A review of information from Statistics Canada and the Council of Chairs of Canadian Earth Science Departments examined the geoscience workforce in Canada over the last two decades through economic cycles and environmental transitions. After a period of growth in Canada (2006 to 2011), geoscientist numbers in the labour market declined by 11% from 2011 to 2021, whereas the numbers of geological engineers grew by 56%. The combined total for both classifications remained fairly constant. By Census 2021 Canada had about 11,000 geoscientists (including oceanographers) and about 4,000 geological engineers. Professional, scientific and technical services, mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction are the major employment sectors. Employment for geoscientists is cyclical and tied to economic and commodity-price cycles. Alberta experienced the largest decline in geoscientist numbers (-34.5%), correlated with reduced oil- and gas-development investments from 2014 to 2020. Growth in other provinces (e.g. British Columbia, Ontario) partly offset the decline in Alberta. Nearly 30% of geoscientists are immigrants, as defined by their countries of birth. The university education supply pipeline shows that enrolment in core geoscience and geological engineering undergraduate programs dropped significantly (50% decline from 2015 to 2022) with a corresponding drop in graduations. However, enrolments in Earth Science programs related to aspects beyond core geoscience and geological engineering (e.g. environmental science in its broadest sense) tripled between 2007 and 2022. If these trends continue, the majority of students will be enrolled in these associated programs rather than graduating with core geoscience knowledge and skills. There is a need for more comprehensive and up-to-date data to represent the characteristics of the geoscience workforce accurately and to inform policy decisions and individual career choices. The current situation implies that shortages of qualified geoscience professionals could develop in future years.

The northern Appalachian orogen played a pivotal role in early geological studies of mountain belts. Its 100-year global influence as the “type area” for the Hall-Dana geosynclinal theory aptly changed focus with Tuzo Wilson’s classic 1966 paper that posed (and answered) the question “Did the Atlantic Close and Then Re-open?” and led to the modern view of global tectonics based on the “Wilson Cycle”. In retrospect, these early ideas about mountain-building were much hindered by lack of factual details. The 1978 map of the Appalachian Orogen compiled and hand-drawn by Harold Williams and his students was and remains an outstanding example of geological artwork, although the actual complexity of the orogen that it depicts was barely imagined. However, the tectonic elements and along-orogen correlations that it established still form the essence of our current models, but now supported by an abundance of geological information collected steadily during the last decades of the 20th century and then accelerated by technological advances during the past 25 years. Examples include the Global Positioning System to provide accurate locations, enhanced geochemical and geophysical methods, computers and the Internet in general, and the development of accurate and precise absolute dating techniques, especially U–Pb dating of zircon. Appalachian studies now cover a spectrum from small areas investigated in detail to orogen-wide and global-scale interpretations that track Appalachian components back to their origins. We now know orders of magnitude more about the orogen than anyone could have imagined in 1978. Not surprisingly all that new knowledge has resolved many of the questions that were being asked in the 1970s but also not surprisingly, many more questions have arisen. It seems that every new map, new interpretation, or new model challenges us with new questions. It appears unlikely that geoscientists will ever be able to sit back and say “All done. We understand everything”.

To commemorate the 60th anniversary of IUGS and the 50th anniversary of IGCP, the 2022 symposium entitled “IUGS, Geoparks, and IGCP – Retrospection, today and the future” was coordinated at the GAC-MAC-IAH-CNC-CSPG 2022 Conference in Halifax (16–18 May) with the companion Cliffs of Fundy UNESCO Geopark field trip (19–21 May). Canadian leadership within IUGS and IGCP includes J.M. Harrison as the first president of IUGS in 1961, Antony Berger’s work publishing “Episodes”, which is the IUGS’ quarterly international scientific journal, and Canadian leadership on multiple IGCP projects summarized here. Two panel discussions examined the future of geosciences, UNESCO Geoparks and World Geoheritage Sites in Canada. The need for improved communications with politicians, policymakers, and the general public through education and outreach was emphasized in these panel discussions. UNESCO Geoparks (such as the Cliffs of Fundy), UNESCO World Heritage Geosites and significant museum displays represent vehicles for improving communications with the general public about geosciences and potentially inspiring future geoscientists. This report provides a summary of the symposium and explores some of the many themes that it addressed.

Oil and gas exploration in Ontario began in the mid-1800s, leading to the first oil well drilled in 1858 and the first commercial gas well drilled in 1889. These early discoveries kicked off a boom of exploration and development drilling activity, but well records were not mandatory until 1919 after the introduction of the Natural Gas Act R.S.O.1918, c. 12. The Ontario Bureau of Mines estimated 10,000 operating oil wells in the province at the turn of the 20th century, but there are only records for approximately 1,500 wells. By 1970 there were an estimated 50,000 wells drilled in the province though there are only records for 27,000 wells, indicating there may be tens of thousands of unrecorded or lost wells in southwestern Ontario. Wells that are not properly plugged are a conduit for fluid movement, including brine, natural gas, oil, and hydrogen sulphide, to move from the subsurface to the surface. Historical well abandoning regulations required wells to be plugged with inferior materials including wood, clay, and rubble. Cement was not the standard plugging material until 1964. There are orphaned and legacy wells leaking natural gas and sulphur water (groundwater containing dissolved sulphate and hydrogen sulphide) creating a risk to public safety. Orphaned and legacy wells are also a risk for subsurface energy projects including geological storage of carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and compressed air energy, because the wells may provide a pathway for injected fluids to return to the surface. This study reviews well construction, legislation, and abandonment practices in Ontario beginning in 1858 and identifies five factors impacting the plugging and abandonment of orphaned and legacy wells.Further work is required to locate unreported or lost wells and to develop new techniques to permanently plug wells to limit gas leakage, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve public and environmental safety.

As geoscientists, we must prioritize improving our ability to communicate science to the public. Effective geoscience communication enables communities to understand how geological processes have shaped our planet and make informed decisions about Earth’s future. However, geoscience research outputs have traditionally been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at academic conferences. Consequently, essential information about local geology is rarely available in accessible, open access, and engaging formats. Here, we propose virtual field trips, or ‘GeoTrails’, as a possible solution to address the disconnect between geoscience research and public knowledge by improving our communication to the public. This initiative is largely driven by undergraduate students, who identify points of geological interest along selected hiking trails, write concise descriptions derived from scientific sources (e.g. longer peer-reviewed articles and government reports), and collect field data (e.g. 3-D LiDAR models, drone photography) to illustrate the characteristics of these geological features. The goal of the project is to communicate the importance of local geology on our environment and to raise awareness of how changing climates could affect us in the future; this information can empower communities to make better, more informed planning decisions. The creation of GeoTrails along the Niagara Escarpment offers a promising strategy to highlight the role of geoscientists and to engage the public in our ongoing research that aims to showcase Canada’s geoheritage.

Magnetitite deposits like El Laco (Chile) are rare and have controversial origins. An unusual magnetitite lava flow overlying a rhyolite unit occurs in the north-central Alaska Range and originally covered ~ 750 km2 of the Miocene Nenana basin. Dating of the rhyolite and relationships between the magnetitite and sedimentary rocks indicate that both are of Late Miocene age. The magnetitite flow is mainly magnetite with some post-eruptive alteration to hematite. Both the rhyolite flow and the magnetitite flow are vesicular, but the magnetitite flow also has small, millimetre-scale columnar jointing. The vesicular zones in the magnetitite flow grade into massive rock on the scale of a thin section, suggesting a degassing lava origin. Samples of the magnetitite flow contain between 12 and 26 wt.% SiO2 and between 45 and 75 wt.% FeO. Rare earth elements (REE) and trace elements from the magnetitite and rhyolite have similar patterns but with lesser abundance in the magnetitite. Both the rhyolite and the magnetitite have light-REE-enriched REE profiles with negative Eu anomalies. Electron microscopic analysis shows that most of the silica and trace element content of the magnetitite flow comes from very finely disseminated silicate minerals and glass in the magnetite. This suggests that the magnetitite was derived from a magma that had undergone unmixing into a silica-rich phase and an iron-rich phase prior to its eruption. Fractures and vesicles within the magnetitite flow contain minor rhyolitic glass and minerals suggesting that the rhyolite magma invaded columnar joints in the solidified magnetitite flow, and is a subvolcanic sill-like body at the studied locality. The magnetitite flow erupted prior to the emplacement of the rhyolite, which may be extrusive on a regional scale. The features of the Nenana magnetitite, and its geological relationships, are consistent with genetic models that invoke unmixing of magma into immiscible Fe-rich and Si-rich liquids during ascent.

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Serendipity lies behind this review.About three months ago, I spent a few days at an Airbnb owned by a couple with two teenage sons.Browsing their bookshelves, I was intrigued by the number of books on dinosaurs.There must have been at least a dozen, many well illustrated, ranging from non-scientific kids' books depicting herds of herbivores unsuspectingly munching lush foliage while being stalked by voracious bloodthirsty carnivores, to much more sophisticated tomes including encyclopedia complete with statistics and detailed reconstructions of hundreds of different dinosaur species.The books belonged to the teenagers, and it struck me that theirs was the generation that grew up with dinosaurs ─ dinosaur stickers, dinosaur images on their t-shirts and pyjamas, and dinosaur film stars in Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park (based on Michael Crichton's 1990 book of the same name).As in the movie, it appeared that the extinct animals had literally become alive for these two members of the post-millennial generation, many of whom apparently can name and recognize more than a dozen dinosaur species from a very young age.Moreover, the cornucopia of information in the encyclopedia was evidence that this surge of public interest in extinct animals was based on much new scientific research and information.

In my four years working as an editor for this journal, I have tried to provide an editorial for each volume, to touch on issues and concerns that publishers and authors alike might need to consider. But it is equally important that I take the time to formally thank many others who share the effort involved in producing Geoscience Canada for you each year. To say that the journal would not exist without their efforts is an understatement. First and foremost on that list is our Managing Editor Cindy Murphy, whose role is actually far more demanding than mine. Cindy carefully tracks each article through the publication process and communicates with authors as revisions and layout proceed, and the quality of final products reflects her energy, organizational skills and her keen eye for detail. I simply could not do my job without her massive contribution, not to mention her numerous timely reminders. I also sincerely thank several 'Section Editors' who look after contributions in our thematic series papers. Jarda Dostal (Igneous Rock Associations), Brendan Murphy (Andrew Hynes tectonic series) and Dave Lentz (Economic Geology Models) deserve special mention for working on some interesting papers in 2018. We depend on hard-