Meetings
Upcoming Events
Oct 27th - 28th | University of Toronto
Canadian Paleontology Conference 2023
The Paleontology Division is pleased to announce that we will be hosting our first in-person Canadian Paleontology Conference (CPC) since the pandemic. CPC 2023 will be held at the University of Toronto Mississauga in Mississauga, ON on Friday, October 27th and Saturday, October 28th. The Friday night will be an icebreaker, with technical talks and posters on October 28th.
See The First Circular Here!
Not a GAC member?
Non-members of GAC are welcome to participate in all Paleontology Division activities, such as sponsored conferences and symposia. Stay up to date by signing up for our non-member mailing list.
Reccuring Meetings
Canadian Paleontology Conference
The Canadian Paleontology Conference began in 1965 as the Seminar on Biostratigraphy. It later became known as the Eastern Canadian Palaeontology and Biostratigraphy Seminar, but "eastern" was removed in 1979 when it acquired a national scope and the first meeting was held in Western Canada. In 1991, the Seminar was renamed the Canadian Paleontology Conference.
The Paleontology Division began its involvement with the Conference in 1977 when it co-sponsored the meeting with the University of Waterloo. The Division has sponsored this conference since 1979. The main goal of the CPC. and its predecessors has been to provide a relatively small, informal forum for presentation and discussion of current paleontological research, to be a welcome setting for student researchers to present their results and meet other researchers, and to visit sites of paleontological interest across the country. Since 1991, the CPC. Programs with Abstracts / Conference Proceedings and the CPC Field Trip Guidebook have been formally serialized.
To recognize the importance of student research to Canadian paleontology and encourage student participation in the Conference, a cash award and a copy of Palaeontographica Canadiana are presented to the authors of the best student papers.
GAC-MAC Annual Meetings
Given the COVID pandemic situation, the Western Ontario University GAC-MAC 2021 Local Organizing Committee made the difficult decision to postpone the annual meeting to November 3-5, 2021. With the goal of the government to have all Canadians vaccinated by September, the LOC plans to offer a GAC-MAC meeting with the traditional in-person focus – providing opportunities for networking, informal discussion and feedback, and social events – but still with the option for virtual presentations and participation.
The Paleontology Division of GAC is co-sponsoring two sessions - "History of Geosciences in Canada" “Ancient life and ecosystems”.
The deadline for abstract submission is July 12, 2021, and must be done through the online abstract submission portal. Abstracts cannot be submitted by e-mail or in hard copy. Meeting contributions can be in oral or poster format, and can be presented in-person or virtually. See https://gacmac2021.ca/ for submission and meeting details.
For reference, below are the session descriptions:
The Paleontology Division of GAC is co-sponsoring two sessions - "History of Geosciences in Canada" “Ancient life and ecosystems”. The PD Executive felt that these sessions highlight both the rich paleontological history of the country, but also Canada’s history of excellence in fossil collection and research.
Ancient Life and Ecosystems: The “Ancient life and ecosystems” session aims to highlight paleontological research in Canada and around the globe. This is a general paleontology session welcoming presentations or posters on all aspects of the field including, but not limited to, paleoenvironmental interpretation, invertebrate and vertebrate research, trace fossils, paleobotany, palynology etc. We encourage submissions on any aspect of the evolutionary tree of life from cyanobacteria to Australopithecus, and the events that influenced regional and global trends in evolution.
History of Geosciences in Canada: The Geosciences in Canada have long been a major part of the Geosciences internationally and a leading component of our nation’s scientific community. As early as 1913 Canada hosted an International Geological Congress (President Frank Adams) and our Geological Surveys predate Confederation (William Logan). Geoscience has been vital to Canada’s economic development (the Klondike Gold Rush), our understanding of biological evolution (the Burgess Shale Biota and the early land vertebrates from Joggins), and the globe’s tectonics (the Newfoundland Atlantic Sandwich). Geoscientists from around the world (Charles Lyell, Peter Kropotkin, Simon Conway Morris) have been coming to Canada both to learn from our rocks and our scientists (the Dawsons – John William and George Mercer, A.P. Coleman, Tuzo Wilson).
Up-to-date news on Paleontology Division sessions offered at upcoming GAC-MAC annual meetings are provided through the GAC web page at this link: https://gac.ca/events/.
