Faculty
Georgia Pe-Piper
Professor Emerita
Ph.D., (1971) Cambridge University
Phone: (902) 420 5744
Office: S438
Email: gpiper@smu.ca
Overview:
Georgia Pe-Piper was born in Greece, and gained her B.Sc. from the University of Athens, Greece and Ph.D. from Cambridge University, England. She then taught and did research at the University of Patras, Greece. She joined the Department of Geology at Saint Mary’s University in 1981, teaching a very wide range of courses and supervising many students. As department chair she introduced and fostered the Cooperative Education program in Geology. As the first Director of Graduate Studies and Research, she laid the groundwork for the present Faculty of the same name, and introduced the M.Sc. in Applied Science. She was the early promotor of, and helped initiate, the Environmental Studies program, later serving as Coordinator.
Her early research was on the igneous rocks of Greece and her book on this topic is widely used in Greek universities. In Nova Scotia, she continued research on the igneous rocks of the Cobequid Highlands and on volcanic rocks offshore. Twenty years ago, she redirected her skills in mineralogy to the Scotian Basin, where she developed new methods to define provenance and diagenesis of sandstone petroleum reservoirs and sedimentary basins in general. In 2018 she was appointed Professor Emerita. She continues with research and work with graduate students.
Research Interests
- Relationship of volcanism and plutonism to faulting, particularly in Greece and Atlantic Canada
- Diagenesis and provenance of the Cretaceous rocks, Scotian basin, using sedimentary petrology and geochemistry
- Mesozoic volcanism on the south eastern Canadian margin and its relationship to tectonics and to reservoir quality
- Petrogenesis, geochemistry and mineralization of igneous rocks of the Cobequid Highlands
Current Research Projects:
- Re-evaluation of igneous rocks and vein minerals in the Cliffs of Fundy Geopark
- Aspects of Neogene–Quaternary volcanism in Greece
- Tracking metasomatic fluids in deep-water limestones and blueschist metasediments in Greece