Getting from point A to point B using your smartphone’s web mapping application with the familiar pulsing blue dot is part of our daily lives — thanks to satellite system receivers that use global positioning systems (GPS) to give location and time information. Positioning technology is evolving, and today a typical smartphone can pinpoint a person’s location within a few metres, which is adequate for most personal use. But for a future that includes autonomous driving, precision agriculture and natural disaster early warning systems, centimetre-level accuracy will be crucial.

In a modest laboratory tucked away in Ottawa’s forested suburbs, a team of researchers from Natural Resources Canada is testing new technology that could have a big environmental impact more than 3,000 kilometres away in the Alberta oil sands — direct contact steam generation.

Canada’s boreal caribou are running a race against time. Their numbers have decreased by more than 30 percent over the past 20 years, and they are now officially listed as threatened under the federal Species at Risk Act.

Scientists have long wondered, Why exactly does hydraulic fracturing cause earthquakes in some places but not in others? Now our scientists are a step closer to the answer: new research has found a link between these induced earthquakes and the deformation rate of the tectonic plates.

The western Canadian Arctic has one of the most rapidly changing coastlines in the country. Our research is examining how climate change is affecting this vulnerable coastline.

Natural Resources Canada works with Parks Canada to create a Carbon Atlas.

Media reports of earthquakes often identify their epicentre as a single point on a map. This may be accurate for small earthquakes. But for large ones, the seismic energy is released from a large surface, not a point on a map.

When it comes to weather, it’s not just storms that get our attention. The same is true of space weather and the geomagnetic activity produced by the sun.

With all of the tools, supplies and gear that fire managers need, the last thing you would expect them to take to a wildfire is a book.

The last time a volcano erupted in Canada was 150 years ago.