Joshua Thienpont

York University · Department of Geography

Retrogressive thaw slumps, which are a type of landslide disturbance caused by thawing of ice-rich permafrost, are increasing in size, intensity, and frequency in the Arctic because of climate warming. The formation of thaw slumps on lake shorelines in the Mackenzie Delta region (Northwest Territories, Canada) has been shown to increase water clari...

Lakes in discontinuous permafrost peatlands are on the front lines of climate change, sensitive to even modest increases in air temperature. The aim of this study was to provide the first limnological characterization of shallow (∼1-2 m depth) lakes in the Scotty Creek basin (Northwest Territories, Canada), a field site of circumpolar significance...

The Tuktoyaktuk coastlands contain thousands of lakes along an area of the Beaufort Sea in the rapidly changing western Arctic. These lakes may be susceptible to a range of impacts associated with climate warming, including potential increased marine influence changes associated with reduced lake ice cover and thawing permafrost. We examined a 210P...

Geographic context matters when trying to understand how permafrost thaw impacts northern freshwater biodiversity in a warming climate. Most risk to freshwater from thawing permafrost is associated with abrupt thaw processes known as thermokarst. Lake sediments can provide a record of thermokarst landscape development and associated biogeochemical...

The lakes around Yellowknife (Northwest Territories, Canada) have been impacted by multiple environmental stressors throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. Here, we have synthesized diatom assemblage data from ten lake sediment cores from the Yellowknife area and used a landscape-scale paleolimnological approach to investigate the cumulative...

The Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD) receives a mixture of hydrocarbons from biogenic, pyrogenic, and petrogenic processes. Source apportionment in the PAD has focussed on polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs), which are ubiquitous in the environment and susceptible to weathering. In contrast, petroleum biomarkers of terpanes, hopanes, and steranes are d...

• Cladocera serve as important bio‐ and paleo‐indicators of lake food webs and environmental conditions. The ecological optima of cladocerans are often established by regional‐scale calibration sets, with subsequent comparisons to limnological variables. However, due to logistical constraints when sampling large numbers of lakes, this approach ofte...

When assessing the environmental impact of petroleum hydrocarbon exploitation, it can be challenging to differentiate anthropogenic from natural hydrocarbon sources. For example, areas underlain by permafrost may be affected by erosion of hydrocarbon‐rich deposits from thermokarst activity, complicating environmental assessments of human impacts fr...

Korosi JB, Thienpont JR, Eickmeyer DC, Kimpe LE, Blais JM. 2020. A paleolimnological approach for interpreting aquatic effects monitoring at the Diavik Diamond Mine (Lac de Gras, Northwest Territories, Canada). Lake Reserv Manage. XX:XX–XX. A paleolimnological assessment of Lac de Gras (Northwest Territories, Canada) showed pronounced aquatic ecolo...

Ore processing techniques used in Yellowknife's largest mining operation, Giant Mine, is responsible for the atmospheric release of approximately 20,000 t of particulate arsenic trioxide and other heavy metal(loids). This rapid deposition of heavy metal(loids) may have caused ecological disturbances to aquatic food webs. Here we use 210Pb and 137Cs...

The Cameron Hills is a freshwater-rich region located at the border of Alberta and the Northwest Territories and is the site of a small, remote oil and gas operation. Ecological monitoring data are scarce in the Cameron Hills, and absent prior to the onset of oil and gas development in the 1960s. Consequently, the potential impacts of industrial ac...

The inundation of terrestrial vegetation following landscape flooding is an important potential source of mercury to aquatic ecosystems, and may modify mercury cycling, such as through increased methylation. In the Great Slave Lowlands of Canada’s Northwest Territories, remarkable landscape flooding has occurred over the recent past, which is the m...

Effluent from diamond mining operations rich in calcium (Ca) has transformed softwater tundra lakes in the Northwest Territories, Canada. Lakes downstream of the Dominion Diamond Corporation Ekati Mine have experienced marked changes in water chemistry and cladoceran community composition since establishment of the mine in 1998. The greatest change...

We examined the historical deposition of polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) recorded in radiometrically-dated lake sediment cores from a small, conventional oil and gas operation in the southern Northwest Territories (Cameron Hills), and placed these results in the context of previously published work from three other important regions of western...

The development of effective risk reduction strategies for aquatic pollutants requires a comprehensive understanding of toxic impacts on ecosystems. Classical toxicological studies are effective for characterizing pollutant impacts on biota in a controlled, simplified environment. Nonetheless, it is well-acknowledged that predictions based on the r...

Understanding the interaction between the response of a complex ecosystem to climate change and the protection of vulnerable wildlife species is essential for conservation efforts. In the Northwest Territories (Canada), the recent movement of the Mackenzie wood bison herd (Bison bison athabascae) out of their designated territory has been postulate...

Supplementary Figures 1-4, Supplementary Tables 1-3, Supplementary Notes 1-2, Supplementary Methods and Supplementary References

Widespread across northern permafrost landscapes, thermokarst ponds and lakes provide vital wildlife habitat and play a key role in biogeochemical processes. Stored in the sediments of these typically shallow and dynamic waterbodies are rich sources of paleoenvironmental information whose potential has not yet been fully exploited, likely because o...

Giant Mine, located in the city of Yellowknife (Northwest Territories, Canada), is a dramatic example of subarctic legacy contamination from mining activities, with remediation costs projected to exceed $1 billion. Operational between 1948 and 2004, gold extraction at Giant Mine released large quantities of arsenic and metals from the roasting of a...

Remote mining operations in Canada's Northwest Territories and Nunavut are supported by a 600km winter road, which spans the transition from subarctic boreal forest in Yellowknife to low Arctic tundra. Each year, thousands of truckloads of fuel, large equipment, and other heavy loads are hauled up the winter road. We investigated whether diesel emi...

Using a comparative spatial analysis of sediment cores from 8 lakes in tundra uplands adjacent to the Mackenzie Delta, NT, we examined how the presence of retrogressive thaw slumps on lake shores affected persistent organic pollutant (POPs, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine (OC) pesticides) accumulation in lake sediments...

Regions within the discontinuous permafrost zone of the southern Northwest Territories (Canada) are experiencing accelerated thaw of permafrost as a result of recent warming. We used remotely-sensed imagery (1947-2012) to track changes in the extent of peat plateau collapse around two study lakes: KAK-1 and TAH-7. Subfossil diatoms were analyzed fr...

Tathlina Lake (Northwest Territories, Canada) is a large, shallow ecosystem in the rapidly warming northern boreal forest. This lake is of considerable cultural and economic significance as it supports a commercially important walleye (Sander vitreus) fishery that has experienced large fluctuations since the 1940s, the causes of which are poorly un...

Anthropogenic stressors on freshwater aquatic ecosystems can impact cladoceran communities, which can have repercussions for the entire aquatic foodweb. High-latitude lakes are sensitive to even the smallest of ecological fluctuations. A sediment core was obtained from Pocket Lake, a small subarctic lake 10 km north of downtown Yellowknife, NT and...

Aim Shifts in the distribution of freshwater algal communities as a result of climate‐related limnological changes are well documented; however, impacts on higher trophic levels have received less attention. For example, little is known about how Cladocera (Crustacea, Branchiopoda), often dominant invertebrates and key ecological indicators, have r...

Low-lying Arctic coastal environments are threatened by marine storm surges, which are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity as a result of decreasing sea ice, rising sea levels and altered intensity and frequency of storm activity. The Mackenzie Delta of Canada’s Northwest Territories, a vast, low-lying wetland ecosystem, is particularl...

Low-lying Arctic coastal environments are threatened by marine storm surges, which are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity as a result of decreasing sea ice, rising sea levels and altered intensity and frequency of storm activity. The Mackenzie Delta of Canada's Northwest Territories, a vast, low-lying wetland ecosystem, is particularl...

Recent attention regarding the impacts of oil and gas development and exploitation has focused on the unintentional release of hydrocarbons into the environment, whilst the potential negative effects of other possible avenues of environmental contamination are less well documented. In the hydrocarbon-rich and ecologically sensitive Mackenzie Delta...

The combined effects of climate warming (i.e., increased storminess, reduced sea ice extent, and rising sea levels) make low-lying Arctic coastal regions particularly susceptible to storm surges. The Mackenzie Delta, a biologically significant and resource-rich region in northwestern Canada, is particularly vulnerable to flooding by storm surges. T...

1. Rapid environmental change occurring in high‐latitude regions has the potential to cause extensive thawing of permafrost. Retrogressive thaw slumps are a particularly spectacular form of permafrost degradation that can significantly impact lake–water chemistry; however, to date, the effects on aquatic biota have received little attention. 2. We...

Because of decreasing sea-ice extent and increasingly frequent Arctic storms, low-lying coastal ecosystems are at heightened risk from marine storm surges. A major Arctic storm event originating in the Beaufort Sea in September 1999 resulted in the flooding of a large area of the outer alluvial plain of the Mackenzie Delta (Northwest Territories, C...

Field data, remote sensing, and Inuvialuit knowledge were synthesized to document regional ecological change in the outer Mackenzie Delta and to explore the timing, causes, and implications of this phenomenon. In September 1999, a large magnitude storm surge inundated low-lying areas of the outer Mackenzie Delta. The storm was among the most intens...

An increase in the frequency and intensity of marine storm surges is a predicted consequence of climate warming, and therefore it is important to better understand the biological responses to such events in coastal regions. In late September 1999, a major storm surge resulted in a saltwater intrusion event over a large area of the Mackenzie Delta (...

We examined dated sediment cores from 14 thermokarst affected lakes in the Mackenzie Delta uplands, NT, Arctic Canada, using a case-control analysis to determine how retrogressive thaw slump development from degrading permafrost affected the delivery of mercury (Hg) and organic carbon (OC) to lakes. We show that sediments from the lakes with retrog...

Increased algal blooms are a threat to aquatic ecosystems worldwide, although the combined effects of multiple stressors make it difficult to determine the underlying causes. We explore whether changes in trophic interactions in response to declining calcium (Ca) concentrations, a water quality issue only recently recognized in Europe and North Ame...

One of the most ominous predictions related to recent climatic warming is that low-lying coastal environments will be inundated by higher sea levels. The threat is especially acute in polar regions because reductions in extent and duration of sea ice cover increase the risk of storm surge occurrence. The Mackenzie Delta of northwest Canada is an ec...

Seabirds represent a well documented biological transport pathway of nutrients from the ocean to the land by nesting in colonies and providing organic subsidies (feces, carcasses, dropped food) to these sites. We investigated whether seabirds that feed at different trophic levels vary in their potency as biovectors of metals, which can bioaccumulat...

Many arctic regions with abundant lakes and ponds are characterized by ice-rich terrain sensitive to thermokarst disturbance. In the Mackenzie Delta region, retrogressive thaw slumps commonly develop adjacent to tundra lakes and may impact several hectares of terrain. The numbers, size and growth rates of slumps have increased significantly since t...

Paleolimnological approaches using sedimentary diatom assemblages were used to assess water quality changes over the last approximately 200 years in three lakes from King's County, Nova Scotia. In particular, the role of recent shoreline development in accelerating eutrophication in these systems was assessed. Sediment cores collected from each lak...