Skip to Content

Symposium in honour of Professor J.R. Mackay (1915-2014)

A symposium was held on 22nd September, 2015, at the 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference and 68thCanadian Geotechnical Conference to honour the memory of Professor J. Ross Mackay, the outstanding Canadian permafrost scientist. Nineteen papers were contributed to the program. The proceedings of the symposium may be downloaded here. The contents of the Proceedings are as follows:

Part 1. Reflections on the life and work of Professor Mackay

The geocryological bibliography of J. Ross Mackay (1915-2014)  C.R. Burn

John Ross Mackay – Devoted tutor and best friend of Chinese permafrost research  Guodong Cheng, Zhijiu Cui, Baolai Wang, and Huijun Jin

Reconstructing geomorphology: an appreciation of the contributions of J. Ross Mackay  Michael Church

JRM: His early accomplishments, 1950s to the mid 1980s, and his results, 1990 to 2005  Hugh French

Science to Technology – The importance of understanding the fundamentals of permafrost science for engineers practicing in the north  Don W. Hayley

 Part 2. Regional studies on permafrost in Canada

Geohazard investigations of permafrost and gas hydrates in the outer shelf and upper slope of the Canadian Beaufort Sea   S.R. Dallimore, C.K. Paull, A.E. Taylor, M. Riedel, H.A. MacAulay, M.M. Côté, and Y.K. Jin

Late Wisconsin glaciation of Hadwen and Summer islands, Tuktoyaktuk Coastlands, NWT, Canada   Julian B. Murton, Mark D. Bateman, Richard I. Waller, and Colin Whiteman

Holocene lake-level recession, permafrost aggradation and lithalsa formation in the Yellowknife area, Great Slave Lowland  S.A. Wolfe and P.D. Morse

 Part 3. Hydrologic effects in permafrost regions

Estimating talik depth beneath lakes in Arctic Alaska   Kenneth M. Hinkel and Christopher Arp

Lakes of the western Canadian Artic: Past Controls and Future Changes   Philip Marsh, Tyler de Jong, Lance Lesack, Cuyler Onclin, and Mark Russell

Meteorological and geological influences on icing dynamics in subarctic Northwest Territories, Canada  P.D. Morse and S.A. Wolfe

Geometry of oriented lakes in Old Crow Flats, northern Yukon    P. Roy-Léveillée and C.R. Burn

Summer and winter flows of the Mackenzie River system   Ming-ko Woo and Robin Thorne

 Part 4. Problems in geocryology

Subdivision of ice-wedge polygons, western Arctic coast    C.R. Burn and H.B. O’Neill

Retrogressive thaw slumps: From slope process to the landscape sensitivity of northwestern Canada   S.V. Kokelj, J. Tunnicliffe, D. Lacelle, T.C. Lantz, and R.H. Fraser

Geochemistry of the active layer and permafrost in northwestern Canada: from measurements to Quaternary stratigraphy   Denis Lacelle, Marielle Fontaine, and Steve V. Kokelj

Topoclimatic controls on active-layer thickness, Alaskan Coastal Plain   Frederick E. Nelson and Melanie A. Schimek

Permafrost degradation adjacent to snow fences along the Dempster Highway, Peel Plateau, NWT   H.B. O’Neill and C.R. Burn

The thermo-mechanical behaviour of frost cracks over ice wedges: new data from extensometer measurements  Denis Sarrazin and Michel Allard