Many factors such as rift history, crustal structure and distribution of high thermal conductivity salt bodies throughout the sediment pile affect the present day thermal structure of the deepwater Scotian Slope. Understanding the basin's thermal evolution is crucial in determining the hydrocarbon maturation potential of this deepwater frontier basin. The Late Jurassic Verrill Canyon Formation of the deepwater slope has been inferred as the primary source rock interval for the Scotian Basin. However, to date, only twelve boreholes have sampled the Scotian Slope, and of these, none penetrate beneath the uppermost Jurassic sediments. Therefore, the distribution and maturation of deeper source rock intervals through standard vitrinite reflectance analysis remains unknown. In this study we attempt to better constrain the thermal history and maturation potential of the central Scotian Slope using a combination of recently acquired seafloor heat flow data, 2D seismic reflection data, available well data, simple lithospheric rift models and 3D thermal and petroleum systems modelling. We have derived a method of combining seafloor heat flow data with simple lithospheric rift models to provide first order constraints on the hydrocarbon maturation potential of frontier basins in dynamic 3D thermal models for regions lacking vitrinite reflectance and temperature data from boreholes. In July 2008, 47 seafloor heat flow measurements were acquired across the central Scotian Slope in an attempt to better constrain the region's thermal structure. Locations seaward of the salt diapiric province, thus unaffected by the high thermal conductivity of salt, recorded seafloor heat flow values of ~41-46 mWm-2. Significant increases in seafloor heat flow were noted for stations overlying salt diapiric structures, reaching values upwards of 72 mWm-2. The seafloor heat flow data have been corrected to remove the conductive effects of salt and the cooling effects of seafloor sedimentation on measured heat flow. The corrected data are compared with basal heat flux predictions from simple lithospheric rift models as constrained using crustal ( ) and lithospheric ( ) stretching factors after Wu (2007) to constrain heat flux history through time. Seafloor heat flow and simple modelling results suggest present day basal heat flux does not vary significantly across the slope. Present day basal heat flux across the central Scotian Slope is ~44-46 mWm-2. Basal heat flux curves from simple lithospheric rift models are used to constrain the heat flux history in 3D thermal and petroleum systems models of the central Scotian Slope. Numerous basal heat flux histories were tested to determine which heat flux history yielded the best match between modelled and measured seafloor heat flow data and to determine how varying basal heat flux affects the modelled hydrocarbon maturation of Verrill Canyon source rocks. The basal heat flux history which yielded the best match to measured seafloor heat flow data suggests that the Late Jurassic source rock interval rests primarily within the late oil window. Variations in radiogenic heat production across the margin associated with thickening continental crust were tested and suggest that significant variations in both maturation and seafloor heat flow may occur if radiogenic heat producing elements occur in high enough concentrations in the crust.

Research in the area of sociolinguistics, African Nova Scotian Ebonics, and literacy achievement never truly developed in Nova Scotia. Unlike previous literacy outcome research, this research study employs a qualitative content analysis and Critical Pedagogy to examine the process of assessment and the Linguistic Deficit Theory embedded within the education system. The sociolinguistic hierarchy of Standard English has caused numerous misconceptions, which impacts the Ebonics speech community across the African diaspora. Yet, previous research found that the promotion of code-switching between Standard English and Ebonics in an anti-racist empowering environment promotes higher literacy achievement among Ebonics speakers. My research findings suggest that the Nova Scotia education system has implemented cultural and linguistic diverse curriculum policies. However, the Linguistic Deficit Theory resurfaces in several sections of the assessment process. These findings suggest that future research should focus on in-classroom participation or observing the assessment practices for more detailed and generalizable findings.

The continental margin off Nova Scotia (the Scotian margin) forms the northern edge of the North American Basin. The Cenozoic stratigraphy and geological history of the outer margin is not well known. This study examines aspects of the Upper Cretaceous-Cenozoic geological history of the outer Scotian margin addressing the following objectives: 1) determine the geological history of a large deep-water depocenter, 2) investigate processes that led to deep-water unconformity formation in the study area, 3) determine the role of deep-ocean circulation in margin evolution, 4) examine the effects of morphological heritage on subsequent depositional patterns. High quality 2-D and 3-D seismic reflection data along with lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic data from hydrocarbon exploration wells provide the basis for this investigation. The seismic stratigraphy of a large deep-water depocenter along the western Scotian margin was broadly divided into four units. Unit 1 (Upper Cretaceous-Upper Eocene) is attributed to repeated, widespread erosion events interspersed with periods of hemipelagic and pelagic, carbonate-rich sedimentation. Unit 2 (Lower Oligocene-Middle Miocene) consists of a variety of seismic facies overprinted by dense, small-offset faults. Unit 3 (Middle Miocene-Upper Pliocene) is dominated by sediment drift deposition. Unit 4 (Upper Pliocene-present) is characterized by channel development and gravity flow deposition. The processes that led to regional seismic stratigraphic horizons were complex. Both large mass-wasting events and along-slope bottom currents contributed to the formation of unconformities in the study area. Most of the succession preserved in the depocenter belongs to seismic units 2 and 3. These deposits are mainly confined to the area seaward of the Abenaki carbonate bank and landward of shallow salt structures below the slope. Locally, however, modification of the slope profile through mass-wasting and bottom current processes greatly influenced subsequent depositional patterns. The Cenozoic geological evolution of the study area was strongly affected by northeast-to-southwest flowing bottom currents. The earliest indication of bottom current activity was in the Eocene. Upper Miocene and Pliocene sediment drifts represent >50% of the preserved stratigraphic section in the thickest part of the depocenter. It is clear that along-slope sedimentary processes were far more important in shaping the margin than previously understood.

The relationship between spawning stock biomass (SSB) and 3 spatial distribution metrics (SDMs), measuring range, concentration, and density, using fisheries independent survey data for 10 demersal Northwest Atlantic fish populations (9 species), show metrics of density offer the best correlate of SSB. The concave, positive relationship between high density area (HDA) and SSB indicates that a decline in HDAs beyond a spatial threshold is associated with disproportionately large SSB declines in 6 populations. HDAs might indicate highly productive areas and/or positive fitness consequences, enhancing the ability of individuals to successfully spawn, locate prey, and evade predators. HDAs can help to assess the status of a population’s spatial structure and serve as a spatial reference point. By comparing spatial reference point locations relative to existing biomass reference points (based on MSY), scenarios are described wherein spatial reference points contribute to biomass reference points and to a precautionary approach to fisheries management.

The meaning of and motivations behind self-identification is a contentious topic within “the Black community.” The thesis examines the articulation of “Black” and/or “African” identities as means of gaining access to Nova Scotia’s Black Business Initiative (BBI), a state-funded organization mandated with “fostering a dynamic and vibrant Black presence” in the Nova Scotian business community. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Halifax in 2013, including interviews with a diverse representation of 36 participants who self-identified as either "Black" or "African." Viewed as a rare redress effort directed toward and run by Blacks, the BBI is a highly visible site of contestation and competition between “indigenous Blacks” and more recently arrived “African Nova Scotians” from the African continent and Caribbean islands over the boundaries of native and foreign Blackness. The thesis argues that a group historically positioned as “Black” (i.e. Other) within a lasting narrative of displacement – both in the Americas in general, and academic diaspora discourse specifically – can be seen as adopting and adapting a discourse of indigeniety as an act of political and economic empowerment. Stuart Hall’s theoretical understanding of the articulation and positioning of Black identities is used to frame a discussion on the coupling of a distinct group’s lived experiences of subjugation and marginalization in place (i.e. Blackness) with a political and juridical ideology of belonging and entitlement to state recognition and resources (i.e. indigeniety) as a means of securing racially directed resources. It therefore challenges Paula Madden’s (2009) overly simplistic critique of this community as creating a hierarchy of Blackness and performing an erasure of Mi’kma’ki through its claims of Black indigeniety.

This study has collected and analysed a database of place-names containing potential ethnonymic elements. Competing models of ethnicity are investigated and applied to names about which there is reasonable confidence. A number of motivations for employment of ethnonyms in place-names emerge. Ongoing interaction between ethnicities is marked by reference to domain or borderland, and occasional interaction by reference to resource or transit. More superficial interaction is expressed in names of commemorative, antiquarian or figurative motivation. The implications of the names for our understanding of the history of individual ethnicities are considered. Distribution of Walh-names has been extended north into Scotland; but reference may be to Romance-speaking feudal incomers, not the British. Briton-names are confirmed in Cumberland and are found on and beyond the fringes of the polity of Strathclyde. Dumbarton, however, is an antiquarian coining. Distribution of Cumbrian-names suggests that the south side of the Solway Firth was not securely under Cumbrian influence; but also that the ethnicity, expanding in the tenth century, was found from the Ayrshire coast to East Lothian, with the Saxon culture under pressure in the Southern Uplands. An ethnonym borrowed from British in the name Cumberland and the Lothian outlier of Cummercolstoun had either entered northern English dialect or was being employed by the Cumbrians themselves to coin these names in Old English. If the latter, such self-referential pronouncement in a language contact situation was from a position of status, in contrast to the ethnicism of the Gaels. Growing Gaelic self-awareness is manifested in early-modern domain demarcation and self-referential naming of routes across the cultural boundary. But by the nineteenth century cultural change came from within, with the impact felt most acutely in west-mainland and Hebridean Argyll, according to the toponymic evidence. Earlier interfaces between Gaelic and Scots are indicated on the east of the Firth of Clyde by the early fourteenth century, under the Sidlaws and in Buchan by the fifteenth, in Caithness and in Perthshire by the sixteenth. Earlier, Norse-speakers may have referred to Gaels in the hills of Kintyre. The border between Scotland and England was toponymically marked, but not until the modern era. In Carrick, Argyll and north and west of the Great Glen, Albanians were to be contrasted, not necessarily linguistically, from neighbouring Gaelic-speakers; Alba is probably to be equated with the ancient territory of Scotia. Early Scot-names, recorded from the twelfth century, similarly reflect expanding Scotian influence in Cumberland and Lothian. However, late instances refer to Gaelic-speakers. Most Eireannach-names refer to wedder goats rather than the ethnonym, but residual Gaelic-speakers in east Dumfriesshire are indicated by Erisch­-names at the end of the fifteenth century or later. Others west into Galloway suggest an earlier Irish immigration, probably as a consequence of normanisation and of engagement in Irish Sea politics. Other immigrants include French estate administrators, Flemish wool producers and English feudal subjects. The latter have long been discussed, but the relationship of the north-eastern Ingliston-names to mottes is rejected, and that of the south-western Ingleston-names is rather to former motte-hills with degraded fortifications. Most Dane-names are also antiquarian, attracted less by folk memory than by modern folklore. The Goill could also be summoned out of the past to explain defensive remains in particular. Antiquarianism in the eighteenth century onwards similarly ascribed many remains to the Picts and the Cruithnians, though in Shetland a long-standing supernatural association with the Picts may have been maintained. Ethnicities were invoked to personify past cultures, but ethnonyms also commemorate actual events, typified by Sasannach-names. These tend to recall dramatic, generally fatal, incidents, usually involving soldiers or sailors. Any figures of secular authority or hostile activity from outwith the community came to be considered Goill, but also agents of ecclesiastical authority or economic activity and passing travellers by land or sea. The label Goill, ostensibly providing 178 of the 652 probable ethnonymic database entries, is in most names no indication of ethnicity, culture or language. It had a medieval geographical reference, however, to Hebrideans, and did develop renewed, early-modern specificity in response to a vague concept of Scottish society outwith the Gaelic cultural domain. The study concludes by considering the forms of interaction between ethnicities and looking at the names as a set. It proposes classification of those recalled in the names as overlord, interloper or native.