CPC 2024
32nd Canadian Paleontology Conference
November 22nd - 23rd, 2024
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VIRTUAL VENUE FORMAT
This year the annual CPC Conference will be held in a virtual format.
The meeting will be held over two days, Friday, November 22nd and Saturday, November
23rd, 2024. The sessions will take place in the afternoon/evenings (starting at 3pm EST / 12pm
PST), at times suitable for all Canadian time zones. It is the executive’s hope that restricting
the meeting to a few hours a day over a few days will reduce 'Zoom fatigue' and give
attendees a bit more flexibility in terms of attendance.
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Please make sure to check your time zone!
PLATFORMS
Oral presentation sessions will be held via Zoom. Zoom is a free online teleconferencing
platform that does not require participants to download anything to their personal computer.
(For more information, see here: https://zoom.us/) A Zoom link will be provided to each
registered attendee for the oral presentation sessions prior to the conference.
REGISTRATION AND ABSTRACT SUBMISSION
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**There is no conference registration fee for CPC 2024**
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The abstract submission deadline is Friday, November 8th. Attendees will need to be
registered to get the Zoom links to the oral presentation sessions.
The deadline to register without submitting an abstract is November 18th, 2024.
To register and/or submit and abstract, e-mail gac.paleontology@gmail.com
In your email, please indicate if you are a student and thus qualify for the Thomas E. Bolton
Award (best student presentation award). In the email subject line, please write either ‘CPC
2024 Abstract’ or ‘CPC 2024 Registration’.
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ABSTRACT FORMAT
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Abstracts should be compiled in Word (.doc or .docx). They are to be no more than 250
words in length, written in size 12 font, and follow the traditional format (no citations or
references). Figures may be included if desired, with a short figure caption.
Titles should contain no new scientific names, but higher taxonomic names may be included.
Identify each author by their first name, in full, followed by any middle initials, and the last
name. Identify each author with a superscript number and give the full mailing and email
information for each author. Please identify the expected speaker of the presentation with an
asterix (*) next to their name.
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Figures, if included, should be submitted separately in the same email as .TIF files (minimum
resolution is 300 dpi, 600 dpi is preferred). Figures should be sized to fit into a single column
(88.9 mm), two---thirds page width (122 mm), or full page width (182 mm). Maximum page
height is 233 mm. Colour figures should use CMYK colour, not RGB.
TECHNICAL SESSIONS
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Technical sessions will take place on Friday, November 22nd and Saturday, November
23rd, 2024, via Zoom. Each oral presentation will be allotted 12 minutes, plus 3 minutes for
questions.
Oral presentations must be presented in a Powerpoint (.ppt or .pptx) or PDF (.pdf) format.
When it is time to present, the presenter will be made a co-host by the session moderator, so
that they are able to share their screen.
To ensure that all presenters can accept a role as co-host, share their screen appropriately,
and be heard by participants, we ask all presenters to sign into the Zoom session 20 minutes
before their session starts so that we can run a tech test.
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AWARDS​
Thomas E. Bolton Award (Best Student Talk)
The Paleontology Division of the Geological Association of Canada gives an award to acknowledge excellence in paleontological research by a student through their paper presentation at the Canadian Paleontology Conference. The first of the Thomas E. Bolton Awards was presented in 1998 at the Eighth Canadian Paleontology Conference in Collingwood, Ontario.
The award has been named in honor of Tom Bolton. Just a few weeks after being awarded the Billings Medal, Thomas Elwood Bolton passed away on November 21st, 1997. The medal, named after the Geological Survey of Canada’s first paleontologist, was a fitting tribute to a man who had dedicated his life to the furtherance of geology and paleontology. The citation for the medal included the statement that “No individual has done more for Canadian paleontology than Tom Bolton”.
Tom’s lifelong career with the GSC began in 1952. His research covered a remarkable diversity of Ordovician and Silurian organisms including trilobites, eurypterids, corals, brachiopods, crinoids, cystoids, bryozoans, sponges, nautiloids, gastropods and pelecypods. Not only was Tom an acknowledged authority in his field, he was Curator of the National Collection of Type Invertebrate and Plant Fossils for over 30 years. He left a legacy of eight volumes of the Catalogue of Type Fossil Invertebrates and one Catalogue of Type Plant Fossils. These provide data on over 130,000 specimens collected from the days of Sir William Logan in the last century to 1993.
The hallmarks of Tom’s work were cheerful involvement, modesty, effectiveness, and a willingness to involve others. His enthusiasm for paleontology was contagious, and he delighted in talking to those who shared his passion whether they were “professional” paleontologists or not. If you liked fossils, Tom would share his knowledge with you. It is appropriate that the award for paleontological research by a student is named in his honour.
All students who present their research at CPC 2024 can be considered for the Thomas E. Bolton award.
Pikaia Award (for Early Career Researchers)
In 2002, the Paleontology Division introduced a new award, the Pikaia Award. The Pikaia Award is awarded in recognition of a recent contribution to research on any aspect of Canadian paleontology, or by a Canadian to paleontology, that is judged to constitute an outstanding accomplishment in the field. The outstanding accomplishment may be a single paper or monograph or a series of closely related papers. The award will normally go to an individual who is no more than 15 years past their last degree.
The Pikaia award is named after Pikaia gracilens, an early cephalochordate known from the Burgess Shale. It is awarded biennially in even-numbered years.
The 2024 Pikaia Award will be presented at the Canadian Palaeontology Conference.
To nominate someone for the Pikaia Award please visit the Pikaia Award page on our website for information on the nomination process.
Nominations must be received by Friday, November 8th, 2024.
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Please see the next circular for a conference schedule