A snow-covered Mount Garibaldi looms over a couple of geese in the Squamish Estuary on April 19, 2008, the day it was designated the Skwelwil’em Squamish Estuary Wildlife Management Area by the BC Ministry of Environment.Brian Thompson/The Globe and Mail
Mount Garibaldi, lying between Vancouver and Whistler, attracts hikers in the summer and skiers in the winter – and now volcanologists are hoping it will also attract the attention of more federally funded science.
The sleeping giant, among the highest-threat volcanoes in Canada, hasn’t erupted in about 10,000 years. Still, Melanie Kelman, a volcanologist with Natural Resources Canada, is leading a project to conduct a hazard and risk assessment with the aim of ensuring communities and emergency planners make evidence-based decisions should it ever become active.
Ms. Kelman is manager of the Volcano Risk Reduction in Canada project, which began last year and is expected to continue until 2025. It also involves developing a monitoring system using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), an innovative satellite technique that identifies changes as small as millimetres in the ground surface surrounding a volcano.
She hopes the project will “increase resilience to volcanic hazards. … And if you understand a lot of the volcano in advance before it becomes restless, you’re in a better position to respond, usefully.”
Recently, an article published in Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences found the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt, the northern (Canadian) segment of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, remains relatively understudied in comparison with volcanoes of the Cascades to the south. The paper,written by U.K.-based researcher Conner Morison and Canadian volcanologistCatherine Hickson, says that because the region surrounding the system has become populous over the past decades, Mount Garibaldi needs to be the “priority for further scientific research, given … its already ‘very high’ overall threat score.”
Canada has five potentially active volcanic areas, all in British Columbia and Yukon. The Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field of east central B.C., and the Anahim Volcanic Belt of central B.C. are also on the list.
Mr. Morison and Ms. Hickson said nothing has changed recently in regard to the status of Mount Garibaldi, but they still want greater public and scientific interest in Canada’s most southerly volcano, and in Canadian volcanism more generally.
Canada’s lack of routine background monitoring – and even general scientific understanding – of many of its volcanoes means that it fails to meet international standards of observation, Mr. Morison said.
“In a volcanic country, it’s typical now in the 2020s to have information about most past eruptions, certainly within the last 10,000 years, and to have done hazard mapping. And in Canada, very little has been done to address that. Very few rock exposures have been dated.”
In comparison, he said, Iceland, where his current research focuses, has an extremely good understanding of past eruptions, and their volcanoes are monitored every day for earthquakes.
Ms. Hickson, who worked for the Geological Survey of Canada for 25 years, said even though Garibaldi will not awaken and erupt any time soon,better data is needed to make predictions.
“More detailed studies need to be done, as well as increased monitoring in order to understand the background seismicity, so that when there is signs of unrest, it will be possible to differentiate the noise from the true signal,” she said.
When governments allocate funds to look at flood hazards, landslides and forest fires, she wants volcanism to be included.
Bowinn Ma, B.C.’s Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, said in a statement that her ministry is part of a federally led protocol for rapid notification should volcanic activity within or near Canada be detected. Natural Resources Canada is the lead on monitoring,she added.
Ms. Kelman saidthat while there’s no globally recognized standard for how volcanoes should be monitored, the United States Geological Survey provides recommendations for volcanoes ofdifferent threat levels.
In Canada, Mount Garibaldi and Mount Meager are ranked the two highest-threat volcanoes, owing to their type, size and frequency of eruptions, combined with their proximity to population centres and infrastructure.
Canada is below the ideal level of monitoring, but most volcanoes in the world are as well, Ms. Kelman said.
“It’s not an international standard so much as a recommendation as this would be the ideal monitoring.”
For Canada, she said, “the goal is to move toward it.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
