A return to Mount Meager—this time focusing on risk reduction, sediment hazards, and what can be done to protect downstream communities. Jeff talks with resilience researcher Veronica Woodruff about sediment‑rich rivers, engineered logjams, and the human side of hazard mitigation.

Whimsical Wavelengths: deep‑dive conversations where a working scientist unpacks how we know what we know, one paper, one idea, or whimsical detour at a time.

Two weeks ago, Dr. Glyn Williams‑Jones walked us through Meager’s eruptive history and why the mountain is unstable due to geothermal alteration, permafrost melt, and retreating glaciers. It's the the site of Canada’s largest recorded landslide.

Today, we shift from volcanic behaviour to risk reduction, exploring what can be done to protect downstream communities like Pemberton from increasing sediment loads, changing river dynamics, and rising flood hazards.

Our guest, Veronica Woodruff—environmental professional, resilience researcher, and UVic alum—joins Jeff to discuss how hazards, sediment, and human decision‑making intersect in the Lillooet River system. Veronica’s work focuses on the human side of natural hazards: communication, community resilience, and the challenge of turning scientific data into meaningful action.

We dig into how the 2010 landslide dramatically increased sediment supply, creating braided channels, altering flow paths, and raising flood risk. With climate‑driven changes to snowpack, melt timing, and extreme rainfall, these challenges are only growing.

A major focus of this episode is mitigation—what can actually be done. We explore a range of strategies, from behavioural changes to engineered solutions, including one of the most promising tools: engineered logjams (ELJs). These structures mimic natural wood accumulations, slowing water, trapping sediment, and helping stabilize channels without over‑engineering the landscape. ELJs are emerging as a key approach for reducing long‑term flood hazards in sediment‑rich rivers like the Lillooet.

Topics Covered

• Mount Meager’s instability and geologic setting
• The 2010 landslide and its long‑term impacts
• Sediment hazards, braided rivers, and flood risk
• Human modifications to river systems
• Risk communication and community resilience
• Engineered logjams as a mitigation strategy
• How to advocate for proactive hazard reduction

Guest Veronica Woodruff — environmental professional, resilience researcher, and advocate for community‑driven hazard mitigation.

Veronica's book: "BLIND DRUNK A sober look at our boozy culture"

Links

Previous episode

Veronica & Glyn’s Whistler talk

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Canada has volcanoes — and one of the most hazardous sits just 150 kilometres north of Vancouver.

In this episode of Whimsical Wavelengths, host Jeffrey Zurek is joined by volcanologist Dr. Glynn Williams-Jones, Professor of Earth Sciences at Simon Fraser University, for an in-depth look at Mount Meager, one of Canada’s most active — and least understood — volcanic systems.

Mount Meager is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, the same tectonic chain that includes Mount St. Helens and Mount Baker. Subduction zones don’t stop at international borders, and neither do volcanic hazards. Together, we unpack why Mount Meager qualifies as a Cascade volcano, how magma is generated beneath western Canada, and why this system deserves far more public attention than it receives.

The episode explores Meager’s most recent eruption approximately 2,400 years ago, an explosive event comparable in style (though smaller in magnitude) to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. That eruption produced ash columns, pumice falls, lava domes, and fast-moving pyroclastic density currents that travelled into the Lillooet River valley.

One of the most striking outcomes was a natural damming of the river by volcanic deposits, creating a temporary lake that later failed catastrophically. The resulting outburst flood left lasting geological evidence still visible in the landscape today — a reminder that volcanic hazards don’t end when eruptions stop.

But eruptions aren’t the only concern.

Mount Meager is also the site of Canada’s largest recorded landslide, which occurred in 2010 and involved roughly 53 million cubic metres of rock. Volcanic alteration, steep topography, glaciers, and climate-driven instability combine to make landslides one of the most immediate risks associated with the volcano — even during periods of volcanic quiet.

We discuss how scientists monitor Mount Meager today, including seismic networks, satellite measurements, and visual observations, as well as why many Canadian volcanoes remain under-instrumented compared to similar systems elsewhere in the world.

Along the way, the conversation touches on scientific mentorship, the realities of academic research, and why understanding volcanic risk is less about fear and more about preparedness, communication, and informed decision-making.

If you think Canada doesn’t have dangerous volcanoes, this episode may change your mind.

Besure to check out the center for natural hazards at SFU

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This is a reflective, end-of-year historical deviation. From wandering stars and stubborn philosophers to lost planets, national rivalries, and Pluto’s demotion, this episode explores how we learned what the planets are and why the process matters as much as the answer.

You see every once in a while, Whimsical Wavelengths takes a historical deviation. This is one of those episodes.

Instead of cutting-edge research, this solo episode steps back to ask a bigger question: how did we actually figure out what the planets are, and what does that process tell us about how science works?

From the wandering lights tracked by Babylonian astronomers over 3,000 years ago, to Greek ideas of moving stars, to the long-lived geocentric universe of Ptolemy, we trace how humanity slowly built models of the solar system. Along the way, we meet Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, and see how new tools, better measurements, and sometimes better messengers reshaped our understanding of the cosmos.

This episode also digs into one of science’s most fascinating detective ensure stories: the discovery of Neptune. Using nothing but mathematics and Newton’s laws, astronomers predicted the existence of a new planet before anyone had ever seen it. The result was a mix of brilliance, nationalism, bruised egos, and a controversy that still makes historians uncomfortable.

From there, we follow the trail to Pluto, Planet X, and the lingering idea that the solar system might still be hiding something. We look at how bad data can lead to compelling but wrong conclusions, why Pluto never solved the problem it was meant to, and how modern observations have resurrected the question in the form of Planet Nine.

Along the way, this episode touches on:

• Why ancient astronomers called planets “wandering stars”
• How telescopes changed everything, and why early ones were still not enough
• Why stellar parallax took centuries to measure
• How people, politics, and pride shape scientific progress
• Why Pluto was discovered, celebrated, and eventually reclassified
• And why the idea of a missing planet refuses to die

This is not just a story about planets. It’s a story about how science moves forward: imperfectly, collaboratively, and sometimes reluctantly, as better data forces us to let go of comfortable ideas.