome Week!

Sep

2025

Doug Angus - CSEG Distinguished Lecture Tour - 4pm Huggins 336

Doug Angus is VP of Mining at ESG Solutions, a company that provides world class acquisition and data services for real-time rock-mass characterization to improve mine safety and operational efficiency. He studied applied geophysics from Queen’s University, gaining his MSc(Eng) in applied seismology focused on moment tensor inversion of mine seismic data and his PhD in theoretical seismology focused on wave propagation in anisotropic heterogenous. For more than 10 years he worked as an academic in the UK focused on integrating seismology with geomechanics, rock physics and multi-phase fluid flow; as a research associate at Bristol University (2006-2008) and subsequently Associate Professor of Seismic Geomechanics at the University of Leeds (2008-2016). Seismic and aseismic tools for mine safety The energy transition will require more critical minerals and many of these mineral deposits are deep underground, which poses significant safety and technological challenges. Underground mining operations generally encounter adverse stress conditions, and this response can be seismic, either very soon, or after sustained perturbation of the insitu stress over several years. It has been recognized that closely monitoring and characterizing seismic response is non-negotiable for safety underground and therefore plays a key role in the operational success of mining operations. Data courtesy NZP&M While characterizing the rock mass can be as simple as monitoring seismicity rates and locating seismicity, evaluating the source parameters and mechanisms of seismicity, and mapping velocity and attenuation changes in the rock mass can assist in validating designs and adjust mine sequences and rates. Additional seismic-adjacent technologies, such as DAS fiber optic seismic, strain and temperature measurements are also contributing to cost-effective monitoring. Integration of seismicity with geomechanics allows validation and calibration of numerical models, improved understanding of the rock mass response as well as testing of hypotheses.

4pm Huggins 336

Mar

2026

SA Environment Conference (SAEC) @ Acadia - March 13th-15th

The 2026 SA Environment Conference (SAEC) is to be held at the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre in Wolfville Nova Scotia.

Visit the website here for more information.