Events
Vancouver Volcanology Studies Group (VVSG)
The Vancouver Volcanology Studies Group (VVSG) brings together volcanologists and geoscientists from across British Columbia and Canada for informal one-day mini-conferences, held at SFU and UBC. Each meeting features short talks on current research, with plenty of time for students to present and for discussion.
Next meeting
Fall 2026 Mini-conference
Saturday, November 7, 2026 at SFU Burnaby Campus, TASC1 7005
The programme, speaker list and abstracts will be posted here once talks are confirmed.
Past meetings
Select a meeting to see its programme.
Spring 2026 Mini-conference
Saturday, March 7, 2026 · SFU Burnaby, TASC1 7005
| Time | Talk | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 10:10 | Revised eruptive volume estimates and background magmatic flux in the GVB | Ginny McLane (UBC) |
| 10:30 | Eruptive history of Mount Garibaldi – Price Volcanic Field | Yannick Le Moigne (NRCan) |
| 10:50 | Long-lived overlapping shallow magma reservoirs at Kīlauea | Charlotte DeVitre (University of Oregon) |
| 11:10 | Holocene tephra in the Northern Cordilleran Volcanic Province | Shaun Woudstra (University of Alberta) |
| 11:30 | Distribution of xenolith ballistics throughout the 1824 eruptions of Lanzarote: implications for eruption dynamics and ballistic modelling | Joseph Smith-Dostmohamed (UBC) |
| Lunch | ||
| 12:30 | Initiation of early Eocene volcanism in the southern interior of BC, focusing on the Buse Lake Protected Area | Nancy A. Van Wagoner (TRU) |
| 12:50 | Reassessing lava distribution and volume in complex valley systems of the Garibaldi Volcanic Arc | Annie Borch (UBC) |
| 13:10 | Probabilistic models of lava inundation in the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt | Madeline Rein (UBC) |
| 13:30 | Petrologic evolution and subglacial emplacement of the Watts Point volcanics | Gabriella Rubinoff (UBC) |
| 13:50 | The magical mystery tour of the Murtle River across a volcanic landscape | Catherine Hickson (Tuya Terra Geo) |
Fall 2022 Mini-conference
Saturday, November 26, 2022 · SFU Burnaby, TASC1 7005
| Talk | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|
| Cheakamus Valley: erosional and depositional evidence for a glacial lake outburst flood | Annie Borch, Pierre Friele and Kelly Russell (UBC) |
| Temporal gravity change at Mt. Cayley Volcanic Complex: mystery or mistake? | Antonina Calahorrano-Di Patre, Glyn Williams-Jones and Maurizio Battaglia (SFU) |
| Magmatic processes at Mt. Meager inferred from olivine phenocrysts in the Lillooet Glacier basalts | Sarah Aufrère (SFU) |
| Lessons learned from the 1980–1986 lava dome at Mount St. Helens | Jonathan Fink (Portland State University & UBC) |
| Cheakamus outburst flood II: current research | Pierre Friele (Consultant) |
| The collapse dynamics and terraced deposits of the largest explosive eruptions on Earth | Johan (Yoshi) Gilchrist, Mark Jellinek, Emilie Hooft and Sean Wanket (UBC) |
| Origin of volcanism in the Cordillera: geochemical and geophysical evidence | Roy Hyndman and Dante Canil (UVic & GSC Pacific Geoscience Centre) |
| Low-cost near real-time monitoring of unstable slopes via satellite optical imagery | Mahmud Muhammad (SFU) |
| Eyewitness accounts and magma-water-ice interaction physics reconstruct the 1918 eruption plume and jökulhlaup of Katla volcano, Iceland | Meghan Sharp, Colin Rowell and Mark Jellinek (UBC) |
| Transport of mantle xenoliths: a lagging problem | Kelly Russell and Tom Jones (UBC & Lancaster University) |
| Umny Inc.: digital twins of thermal energy and the earth, with AI | Sarah Nicholson and Sylvie Antoun (Umny Inc.) |
Spring 2019 MINI-CONFERENCE
Saturday, May 25, 2019 · SFU Burnaby, TASC1 7005
| Time | Talk | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 10:15 | Progress made on the Mt. Meager volcanic hazard map | Rachel Warwick |
| 10:30 | Artificial intelligence-assisted landslide hazard mapping incorporating the European Union’s INSPIRE mapping standards | Gioachino Roberti |
| 10:45 | Kinematics of apparent reverse faults within extensional tectonics | Mahmud Muhammad |
| 11:00 | Title to be confirmed | Alex Wilson |
| 11:15 | Working with a caldera diva: dramatic deformation and gravity changes at Sierra Negra volcano, Ecuador | Antonina Calahorrano |
| 11:30 | Transport, ascent and eruption of kimberlites: issues | Kelly Russell |
| 11:45 | Standing waves in high-speed lava channels: a tool for constraining lava flow dynamics and eruption parameters | Yannick Le Moigne |
Spring 2018 MINI-CONFERENCE
Saturday, March 17, 2018 · UBC, Room 135, EOS Main
| Time | Talk | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 10:15 | Breadcrusted bubbles: a view into conduit processes | Steve Quane |
| 10:35 | Solid-state sintering drives permeability loss in the volcanic conduit | Amy Ryan |
| 10:55 | Glaciovolcanism: a preliminary geometric method for ice sheet reconstruction in the GVB | Alex Wilson |
| 11:15 | Creating partnership-based PhDs in Earth and Environmental Sciences | Jon Fink |
| 11:35 | Azerbaijan 2017: Baku, petroglyphs, mud volcanoes | Paul Adam |
| Lunch | ||
| 12:30 | Predictions for proximal deposit structure of explosive eruptions based on analogue laboratory experiments | Yoshi Gilchrist |
| 12:50 | Geothermal Canada: a renewed opportunity and rich history | Cathie Hickson |
| 13:10 | Review of the Pebble Creek Geothermal Power Project, BC | Mory Ghomeshei and Roger Wang |
| 13:30 | Blue Mountain Geothermal Development Project, “Faulkner 1” 49.5 MW power plant, Humboldt County, Nevada | Brian Fairbank |
| 13:50 | Direct-use geothermal energy in BC | Cathie Hickson |
Fall 2017 FIELD FORUM
A field-based meeting on teaching volcanology: outcrop stops along the Sea-to-Sky corridor (Cheakamus basalt at Brew Creek Road, stacked lava flows in nearby road cuts), small-group discussion of how to teach at each outcrop, and analogue experiments (dike intrusion and pit crater formation) in the Quest Field Lab. The afternoon session covered who is working locally and where collaboration could help.
SPRING 2017 MINI-CONFERENCE
Saturday, April 1, 2017 · UBC, ESB 5104
| Time | Talk | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 10:15 | Gravity monitoring at Cotopaxi volcano during the 2015-2016 unrest period: challenges, prospects and current results | Antonina Calahorrano |
| 10:40 | Magmatic evolution of Kima’Kho volcano: a pyroclastic and effusive subglacial edifice on the Kawdy Plateau, BC | Mila Huebsch |
| 11:05 | New Zealand: a ten-minute brain break | Paul Adam |
| 11:30 | Modeling potential lahar inundation zones at Mount Garibaldi and Mount Cayley in southwest British Columbia’s Garibaldi Volcanic Belt | Melanie Kelman |
| Lunch | ||
| 12:50 | First steps in modeling the 1700s eruption of Tseax volcano | Yannick Le Moigne |
| 13:15 | Consequences of lagging load? | Kelly Russell |
| 13:40 | Hot pressing of gouge during the Mount St. Helens 2004-2008 eruption: insights from high-temperature deformation experiments | Amy Ryan |
FALL 2016 MINI-CONFERENCE
Saturday, October 22, 2016 · SFU, TASC1 7011
| Time | Talk | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 10:15 | Mt. Meager mumblings | Glyn Williams-Jones |
| 10:35 | Mechanical attrition in volcanic systems: ideas, experiments, questions | Kelly Russell |
| 10:55 | 4D gravity data reveal magmatic stress controls on mass addition at Laguna del Maule, Chile | Craig Miller |
| 11:15 | Entrainment and condensation in volcanic plume integral models: constraints from observations | Thomas Aubry |
| 11:35 | Tseax volcano: from lava balls to mega-pillows | Yannick Le Moigne |
| Lunch | ||
| 12:30 | Vent geometry effects on the production of pyroclastic flows | Johan Gilchrist |
| 12:50 | Mafic volcanics in the northern Garibaldi Volcanic Belt: preliminary report | Alex Wilson |
| 13:10 | Methods and complications for localizing volcano-acoustic jet noise sources | Colin Rowell |
| 13:30 | An experimental study of gouge relithification processes | Amy Ryan |
| 13:50 | Volatile budgets of oceanic and continental volcanic arcs: case study of the Lesser Antilles and the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt | Swetha Venugopal |
SPRING 2016 MINI-CONFERENCE
Saturday, March 19, 2016 · UBC, Room 121, EOS Main
| Time | Talk | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 10:15 | Diverse themes from the VPL | Kelly Russell |
| 10:35 | Explorations in the GFL | Mark Jellinek |
| 10:55 | Principal component analysis for pattern recognition in volcano seismic spectra | Kathi Unglert |
| 11:15 | Will climate change lead to less frequent stratospheric eruptions? | Thomas Aubry |
| 11:35 | Sediment waves in collapsing multiphase jets: a new mechanism for column collapse | Johan Gilchrist |
| Break | ||
| 12:00 | Research from the PVG | Glyn Williams-Jones |
| 12:20 | Masaya volcano: a steady-state system | Jeff Zurek |
| 13:00 | Laguna del Maule, Chile: insights into structure and time-varying processes from gravity models | Craig Miller |
| 13:20 | Geochemistry of the GVB | Martina Martindale |
| 13:40 | Evolution of the Lillooet Glacier volcanics: insights from mapping, geochemistry and petrography | Alex Wilson |
| 14:00 | Peruvian magma studies in progress | Nathalie Vigouroux |
| 14:20 | Subsurface connections beneath Cerro Negro volcano and the Las Pilas-El Hoyo complex, Nicaragua | Swetha Venugopal |