Luminescence Dating Laboratory
In the news
2025 | Former LDL research assistant named Director for the Women Geoscientists in Canada
In May 2025, LDL and UFV alumnus Cassandra Shewchuk was elected Director for the Women Geoscientists in Canada organization. We congratulate Cassandra and wish her the best in this new role.
The Women Geoscientist organization advocates and promotes gender diversity within the geosciences. To find out more about the organization check out their website.
2025 | UFV LDL to join Canada-wide research project in Antarctica
In late 2024, UFV’s LDL was invited to be a part of a research project which included the first all-Canadian research expedition to Antarctica in Spring 2025. Thomas James, a scientist for Natural Resources Canada, led a team of 15 scientists from different institutions and disciplines from across Canada to study the Antarctic Ice Sheet and the implications for sea level change, as well as environmental changes connected to a reduction in Antarctic sea ice, the ocean floor and contamination by microplastics in the sea water.
Thomas took several samples from beach ridges along the coastline of the Southern Shetland Islands off the tip off the Antarctic Peninsula which will be sent to UFV for luminescence analysis.
Read more about the project HERE.
2025 | LDL student receives award at Annual Undergraduate Research Excellence Awards
The Undergraduate Research Excellence Awards in Geoscience was awarded to Sierra Colpitts for her fantastic work on K-feldspars from the Thompson River Valley that she presented at Student Research Day at UFV.
2025 | Fieldwork in the interior of BC along the North Thompson River
From April 25 to 29, our postdoctoral fellows, Sam and Maria, and our newest honours student Justine Stoeckly went out in the field to collect modern sand samples along the North Thompson River for Justines honours project. Justine’s project is investigating the relationship between the luminescence properties of modern sediment and the geomorphological characteristics of the river along its length. Being and active and outdoorsy person herself, Justine was super excited to get her first fieldwork experience and learn how to sample for luminescence dating. Before the trip, potential sampling locations were scoped out on Google Earth, leading to a map with 50+ possible stops.
On Friday, they started their journey to drive to Kamloops. First stop was the Blue Moose in Hope - a tradition that has to be honoured every time a fieldtrip goes out into the interior. After petting the moose for good luck and getting breakfast, they continued towards Kamloops. Before the end of the day, Justine had taken her first two samples from east and west of Kamloops Lake. Kamloops Lake plays an important role in Justines project as a major sediment sink for material transported down the North Thompson River.
On Saturday, the group set off towards Valemount and collected six samples from sandbars in the North Thompson River. Some locations were previously marked on Google Earth and were fairly easily accessible. Other locations required some bush whacking and parkouring over logs and branches. The scenery also did not disappoint.
Sunday started off with an early breakfast and bakery visit in Valemount. First stop was slightly further north at the Fraser River where Sam collected a sample for his project and many cool rocks were collected (and smashed). On the way back to Kamloops Justine took four more samples. The official end of fieldwork was celebrated over refreshing drinks at Brown’s and a friendly, but competitive game of Scategories (Maria won).
Justine, Sam and Maria returned to Abbotsford on Monday with ten brand new samples for Justine's honours project, many great photos and good memories of fieldwork in the interior.
2025 | Open Day at LDL
On April 5th, 2025, UFV held the first annual alumni day at UFV to celebrate 50 years of UFV. The team at the luminescence dating lab joined the celebrations by opening up the lab for tours and showcasing the exciting research done by past and present students, as well as our postdoctoral fellows. Interested visitors were able to experience the unique environment inside the lab and past students were reminiscing about the time they spent in the lab preparing samples. With the help of current and past lab assistants, Sierra and Alison, visitors could get a glimpse of our research in British Columbia, Canada and worldwide.
2025 | LDL students participate in Student Research Day
Every year the Research Office at UFV organizes Student Research Day where student have the opportunity to present research they have undertaken that semester – either in form of a poster or a 2-min microlecture. Sierra Colpitts presented her project for which she analyzed different luminescence signals of a potassium-rich feldspar sample from the Thompson River, BC.
You can find her poster pinned on the poster boards in the hallway outside the luminescence dating lab (Abbotsford campus, Building A, 4th floor).
2025 | Postdocs participate in Microlectures event at UFV
Every year the Research Office at UFV organizes the Faculty Microlectures event where staff and faculty can present their research in a 2 min presentation to an audience. This year both our postdocs, Sam and Maria, participated and presented their recent work.
Maria opened the event with a broad overview of what can be achieved with luminescence dating and how collaboration with other researchers, departments and disciplines can enhance the quality of the research conducted by looking at problems from different angles. She explained how luminescence dating can give very detailed answers to research questions and can support the results from other investigations (exp. geology, sedimentology etc.).
Sam presented his latest project where he is investigating the rate at which river channels migrate across their floodplains. River migration rate is a key control of how long sediment is stored in floodplains for as it travels on its journey from where it is formed in mountainous areas to where it eventually ends up on the ocean floor. How long sediment is stored for before it is eroded by the river controls the timescales over which chemical weathering to occur, which has important impacts for the carbon cycle. Sam’s project is seeking to decrease the time and cost of dating river sediments so that scientists can make quicker assessments of long-term migration rates and sediment storage timescales. Currently, he is working on the Nordenskiold River in the Yukon, with plans to expand this work to other systems.
Both presentations are uploaded on the Research Office’s YouTube channel.
2024 | LDL students receive awards at Annual Undergraduate Research Excellence Awards
At this years’ Undergraduate Research Excellence Awards, two of LDL’s students, Nicola Ferguson and Justine Stoeckly, were presented with awards for their outstanding research in the Department of Geoscience which they presented at Student Research Day at UFV and at the Conference of the Canadian Quaternary Association in Regina, Saskatchewan.
2024 | New World Luminescence Dating Workshop, Reno (Nevada, US)
In June 2024, Director Olav Lian was invited to the New World Luminescence Dating Workshop at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, as a keynote speaker. He spoke about how our field has changed since its’ inception in the early 1980s, showed pictures of instruments the younger generation of the luminescence community has probably not seen before and shared anecdotes of colleagues and friends he met along the way.
Postdocs Sam Woor and Maria Schaarschmidt also travelled to Reno to present their current research to the Luminescence community. Sam talked about estimating environmental dose rates for trapped charge dating using rapid geochemistry and Maria shared her work on the characteristics of quartz luminescence signals of samples from central Canada.
During the workshop, they also celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Desert Research institute. The conference field trip took them to Lake Tahoe in California where they learned about the regional history (geological and historical) and current research being conducted there. They also caught up with former LDL postdoc Christina Neudorf.
The Desert Research Institute is one of our project partners. Check out their website for more information about them.
2024 | Fraser Valley Regional Science Fair
At the end of 2023, the LDL was contacted by a student – Xauni de Figueiroa. She was interested in participating in the Fraser Valley Regional Science Fair in Apil 2024 with a project centered around luminescence dating. After meeting her and seeing how engaged and enthusiastic she was, they agreed to help her with a project.
Xauni prepared two sediment samples from the Pine Barrens in New Jersey, USA, and extracted quartz grains to eventually estimated a burial age for her samples. These samples were part of a bigger project about dune-field mobilization and stabilization near the maximum extent of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Xauni presented her project at UFV together with fellow student researchers. Her project was successful, and she advanced to the National Science Fair in Ottawa, where she enjoyed presenting her research among her peers.
2024 | LDL student participates in Student Research Day
In 2024, Nicola Ferguson participated with a poster showcasing her research in the Albany Pine Bush, New Jersey at UFVs Student Research Day. She explained to visitors how luminescence dating works and how it can be used to determine the time of stabilization of sand dunes.
You can find the poster pinned on the poster boards in the hallway outside the luminescence dating lab (Abbotsford campus, Building A, 4th floor).