Rebecca Canam's undergraduate thesis on an 'unusual bedrock exposure' she determined was a 2.4 billion-year-old rock called an Appinite, won her a bronze Léopol Gélinas medal. Submitted photo
City of Yellowknife
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Yellowknifer awarded for work on 2.4-billion-year-old rock

Emelie Peacock
By Emelie Peacock

A Yellowknifer studying a unique NWT rock formation has won a Geological Association of Canada medal for her work.

Rebecca Canam’s undergraduate thesis on an ‘unusual bedrock exposure’ she found and determined was a 2.4 billion-year-old rock called an Appinite, won her a bronze Léopol Gélinas medal.

Canam discovered an ‘unusual bedrock exposure’ as a summer student working on the Nonacho Lake mapping project.

“Rebecca used a variety of analytical techniques to identify the rock in question; determine its age and what type of tectonic environment the rock formed in,” the Northwest Territories Geological Survey states. “Her thesis concluded that the rock is a type of lamprophyre called an Appinite. It is about 2.45 Ga (billion years old) and the source of the magma that intruded the crust to form this rock came all the way from the mantle of the Earth.”

Emelie Peacock
Emelie Peacock
News Reporter

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