Jesse Dykstra

Hey there! I've called the Okanagan Valley home for nearly 20 years, and my keenest interests revolve around enjoying the outdoors. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to live in B.C. - a place that offers such unlimited opportunities for outdoor recreation and study. I've lived in Kelowna for the last 16 years, where I cultivated a 12-year career as a land development consultant and civil engineering technologist. I have also volunteered as a Search and Rescue instructor and team member since 2000.

In the fall of 2002 I acted on a long-standing dream of returning to university, and graduated in the spring of 2004 with an honours undergraduate degree in Earth and Environmental Sciences. My honours project was an ecological survey of endangered amphibian species in the Columbia Mountains for Parks Canada, which I conducted over the summer of 2003.

As a graduate student (M.Sc.) in the Department of Earth Sciences at Simon Fraser University, my research interests include natural hazards such as landslides, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and flooding, and the potential impacts of global change on those processes. My thesis is specifically focused on enhancing the Holocene record of instability at the Mount Meager Volcanic Complex (MMVC), a dormant stratovolcano in southwestern B.C. that last erupted 2400 years ago. Loading of steep slopes with eruptive products, weakening by hydrothermal alteration and debuttressing by glacial retreat has resulted in perhaps the most active landslide area in Canada.

My research aims to enhance the landslide record for the MMVC, by identifying previously unrecognized landslide deposits in the upper Lillooet River valley. Preliminary results indicate that landslides from the MMVC have repeatedly impounded the upper Lillooet River over the past 2400 years. Past debris flows and outburst flooding from landslide-dam failures have potentially impacted the lower Lillooet valley as far downriver as Pemberton. Resolving the magnitude and frequency of these events has obvious implications for current and future development in the valley.

Education

B.Sc. (Hons), Earth and Environmental Sciences, OUC, Kelowna, BC

For more information, please send e.mail to: jdykstra@sfu.ca