SCI 250 - Environmental Geology

1. Fundamentals

Earth's composition:

• Central core: dense and hot, composed of nickel and iron
• Mantle: thick zone surrounding core, ultramafic and mafic rocks and magma. Heated by convective circulation
• Crust: Oceanic (mafic) and continental (felsic)

2. Rocks and Minerals

Most abundant chemicals by mass:

• Whole earth: Oxygen, silicon, aluminum, iron
• Oceans: Oxygen, hydrogen, chlorine, sodium
• Air: Nitrogen, oxygen, argon
• Organisms: Oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen

Minerals are:

• Naturally occurring
• Inorganic
• A solid element or compound
• Of definite chemical composition
• Of regular internal crystal structure
• Identified by:
  • Colour (note that this is not unique)
  • Streak
  • Luster
  • Hardness
  • Crystal form
  • Cleavage (breakage along flat planes)
  • Fracture (irregular breakage)
  • Specific gravity (density relative to water)
  • Magnetism
  • Chemical reactions
• Come in groups:
  • Silicates (e.g. mica, quartz)
  • Non-silicates
    • Carbonates (\(CO_3\), e.g. limestone)
    • Sulfates (\(SO_4\), e.g. gypsum)
    • Sulfides (\(S\), hosts many metallic ores such as copper)
    • Oxides (Any metal combined with oxygen)
    • Native elements (Minerals composed of single elements)

Rocks are:

• Solid aggregates of many mineral grains/crystals
• Composed of one or many mineral types
• Types:
  • Igneous
    • Magma when melted underground, lava aboveground
    • Intrusive/plutonic when cooled underground, extrusive/volcanic when cooled aboveground
      • Intrusive/plutonic cools more slowly, allowing more crystals to form
      • Extrusive/volcanic cools more quickly, so there is less regular structure
    • Cool into felsic/granitic (light), intermediate/andesitic, and mafic/basaltic (dark) rocks
  • Sedimentary
    • Formed by lithification of sediments
    • clastic (formed by lithification of mechanically weathered rocks/minerals) and chemical (formed by precipitated minerals from water)
  • Metamorphic
    • Contact metamorphism (localized to rocks adjacent to a magma chamber) or regional metamorphism (large scale stressing/heating due to moving or colliding plates)
    • Foliation: being subjected to directional stress

3. Plate tectonics

Stress is force applied to a rock (compressive, tensile, or shearing).

Strain is the change of shape due to stress.

• Elastic deformation happens when the strain will revert when the stress is removed.
• Elastic deformation happens up to the elastic limit, after which deformation is either:
  • plastic (where deformation is permanent), or
  • brittle (where a rupture happens)
  • The amount of plastic deformation before a rupture is a function of the material's ductility

The lithosphere includes the crust and part of the upper mantle, where deformation is largely elastic. The athenosphere is a martially molten zone in the rest of the upper mantle, where deformation is usually plastic.

Plate boundaries are either:

• Divergent
• Convergent
  • Oceanic-continental boundaries produce volcanic ranges as one plate is subducted under the other and melted into magma, which moves upwards
• Transform

Evidence of continental drift:

• Fit of shorelines
• Fossil records
• Mountain ranges
• Glacial deposits and their movement (makes more sense in Pangaea)

Evidence of plate tectonics:

• Earthquakes and volcanoes
• Sea floor topography
• Paleomagnetism (magnetic patterns from a drifting magnetic pole imprinted in crust over time)
• Sea floor spreading

4. Earthquakes

The actual site of the first movement along a fault is the focus/hypocenter; the point on the Earth's surface directly above it is the epicenter. The distance between the two is the focal depth.

• The difference in velocity of P and S waves can be used to figure out the distance away of the epicenter
• With three distances from three different locations, the epicenter can be triangulated

The line of strike of an earthquake goes across the surface. The direction of dip is the angle into the earth.

• The surface trace of a fault might not be at the same location as the epicenter because the epicenter is directly above the focus, whereas the surface trace moves up at the dip angle.

Fault types:

• Strike-slip: movement parallel to the strike (lateral)
• Dip-slip: movement up and down along the direction of dip (vertical)
  • Normal: overhanging block moves down from tension
  • Reverse: overhanging block moves up from compression
  • Thrust: Low-angle (less than 45 degree) reverse fault

Seismic waves:

• Body waves:
  • P: Primary/pressure (compression waves along direction of travel)
  • S: Secondary/shear (up and down perpendicular to direction of travel)
• Surface waves:
  • Love (L): side-to-side perpendicular to direction of travel
  • Rayleigh (R): up and down/forward and backward, where individual points move in circles

Scales:

• Richter: quantitative measure of total energy released, on a log scale
  • Magnitude and frequency are related with the Gutenberg-Richter relation: \(F = aM^b\)
  • Smaller events are much more common than larger events
• Modified Mercalli: qualitative measure of the destructive effect of the earthquake

Liquification is the transformation of a cohesionless material from a solid state into a liquefied state as a consequence of increased pore-pressures

• Happens with prolonged shear shaking of soils that aren't entirely stable

5. Volcanoes

Occur at:

• Divergent plate boundaries (e.g. mid-ocean ridge)
• Convergent plate boundaries (ocean-ocean and ocean-continent)
• Intra-plate (hotspots)

Melting influences

• Rocks melt as temperature increases and as pressure decreases
• Water and other gases cause rock to melt at lower temperatures

Lava types

• Mafic: Low in \(SiO_2\) but high in iron and magnesium. Low viscosity.
  • Dark rocks like gabbro
• Intermediate
  • Medium rocks like diorite
• Felsic: High in \(SiO_2\) but low in iron and magnesium. High viscosity.
  • Light rocks like granite
• More volatile gases in magma imply more explosive eruptions.

Lava flow

• On land
  • Mafic lava is thin and widespread due to low viscosity
  • Felsic lava is more lobate
• Underwater
  • Basaltic lava solidifies into "pillows"
  • Gradually cooled basalt forms columns

Pyroclastic materials (emitted by eruptions)

• Small pyroclastics: dust, ash
• Medium pyroclastics: Lapilli
• Large pyroclastics: Bombs, blocks

Volcano types

• Fissure
  • Oceanic rifts
  • Continental (flood basalts): uniformly dispersed columns across plateau
• Individual volcanoes
  • Shield: large and flat; lava emitted from central vent
  • Cinder cone: smaller and explosive; cone formed from pyroclastics falling close to the vent
  • Composite or stratovolcanoes: tall, violent, explosive; occurring in subduction zones
  • Lava domes: lava is viscous, so it can't spread far from the mouth
  • Caldera: When rock above a partially empty lava chamber collapses

Gas monitoring

• \(CO_2\) increases may mean new magma entering system
• \(SO_2\) increases may mean magma is close to the surface and the volcano will erupt soon
• \(H_2S\) increases may indicate that volcanic activity will be relatively quiet

6. Rivers and Flooding

Sediment cycle:

• Erosion
• Sediment transport
• Deposition

Hydrological cycle:

• Evaporation
• Condensation
• Precipitation
• Transpiration
• Runoff
• Infiltration
• Percolation

The drainage basin of a water body is the area of land whose water eventually leads into that body of water.

Measuring stream discharge (\(Q\)): \(Q = V \cdot A\)

• As you go downstream:
  • Discharge increases (volume of water)
  • Channel size increases
  • Gradient decreases
  • Channel roughness decreases (energy)

Types of flow:

• Laminar
  • streamlines are parallel
  • Little mixing of fluid between layers
  • Little erosion
• Turbulent
  • Streamlines intertwined
  • Intense mixing
  • Erosion and transportation of sediment takes place

Sediment transport

• Bed load: heavy particles rolled, dragged, or pushed along bottom of stream; intermediate particles that skip along
• Suspended load: material light enough to be carried along in the water
  • Carried by fluid turbulence, deposited only when turbulence is minimal
  • Lower discharge implies lower suspended sediment capacity
• Dissolved load: material dissolved in the water (e.g. salt)

A river delta is a pile of sediment created in still waters by a stream.

An aluvial fan is a pile of sediment in a larger stream or region between mountains and a plain formed by a small tributary stream.

Channel features:

• Meanders: curves in stream
• Cut bank: the outside edge of a meander, where water flows faster
• Point bar: the inside of a meander, where water is slower and sediment is deposited
• Oxbow: extreme bend
• Oxbow lake: when the bend is cut off and an isolated U-shaped lake remains
• Braided streams: when load exceeds competency or capacity and sediments divide the channel into a complex system of many small channels

Flood types

• Regional: rapid snowmelt, rainfall, etc
• Local flash flood: localized intense rainfall
• Ice jam flood: temporary obstruction from buildup of ice fragments (upstream flooding)
• Constructed dam failure
• Natural dam formation: upstream flooding
• Natural dam failure

Flood reduction strategies:

• Restrictive zoning
• Retention ponds
• Diversion channels
• Channelization (increase velocity or discharge)
• Levees
• Flood control dams/reservoirs

7. Coastal Zones and Processes

Coast types:

• Active margin: active plate tectonics, usually has cliffs
• Passive margin: far from active plates, can have a broad shelf or beaches

Waves

• Particles move in orbits
• Wavelength: crest to crest distance
• Wave period: time between passages of two crests at a stationary point
• At a depth of half the wavelength, movement of water particles is negligible
• Start to break when water depth is less than the wave height (half the wavelength), shortening the wavelength

Cliffs are undercut by waves, so that the cliff face slumps or slides off into the sea.

Wave refraction works to erode points of land that jut out into the sea.

When waves arrive at an angle to the shore, you get longshore currents parallel to the shore and littoral drift migrating sand grains in the direction of the longshore current.

Tides

• Spring: tidal bulges and troughs from the moon and sun being aligned twice a month
• Neap: sun and moon at right angles

Estuaries are bodies of water along a coastline, open to the sea; a transition area between freshwater rivers and saltwater oceans.

Stabilization:

• Seawalls: Structures separating land and water to reflect part of wave energy and prevent erosion
• Jetties: protecting entrances to harbours and rivers
• Groins: built perpendicular to a beach to trap sand from moving parallel to the shore
• Breakwaters: built parallel to the shore to dissipate energy of incoming waves

8. Mass movements

Mass wasting is downhill movement of mass under gravity.

• Factors:
  • Slope angle
  • Water
  • Slope materials and vegetation
  • Geological structures
  • Earthquakes
  • Heavy rains/rapid snow melt
  • Human activity
• Types:
  • Creep: slow, active at surface
  • Falls: material free falls from failure or undercutting
  • Slumps: material moves downhill, accompanied by rotation
  • Slides: material moves as a unit parallel to a surface
  • Flows: material moves chaotically
  • Avalanches: includes a wide range of materials

Stabilization methods:

• Reduce slope angle (terracing)
• Place supports at base of slope
• Add frame supports to slope
• Reduce load on slope (material removal, water drainage)

Angle of repose: maximum slope angle at which a material is stable, for loose "cohesionless" materials

Clays

• Quick
  • Formed in polar latitudes
  • Glacial grinding of sediments produces rock flour
  • Seismic vibration may break apart glue
• Sensitive
  • Form in other locations due to volcanic ash

9. Glaciers, Wind, Deserts

Glacier types

• Continental: at poles (ice sheets, ice caps)
• Mountain: At high altitudes (icefields, alpine/valley glaciers)

Glacier creation

• Snow accumulates
• Snow transforms to firn
• Overlying snow packs the snow and firn together
• Pressure causes ice to recrystallize into denser ice

Movement of glacial ice

• Basal slip: occurs as the glacier slides over a surface, facilitated by meltwater, reducing frictional resistance
• Plastic flow: causes permanent deformation in response to pressure. This is the primary way glaciers move.
• Ice flows downward in zones of accumulation
  • Flows from zone of accumulation to the terminus
• Ice flows upward in zones of ablation
• Between ablation and accumulation is an equilibrium line

Calving is when chunks break off into the water

Milankovitch's model explains variations in intensity and distribution of solar energy reaching earth. Depends on:

• Shape (eccentricity) of Earth's orbit
• Angle/tilt (obliquity) of earth's axis
• Wobbles in Earth's axis (precession)

Effects from glaciers

• Striations: ridges in rocks from glacier movement
• Moraines (ridges of sediment next to glaciers) left over behind receding ice sheets
  • Lateral: low mounts of till along sides of valley glaciers
  • Medial: formed when tributary glaciers come together and lateral moraines get trapped between them
  • End moraines: ridges at the front of a glacier
• Land subsistence (sinking) and rebound (rising) after being covered by glacial ice
• Sea level change
• Rock moving
  • Plucking: ice freezes to rock and pulls it loose from glacial movement
  • Abrasion: polish or striations from glacial movement, producing rock flour
  • Drumlins: smooth, elongated hills formed under glaciers
• Erosion types
  • U-shaped valleys
  • Hanging valleys, where small tributary glacial valleys are left stranded high above more quickly eroded central trunk valleys
  • Cirques, where steep, half-bowl-shaped recesses are carved into mountains at the head of glacial valleys
  • Arêtes: sharp ridges separating glacial valleys
  • Horns: sharp peaks remaining after cirques have cut back into mountains on several sides

Glacial deposits

• Till: sediment deposited directly by glacial ice, unsorted
• Stratified drift: sorted by size/density, layered, from flowing water in a melting glacier
  • Outwash plains: formed by lots of sediment carried in braided streams from melting glaciers
  • Kettle lakes: formed where blocks of ice are left in the sediment by retreating ice
  • Kames: conical hills formed where sediment is deposited in depressions on the surface of the glacier, which is lowered to the ground as the glacier melts
  • Eskers: sediments deposited in streams running along the base of stagnant glaciers
  • Varves: annual variations in glacial lakes produced by paired layers, which can be counted like tree rings
• Erratics: stones and rocks transported by a glacier, and then left behind after the glacier melted

Winds

• Can be caused by high daily variance in temperature and pressure, e.g. in the desert
• Fine dust or silt can be carried and deposited as loess
  • can originate in either desert or glacial areas
  • once deposited, forms porous and open structure
  • holds abundant water
• Less capable of picking up and carrying coarse materials than water
• Can spread sediment over large areas and high into the atmosphere
• Deflation: lifting and removal of loose material produces:
  • blowouts: shallow depressions caused by sediment removal
  • desert pavement: a surface covered by closely packed pebbles and cobbles after fine grains have been removed
• Ventifacts are stones with flat faces from windblown sand and yardangs are streamlined, wind-sculpted ridges

Sand dune types

• Barchan: tips point downwind
• Transverse: ridges perpendicular to wind
• Longitudinal: ridges parallel to wind
• Parabolic: tips point upwind
• Star: looks like a Perlin noise sort of thing

Deserts have less than 10 inches of precipitation per year. Types:

• Polar/high latitude deserts
• Mid-latitude deserts in interior
• Trade wind deserts
• Coastal deserts

Climate Change

Important greenhouse gases:

• Carbon dioxide (\(CO_2\))
• Methane (\(CH_4\))
• Nitrous oxide (\(N_2O\))
• Water (\(H_2O\))

Mineral and Rock Resources

Canada is in the top five countries for global production of:

• Potash
• Uranium
• Nickel
• Indium and sulphur
• Diamonds, titanium, and gold

Canada's top 5 mineral exports by value

• Gold
• Coal
• Copper
• Potash
• Iron Ore

Reserves are assets that could be obtained and then sold

• Sub-economic or conditional resources: identified but low grade or dispersed, can't be mined profitably
• Undiscovered resources: Hypothetical, speculative

Ore: a rock that has a mineable mineral in it

• Concentration factor: \(CF = C_m/C_{mc}\)
  • \(C_m\) is the concentration factor of the metal in the ore
  • \(C_{mc}\) is the concentration ofo the metal in average continental crust

Pegmatites: course grained igneous rock

• Slow cooling promotes crystal growth

Pluton defines a body of intrusive igneous rock that formed from cooled magma in the earth

• Batholith: large area of intrusive rock
• Dike: vertical sheet of intrusive rock
• Sill: horizontal sheets of intrusive rock
• Stock: relatively small plutons

Kimberlite is an ultramafic igneous rock containing crystallized carbon

• Emplaced by gaseous explosions that quickly drive magma to the mantle and into the crust, where crystallization into diamonds occurs
• If depressurization is allowed to happen, you get graphite

In hydrothermal vents, dissolved gases, salts, minerals and gases dissolve in hot magmatic fluids, move into crevasses, and crystallize.

Banded iron formation deposits

• Iron materials eroded from rocks on land were transported into oceans
• Oxygen started reacting with iron to produce oxides and precipitate
• Deposited on the ocean floor
• magnetite is formed when there is lots of oxygen
• hermatite is formed when there is a lack of oxygen

Evaporite rocks are formed by evaporation of water in restricted flow basins

• Halite is an example of this
• Diapirs are salt domes given rise to by thick salt beds
  • Useful for nuclear waste repositories, natural gas storage

Placer deposits formed by sorting dense minerals being transported by water or wind

Secondary enrichment

• Chemical weathering coupled with downward percolating water to remove undesirable elements, leaving concentrated desirable ones in upper zones
• Chemical weathering and downward water flow that removes the desirable elements and concentrates them in lower zones

Astroblemes: ancient impact craters with high concentrations of minerals locally deposited

• Progenetic: Pre-impact deposits
• Syngenetic: Deposits created by the impact
• Epigenetic: Deposits from impact-induced thermal activity

Mineral and rock resources

• Metals
• Nonmetallic minerals
• Rock resources

Ocean resources

• Cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts: formed by precipitation from sea water onto hard surfaces
• Hydrothermal ore deposits: deposits along seafloor spreading ridges
• Polymetallic nodules: golf ball to potato sized nodules widely dispersed on ocean floor

Mining methods:

• Underground
• Surface (open surface)
  • Open-pit
  • Strip mining
• Placer
• In situ mining

Energy Resources and Fossil Fuels

Fossil fuels

• Rich in carbon and hydrogen
• Produced only when organic materials are produced in environments with little oxygen (anaerobic)
• Crude oil: mixture of hundreds of types of hydrocarbon molecules
• Natural gas: gaseous hydrocarbon compound (most commonly methane)

Oil and gas migration

• Solid matter converted to liquids and gases
• Petroleum is less dense than water
• Migration separates hydrocarbons based on density

Hubbert curve: projected oil production bell curve, assuming a fixed amount of usable resources.

Crude oil: mixture of hydrocarbon molecule types, formed 1.5-3km underground

Natural gas: gaseous hydrocarbon compound (usually methane)

Coal: organic matter (peak) that was compressed under high pressure to form dense, solid carbon structures

Coal can be used by:

• Gasification: Low heating of coal creates a gas with 15-30% the heat of methane
• Liquefaction: Turning coal into liquid fuel (not practical yet, maybe in the future)

Tar sands: sand deposits with 1-20% bitumen, petroleum rich in carbon and poor in hydrogen. Removed by strip mining.

Ways to increase petroleum supplies:

• Oil shales: sedimentary rock with kerogen that can be processed to produce liquid petroleum
• Methane hydrates: methane molecules trapped in water or ice
• Alternate natural gas sources: Natural gas found by looking in water trapped in deeper rocks
• Enhanced oil recovery: Water injection, gas injection, thermal injection, chemical injection to get remaining oil out of the ground

Tight oil: light crude oil in petroleum bearing regions with low permeability (e.g. shale or sandstone). Extracted by fracking.

Alternative Energy

Nuclear fission

• Burner reactors use up fuel (fissionable uranium)
• Breeder reactors can give a neutron to Uranium-238 to make it fissionable Plutonium-239, or turn Thorium-232 into Uranium-233

Nuclear fusion

• Cleaner, more abundant fuel
• Requires too much energy to start right now to be economically useful

Solar

• Heating: Passive, with no mechanical assistance, or active, where solar heated water is circulated
• Electricity: Photovoltaic cells

Environmental Assessment

• Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012
  • Federal

What does EA look at?

• Potential environmental effects from construction, operation, maintenance
• mitigating measure for adverse effects
• predict significant effects after mitigation
• prepare a follow-up program to verify accuracy and effectiveness

Benefits of EA

• Avoidance of problems
• chance to communicate with public
• protection of health
• reduce project costs and delays
• increased government accountability
• appropriate use of natural resources

Risks of:

• Climate change
• meteorological hazards (Termperature, humidity, evaporation),
• surface water hazards
• groundwater hazards
• geotechnical hazards (landslides, mudslides)
• geophysical hazards (earthquakes)
• biological hazards (populations)
• natural fire hazards

Type of technical studies

• atmospheric and meteorological
  • air quality, hurricanes, wind speed, humidity, etc
• geotechnical (slope stability, liquefaction potential, slope stability)
• geological (seismo-technical data, faults, sinkholes, landforms)
• hydrological (deterministic and stochastic modelling, interaction between surface and groundwater, sedimentation, currents)
• hydro-geologic (groundwater quality and distribution, contamination risks)
• biological (non-human biota, valued ecological components)
  • VECs used as a means of representing a sensitive or representative species or significant element in an ecosystem

BC dam

• Adverse
  • Aboriginal issues - they fish on the river
  • Fish opportunities increase
  • migratory birds
  • fish and habitat
• Benefits
  • 40% electrical demand over next 20 years due to LNG sector growth and electric vehicle demand
  • thousands of jobs during construction and from spinoff industries

Pipeline

• Adverse
  • killer whale population
  • increased air emissions
  • indigenous traditional resources impacted
• Benefits
  • Longer term increased economic value to alverta, BC, canada
  • market diversity (opportunity to sell to larger markets)
  • less greenhouse gases than rail tankers
  • Canada is a resource-based economy

Waste Disposal

Types of waste

• Municipal solid waste: non-liquid waste from homes, institutions, small businesses
  • In Canada, mostly paper, organics, plastics
  • In developing countries, mostly food scraps
• Industrial solid waste: waste from consumer goods, mining, extracting, etc
• Hazardous waste: toxic, chemically reactive
• Wastewater: water from households, businesses, runoff

Leachate: water passed through landfill reguse and contains dissolved materials from it

• Industrial ecology: redesigning systems so it is more economically efficient to be physically efficient
• Life cycle analysis: examine life cycle of a product and look for ways to make the process more ecologically efficient
• Pollution prevention strategies: aimed at reducing waste and pollution at its source

Sewage treatment

• Septic systems: solids separated, bacterial breakdown begins
• Municipal sewage treatment
  • Primary: removal of solids from organic liquid waste
  • Secondary: bacteria, fungi dissolve and break down organic matter
  • Tertiary: filtration, chlorination, other chemical treatment

Hazardous waste treatment

• Secure landfills: impervious liners, leachate removal systems
• Surface impoundments: lined "ponds" that store liquid hazardous waste
• Deep-well injection: a well drilled deep beneath the water table to inject waste into

Water pollution

Agricultural pollution

• Runoff from livestock
• Fertilizers and organic waste
• Herbicides and pesticides

Thermal pollution

• Warmer water (e.g. from power generation) holds less oxygen
• Colder water (e.g. from reservoirs) can kill aquatic organisms

Sediment pollution

• From clear-cutting, mining
• Can kill fish and fish eggs

Water treatment processing steps

• Coagulation
• Flocculation (clumping)
• Sedimentation
• Ozonation
• Filtration
• Disinfection (UV and chlorination)

Walkerton crisis

• E. Coli breakout happened
• One particular well was contaminated
• Came from nearby farm

Emerging contaminants

• Pharmaceuticals
• (Per|Poly)fluoralkyl substances (PFAS): soluble, persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic
• Shale gas leakage

Air pollution

Atmosphere layers (from the ground up):

• Troposphere (0-10km)
• Stratosphere (10-50km)
• Mesosphere (50-80km)
• Thermosphere (80+km)

Time for materials to cycle through the atmosphere (residence time)

• Carbon dioxide: 4 years
• Oxygen gas: 7 million years
• Nitrogen gas: 44 million years

Ozone

• Nitrogen dioxide in sunlight breaks down into nitrogen monoxide, which reacts with oxygen gas to make ozone
• Ozone inhibits photosynthesis and causes medical problems in humans
• Ozone layer in stratosphere blocks UV radiation
• Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) attack ozone
  • Montreal Protocol in 1987 limits CFC production

CEPA identified harmful airborne substances

• Criteria pollutants: judged to pose especially great threats to human health
• Persistent organic pollutants: can last in the environment for a while, can enter food supplies, evaporate easily
• Heavy metals
• Toxic air pollutants

Policy and Law

Riparian rights: A system for allocating water rights among those who possess land along a waterway or shoreline.

Economic instruments

• Property rights and taxes
• Fees
• Liability and assurance regimes
• Tradeable permits

"Wicked" problems: Poor match between bearers of costs and bearers of benefits.

Canadian resource law

• Surface water
  • Shared resource managed by provinces or territories
  • Transboundary waterways require federal intervention
  • Surface water law: navigable streams treated as community property
  • Riparian doctrine: whoever owns land next to a stream has the right to use that water
  • Doctrine of prior appropriation: first user of the water has top priority
• Groundwater
  • Generally provincial if not inter-boundary
• Non-renewable resource development
  • Provincial jurisdiction
  • Federal jurisdiction if there is potential for air pollution, transboundary water issues, harm to fisheries, etc
• Mine reclamation

Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs): 200 nautical mile from coast exclusive mineral rights use zone

Division of maritime areas

• Internal waters
• Territorial waters: up to 12 miles
• Contiguous zone: up to 24 miles adjacent zone
• Exclusive Economic Zone: up to 200 miles
• Continental shelf: Up to 350 miles or 100 miles from a depth of 2500m
• International waters