Ashton spent almost his entire career working in the Canadian Arctic. His initial adventures involved teasing apart facies and stratigraphy of Devonian reefs, and the clastic wedge that records an outpouring of sediment during the Ellesmerian Orogeny. Following a brief stint in the oil patch, he migrated, like the trajectory of an advancing shoreline, to the Geological Survey of Canada where he honed his sequence stratigraphic skills on Sverdrup Basin, a long-lived (Late Carboniferous – Eocene) depocentre encompassing much of the eastern and central Arctic. Ashton was one of the main instigators of the Transgression-Regression (T-R) sequence stratigraphic model as a viable alternative (and according to him more objective) to the standard Exxon variety and its modifications. It was Ashton who suggested I work on the latest Cretaceous – Paleogene portion of Sverdrup Basin, that gave me the opportunity to work on Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg islands for several years. Thanks mate!

Birth: August 13, 1946

Education

1968                BSc (Hon)                   University of Manitoba

1970                MSc                             University of Calgary

Thesis: A late Devonian Reef Tract on Northeastern Banks Island, NWT

1976                PhD                             University of Calgary

Thesis: The Middle-Upper Devonian Clastic Wedge of the Franklinian Geosyncline

 

Employment

1970‑1972       Mobil Oil Canada, Exploration Geologist, Mackenzie Delta

1976‑1977       BP Canada, Exploration Geologist, Arctic Archipelago

1977‑1989       Geological Survey of Canada, Arctic Islands Research Scientist

1989‑1999       Geological Survey of Canada, Subdivision Chief

1999-2014       Geological Survey of Canada, Arctic Islands Research Scientist

2014-present     Retired

Publications: 110 papers in refereed journals, symposium volumes and GSC publications, 6 GSC maps; Co-editor of 5 symposium volumes