Digital Commons Network^™

Probing Earth Deformation In Response To Localized Hydrologic Mass Loading, Susitna River Basin, Alaska, Andrew Parker Keene

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Surface mass loading contributes a ubiquitous signal to GPS time series that can be modeled and removed for individual sources. We utilize nine GPS stations in the Susitna River watershed, Alaska, to investigate surface displacements from surface mass loading. We find that modeling atmospheric surface pressure and regional hydrologic mass reduces root mean square (RMS) error by 27-39% for all GPS time series. We observe moderate correlation between residual time series pairs and distance, with elevation differences influencing the strength of this correlation. Seasonal horizontal and vertical displacements are observed after removal of all loading models; stations displace downward and …

Development Along Rattlesnake Creek: An Assessment Of Stream Health, Channel Form, And Land Cover, Christopher D. Miller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Using existing water quality data, historical aerial photographs, and recent orthoimagery, this research assessed how the environmental conditions of Rattlesnake Creek near Missoula, Montana have changed over nearly 90 years of human alteration of the Rattlesnake valley. To characterize stream health, the following indicators were investigated: fish genetic composition and species distribution, water temperature, streamflow, and nutrient levels. Five overlapping aerial photos from 1929 were georectified and compared to 2015 orthoimagery to assess changes in channel form (particularly channel straightening) and land cover across the Rattlesnake Creek valley bottom. Results indicate that trout species in Rattlesnake Creek have hybridized, in …

Zero-Knowledge De Novo Algorithms For Analyzing Small Molecules Using Mass Spectrometry, Patrick Anthony Kreitzberg

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the analysis of mass spectra, if a superset of the molecules thought to be in a sample is known a priori, then there are well established techniques for the identification of the molecules such as database search and spectral libraries. Linear molecules are chains of subunits. For example, a peptide is a linear molecule with an “alphabet” of 20 possible amino acid subunits. A peptide of length six will have 20⁶ = 64, 000, 000 different possible outcomes. Small molecules, such as sugars and metabolites, are not constrained to linear structures and may branch. These molecules are …

Student's Self Discovery Of Right Triangle Trigonometry., Elizabeth Dereu

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Research has shown that right triangle trigonometry poses a significant learning challenge for high school geometry students. One potential source of this challenge is the tendency for students to experience right triangle trig as an exclusively action-oriented set of strategies (i.e. SOHCAHTOA). This article describes a teaching experiment where students built understanding of right triangle trig using a unique set of manipulatives and direct measurement. Results of the experiment show that the lessons provided opportunities for students to develop their understanding beyond action-oriented strategies.

A Hydrogen-Bond Stabilized Mechanism Of Oxygen Evolution In Photosystem Ii: A Proposed Computational Experiment, Christopher King

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The ability of plants to take in water and release oxygen into the atmosphere is crucial to the survival of life on Earth. During photosynthesis, water is oxidized to O₂ (dioxygen) at the Oxygen Evolving Complex (OEC) of Photosystem II. Structurally, the OEC resembles a box with an open lid, consisting of metal atoms (four manganese and one calcium) bridged by oxygen atoms. The mechanism of action of this complex, however, is not well understood. Various mechanisms have been proposed in recent years to explain how the OEC oxidizes water to dioxygen, but all of these mechanisms contain gaps …

Looking Past, Looking Forward: America's National Parks, Archaeology And Climate Change, Rachel Marie Blumhardt

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

America’s National Parks are rich with cultural history, flora, fauna and some of nature’s most impressive landscapes. As climate change continues to accelerate, these parks and their cultural and natural resources are being threatened. In this project, I will present a colorful, informational booklet that concentrates on 4 specific parks: Yellowstone National Park, National Park of American Samoa, Glacier Bay National Park and Mesa Verde National Park. I will focus on the archaeology and cultural significance of these parks, while also examining the ways that climate change is putting these, and other associated assets of the parks, at risk. I …

Through The Eyes Of Locals: A Changing Climate In Bolivia, Jacob D. Rex

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Deforestation and Agricultural Land-Use Change in Bolivia as a Function of Socio-Economic Realities.

This research combines semi-structured interviews of key informants and local participants, as well as field observations, which were conducted between January and April of 2019 in the Departments of Santa Cruz & Chuquisaca.

Utilization Of Various Methods And A Landsat Ndvi/Google Earth Engine Product For Classifying Irrigated Land Cover, Andrew Nemecek

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Methods for classifying irrigated land cover are often complex and not quickly reproducible. Further, moderate resolution time-series datasets have been consistently utilized to produce irrigated land cover products over the past decade, and the body of irrigation classification literature contains no examples of subclassification of irrigated land cover by irrigation method. Creation of geospatial irrigated land cover products with higher resolution datasets could improve reliability, and subclassification of irrigation by method could provide better information for hydrologists and climatologists attempting to model the role of irrigation in the surface-ground water cycle and the water-energy balance. This study summarizes a simple, …

Environmental Site Assessment And Hydrogeologic Impacts To Groundwater At St. Ignatius, Montana And Hanford, Washington, Ryan M. Carter

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The following Environmental Studies Master’s Portfolio is a compilation of works completed individually and with peers in order to fulfill requirements for the Master of Science degree. These works demonstrate range, depth, and the interdisciplinary nature of the course of study. As an undergraduate student at Eastern Washington University, I studied Environmental Science with a concentration in hydrogeology. I was interested in learning about the natural world and wanted to develop a deeper connection to it. Inevitably, I was exposed to courses that examined the causes and effects of hazardous waste site remediation, and this topic became my passion. The …

Avoiding Adverse Effects: New Ideas In Drug Discovery For Targeting Pparγ, Trey M. Patton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) has been a drug target to treat type 2 diabetes for the last 20 years when rosiglitazone and pioglitazone were approved by the FDA in 1999. While effective at increasing insulin sensitivity, these drugs cause serious adverse effects due to their full agonist characteristics. For that reason, drug discovery efforts have attempted to reduce or prevent the amount of agonist character of new PPARγ targeting ligands. Unfortunately, there have been no new FDA approved drugs for the receptor. There is a need for new ideas to produce better quality pharmaceuticals that lessen the impact of …

Development Of An Open-Source, Custom Environmental Data Logger For Spatially Scalable Data Collection, Tim Anderson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Characterizing the processes that lead to differences in ecosystem productivity and watershed hydrology across complex terrain remains a challenge. This difficulty can be partially attributed to the cost of installing networks of proprietary data loggers that monitor differences in the biophysical factors contributing to vegetation growth or hydrological processes. Studies that aim to compare concurrent time-series data sets across multiple locations must therefore balance the high cost of these data logger systems with the need for spatial resolution in their data. Here, we present the design, implementation, and case study for an open-source “Pinecone” data logger system, released under the …

Ice Flow Impacts The Firn Structure Of Greenland's Percolation Zone, Rosemary C. Leone

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

One dimensional simulations of firn evolution neglect horizontal transport as the firn column moves down slope during burial. This approach is justifiable near Greenland's ice divide, where ice flow is near vertical, but fidelity is lost in the percolation zone where horizontal ice flow advects the firn column through climate gradients. We simulate firn evolution processes under advection conditions using a transient, thermo-mechanically coupled model for firn densification and heat transfer with various schemes for meltwater penetration and refreezing. The simulations isolate processes in synthetic runs and investigate an ice core site and four transects of Greenland’s percolation zone. The …

A Dual State Hierarchical Ensemble Kalman Filter Algorithm, William J. Cook, Jesse Johnson, Marko Maneta, Doug Brinkerhoff

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Dynamic models that simulate processes across large geographic locations, such as hydrologic models, are often informed by empirical parameters that are distributed across a geographical area and segmented by geological features such as watersheds. These parameters may be referred to as spatially distributed parameters. Spatially distributed parameters are frequently spatially correlated and any techniques utilized in their calibration ideally incorporate existing spatial hierarchical relationships into their structure. In this paper, a parameter estimation method based on the Dual State Ensemble Kalman Filter called the Dual State Hierarchical Ensemble Kalman Filter (DSHEnKF) is presented. This modified filter is innovative in that …

Optimization Of Simulations In Opensimpplle, Robin Lockwood

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Computer software has become an integral tool in exploring scientific concepts and computational models. Models, such as OpenSIMPPLLE, use a complex set of rules developed by experts to predict the impact of fires, disease, and wildlife on large scale landscapes.

OpenSIMPPLLE’s simulations are time-consuming when projecting far into the future. OpenSIMPPLLE needs to execute more efficiently to allow for faster completion of simulations. The increase in speed will also enable users to run simulations with more timesteps in shorter periods. There are plenty of ways to accomplish this.

The work described here identifies three different methods for increasing efficiency. The …

The Impact Of Terrain And Other Factors On Wild Fires, Matthew L. Kingston

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Abstract - Wild fires have become an annual concern in the United States, and despite the vast amount of resources and manpower used to combat the spread of wild fires, the success rate tends to vary. With this in mind, a research project has commenced which is primarily aimed at discovering the relationship between environmental factors and wild fire growth, or lack of growth. This research analyzes data available in the Google Earth Engine and includes geographical features such as roads, elevation, and other factors like humidity and wind. Using Google Earth Engine programs, the goal is to establish meaningful …

Difference In Physical Traits Of Rocky Mountain Tailed Frogs In Burned And Unburned Streams, Daniel M. Franz

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

No abstract provided.

Community-Centered Sustainable Conservation And Ecotourism Planning In The Bossou Forest Reserve, Guinea, West Africa, Destina Samani

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Ecotourism management has evolved over the years towards responsible conservation of the natural environment, sustaining the well-being of local people, enriching personal experiences and increasing environmental awareness. The development of a forest reserve is characteristic of the management–visitor–host community interface and the attendant competing interests in the face of new challenges, ideas and theories. In particular, host community participation in the conservation of the forest space tends to breakdown under weak ecotourism management, partly evident by the imbalanced exploitation of ecosystem services resulting in wildlife and society’s inability to cope effectively with the changes (Walker et al., 2016).

The Bossou …

Influence Of Large Wood On Sediment Routing In A Mixed Bedrock-Alluvial Stream, Robin Welling

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Sediment storage by instream wood in forested mountain streams mediates sediment movement from hillslopes through the channel network and can alter channel morphology at multiple spatial scales. Mixed bedrock-alluvial channels are prevalent in mountain stream networks, yet the distribution and geomorphic impact of large wood within these streams are poorly understood. To estimate how the distribution of large wood in a mixed bedrock-alluvial stream relates to sediment storage, we measured and characterized large wood, and surveyed the volume of associated sediment within a stream in the Bitterroot Mountains, Montana. The upstream portion of the study reach is predominantly alluvial and …

Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of Nitrogen And Carbon Biogeochemistry In A Wetland-Stream Sequence, Patrick E. Hurley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Studies of aquatic ecosystems often segregate streams from the influential ponds, lakes, and wetland zones that act as important transitions between terrestrial and fluvial systems. Across the aquatic landscape, these zones interact to form linked ecosystems that function as discrete nutrient processing domains, shifting biogeochemical signals due to spatial and temporal variability in hydrologic and biologic controls. Using a mass-balance approach, we profiled nutrient dynamics along a 23-km wetland-stream sequence over three seasons. Hydrologic, morphologic, and biologic conditions, as well as landscape attributes, were quantified to determine potential controls on biogeochemical cycling in a tributary of the Upper Clark Fork …

The Quest Of Vision: Visual Culture, Sacred Space, Ritual, And The Documentation Of Lived Experience Through Rock Imagery, Aaron Robert Atencio

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This document will approach the multifaceted concepts that arise through the study of rock art and the cultivation of culture and belief through vision. Through this document the audience will encounter conceptual ideas regarding belief systems, ritual, experience, cognition, sacredness, and space/landscape — and how these are all essential dynamics that take place in the processes that cultivate the Shoshone visual culture. This document will employ an anthropological lens on the mentioned subject matters, while also approaching these concepts with an interdisciplinary curiosity of how they intermingle; creating a cohesive experience that focuses on these processes which empowered these people[s] …

High Dimensional Outlier Detection, Omid Khormali

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In statistics and data science, outliers are data points that differ greatly from other observations in a data set. They are important attributes of the data because they can dramatically influence patterns and relationships manifested by non-outliers. It is therefore very important to detect and adequately deal with outliers. Recently, a novel algorithm, the ROMA algorithm, has been proposed [11]. In this paper, we propose a modification of the ROMA algorithm that reduces its computational complexity from $O(n^2 m)$ to $O((n/(2^m-o(1)))^2 m)$ where $n$ is the number of data points and $m$ is the dimension of the space. And as …

An Assessment Of Fecal Water Contamination In The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Daniel Paul Pendergraph 5024527

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Wilderness water sources are often defined as pristine or high quality due to the lack of point source pollution. Non-point source pollution from recreation to water resources can be extensive and is well-studied in protected areas globally. Bacterial contamination, specifically fecal bacteria, poses a significant threat to human health because of the risk for outbreaks of illness and disease. Water sources in designated Wilderness areas are particularly vulnerable to fecal water contamination due to high volume of backpackers and lack of backcountry waste facilities. To estimate the occurrence of fecal water contamination in Wilderness water resources, an exploratory analysis was …

Statistical Modeling Of Influenza-Like-Illness In Montana Using Spatial And Temporal Methods, Benjamin A. Stark

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Studying air pollution and public health has been a historically important question in science. It has long been hypothesized that severe air pollution conditions lead to negative implications in basic human health. Primarily, areas thats are prone to severe degrees of human pollution are the focus of such studies. Such research relating to less populated areas are scarce, and this scarcity raises the question of how such pollution dynamics (human-made and natural) influence human health in more rural areas.

The aim of this study is to explore this hole in research; in particular we explore possible links between air pollution …

Colloidal And Truly Dissolved Metal(Loid)S In Wastewater Lagoons And Their Removal With Floating Treatment Wetlands, Lauren Sullivan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change is predicted to cause continuing declines in late-season streamflow, thus increasing the relative contribution of wastewater effluent to surface water flows. Wastewater effluent represents a critical point source of metal and metalloid contamination to aquatic ecosystems and wastewater lagoons are the most common wastewater treatment system in the rural United States. Although the fraction of total wastewater metals and metalloids in "dissolved" forms (defined here asnm) likely drives the potential for negative effects on receiving waters, this broad operational definition lumps truly dissolved solutes (nm) with small colloids and nanomaterials (1-450 nm; hereafter colloids). This size distinction may …

Silicone Wristbands As Passive Samplers For Quantitative Measurement Of Wood Smoke Exposure, Hannah J. Wright

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Human exposure to biomass smoke is a health concern worldwide. Although many studies have measured particulate matter in wood smoke as a health concern, exposure to mutagenic and carcinogenic volatile and semivolatile compounds remains understudied. This research introduces a novel method of quantitative measurement of exposure to these compounds using silicone wristbands. The study developed a method to extract analytes of interest from the wristbands and quantify a few volatile organic compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with known ill health effects, and then performed linear regressions between extracted levels and exposure to those analytes using controlled exposure studies. Results indicate …

Xflow: An Algorithm For Extracting Ion Chromatograms, Mathew M. Gutierrez, Rob Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Abstract: Mass spectrometry is a fundamental tool for modern proteomics. The increasing availability of mass spectrometry data paired with the increasing sensitivity and fidelity of the instruments necessitates new and more potent analytical methods. To that end, we have created and present XFlow, a feature detection algorithm for extracting ion chromatograms from MS1 LC-MS data. XFlow is a parameter-free procedurally agnostic feature detection algorithm that utilizes the latent properties of ion chromatograms to resolve them from the surrounding noise present in MS1 data. XFlow is designed to function on either profile or centroided data across different resolutions and instruments. This …

Soil Moisture Drives Canopy Water Content Dynamics In The Western U.S., Drew S. Lyons

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Drought stress is a major contributing factor to adult tree mortality and limits regeneration across the globe. Drought effects are often studied on a site level, but recent advances in remote sensing allow for observations of plant water status across broader geographic scales. The vegetation optical depth (VOD) derived from satellite sensor microwave backscatter has been shown to be sensitive to canopy water content, and can therefore provide useful information on how plant water status changes over time. We develop an index which quantifies the normalized difference between diurnal VOD retrievals (nVOD) across the western U.S. to determine where plant …

Methods For Estimating Mountain Goat Occupancy And Abundance, Molly Mcdevitt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Abundance and occupancy are two parameters of central interest to the field of ecology. Furthermore, accurate (both precise and unbiased) estimates are key pieces to the puzzle of effective wildlife management decision-making. While there exist a variety of sampling techniques and statistical models for effectively estimating population parameters for frequently encountered and large mammals, methods for sampling unmarked and rare species are few and far between. The first step to acquiring usable parameter estimates is through the use of sampling theory and incorporation of probabilistic sampling designs to collect count-data and occurrence-data. Often, it is assumed that probabilistic sampling designs …

The Application Of Contemporary Numerical Methods To The Modeling, Analysis, And Uncertainty Quantification Of Glacier Dynamics, Jacob Zachary Downs

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Warming temperatures have led to accelerating ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet, contributing to global sea level rise. Understanding the stability of the Greenland ice sheet to further warming is crucial to estimating rates of sea level rise over the next century. Estimating sea level rise is complicated by uncertainties in the physical mechanisms governing ice motion as well as uncertainties in the broader Arctic climate system of which the ice sheet is an integral part. In chapter 2, we focus on how surface melt water input to the ice sheet bed influences the rate of basal sliding, which …

A Record Of The Precambrian-Cambrian Transition In Sw Montana: A Late Neoproterozoic To Early Cambrian Stratigraphic Window, Fortunian Biostratigraphic Assemblage And Treptichnus Pedum, R. Reid Trippe

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study documents a Late Neoproterozoic through Early Cambrian stratigraphic record in the Humbolt anticline of southwestern Montana. The Precambrian-Cambrian transition includes a Fortunian-aged biostratigraphic trace-fossil assemblage with the ichnofossil Treptichnus pedum. The Humbolt anticline represents an inverted paleo-graben that exposes a stratigraphic window interpreted to be a record of rifting along the Cordilleran miogeoclinal margin, linked with the breakup of the Rodinia supercontinent. The graben subsided and captured sediment during late-stage rifting and final-stage dissociation along the rift margin. Its structural axis paralleled the rift margin. Sevier/Laramide orogenic thrusting inverted the graben into the Humbolt anticline. The Late …