Digital Commons Network^™

Historic Log Buildings As Archives Of Past Forest Ecology, Kristen K. De Graauw

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation is composed of three separate but related manuscripts with the common theme of using historic log buildings from the central Appalachian Mountain region of eastern North America as ecological archives. In Chapter 1, I explore the biases, limitations, and ecological applications of tree-ring data from historic log buildings. European immigrants selected trees from a forested stand based on species, log sizes, and construction locations. Despite this selection bias, ecological information can be gleaned from historic log buildings, which offer a complementary record of past forest ecology and represent a site type that is not often associated with old-growth …

X-Ray Fluorescence Applications In Mudrock Characterization: Investigations Into Middle Devonian Stratigraphy, Appalachian Basin, Usa, Keithan Garrett Martin

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Mudrocks are characterized by nanometer-scale pore sizes and nano-darcy permeability, which plays a significant role in hydrocarbon flow during production. Resulting from these characteristics, mudrocks were exclusively considered a source rock, which charged overlying, more porous mediums. Hydraulic fracturing, a technology used to create artificial fractures to liberate hydrocarbons from the reservoir, enabled natural gas to be produced from mudrock reservoirs economically. Over the last fifteen years, this technology motivated research efforts to understand reservoir characteristics of mudrock. These investigations significantly improved our knowledge of mudrock systems, but have also highlighted key areas that are undeveloped and/or where conflicting hypotheses …

Peatlands And Histosols In Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, West Virginia, Mitzy Leigh Schaney

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Canaan Valley in West Virginia contains a greater area of peatlands than any other locality in the mid-Atlantic Highlands. Extensive fieldwork focused on peat stratigraphy and pedology, combined with high-resolution radiocarbon dating, was used to evaluate five peatlands within Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge (CVNWR) in the central Appalachian Mountains. One hundred soil cores were profiled and described, 30 with laboratory data, including 52 radiocarbon dates. Calibrated basal peat dates among the five mapped peatlands indicate a late Pleistocene timeframe for the onset of peat genesis, ranging from ~18,600 to ~15,200 cal yr BP. The dates for peat initiation are …

Compound-Specific Isotope Analysis Of Amino Acids In Biological Tissues: Applications In Forensic Entomology, Food Authentication And Soft-Biometrics In Humans, Mayara Patricia Viana De Matos

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In this work we demonstrate the power of compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) to analyze proteinaceous biological materials in three distinct forensic applications, including: 1) linking necrophagous blow flies in different life stages to their primary carrion diet; 2) identifying the harvesting area of oysters for food authentication purposes; and 3) the ability to predict biometric traits about humans from their hair.

In the first application, we measured the amino-acid-level fractionation that occurs at each major life stage of Calliphora vicina (Robineau-Desvoidy) (Diptera: Calliphoridae) blow flies. Adult blow flies oviposited on raw pork muscle, beef muscle, or chicken liver. Larvae, pupae …

Utilizing Lipid Biomarkers To Understand The Microbial Community Structure Of Deep Subsurface Black Shale Formations, Rawlings Akondi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The deep subsurface environment has been known to host microbes as early as 1926 and has also been suggested to potentially account for as much as 50% of the Earth`s biomass. Researchers have shown that microbes alter their membrane lipid components in response to physiological stress, producing stress indicative lipid biomarkers. However, little effort has been made to understand the subsurface microbial community of the shale ecosystem which is increasingly being exploited and altered by addition of drilling and hydraulic fluids to meet our growing energy needs. Phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) are microbial lipid biomarkers and are found in all …

Application Of Lidar To 3d Structural Mapping, Bertrand Gaschot

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The rugged, densely forested terrain of the West Virginia Appalachian Valley and Ridge Province has made it difficult for field-based studies to agree on the structure of the highly deformed Silurian-Devonian cover strata. In this study, we demonstrate a 3D approach to geologic mapping utilizing the structural information revealed in a “bare-earth” 1-m Lidar DEM of the Smoke Hole Canyon. The completed 3D map was integrated with kinematic forward modeling carried out in MOVE^TM to provide information on the parameters required to form the major structures observed. Additionally, land surface attributes generated using geomorphometric analysis of the Lidar allowed …

Beneath The Gypsum Dunes: Cenozoic History Of Wind And Water From A Core Drilled At White Sands, New Mexico, Jackson Bentley Jakeway

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

White Sands, New Mexico is the largest gypsum dune field on planet Earth, the result of reworking of gypsum deposits. The dunes have been well studied, but the Cenozoic history preceding the formation of the dune field has been poorly studied. A core drilled to a depth of 192 ft (58.5 m) beneath the modern dune field contains deposits from saline lakes, sandflats, perennial freshwater lakes, perennial brackish to saline lakes, and saline mudflats.

The core is composed of bottom-growth bedded gypsum, gypsum sandstone and siltstone, mixed siliciclastic-gypsum sandstones and siltstones, laminated siliciclastic mudstones, gypsum mudstones, and carbonate mudstones. Bottom-growth …

Petrophysical And Geomechanical Characterization Of The Marcellus Shale In The Appalachian Basin, Yixuan Zhu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In recent years, more and more attention is paid to shale gas and hydrocarbon liquids exploration and exploitation in unconventional reservoirs. With the development of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, production from unconventional reservoirs has been greatly increased. However, not all wells, regions and basins harbor highly successful shale gas and liquids producers. In order to improve the production efficiency and reduce the cost of projects, detailed analysis needs to be undertaken to characterize the reservoir. As opposed to conventional reservoirs, extraction of gas in the unconventional reservoir is dependent not only on the reservoir quality, but also on completion …

A Machine-Aided Seismic Signal Analysis Workflow For Subsurface Faults And Facies Visualization And Interpretation, South Central Anadarko Basin, Oklahoma, Wade Martin

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Seismic attribute analysis enhances the understanding of subsurface geology and has continually gained traction in the oil and gas industry since the 1970’s. Many seismic attributes are available for petroleum geoscientists. This research intends to provide insight to an analytical attribute workflow for rock property estimation in the Anadarko basin of Oklahoma that is prolific in oil and gas exploration, with a particular focus on seismic texture. 3-D volumes processed for seismic texture facies and structure enhance geophysical investigation and interpretation of amplitude data. This study will contribute valuable insight to reservoir studies and the potential for texture attribute well …

Structural Style And Stratigraphic Architecture Of The Northeastern Brooks Range, Alaska, Benjamin G. Johnson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The Arctic Alaska–Chukotka microplate is a large Mesozoic–Cenozoic composite terrane that resides at the northern limit of the North American Cordillera. Although its Mesozoic origins are assuredly linked to the opening of the Amerasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean, its Paleozoic origins can be linked to at least three separate paleocontinents, including northern Laurentia, Baltica, and Siberia. Across the Arctic Alaska portion of the microplate, an internal, mid-Paleozoic suture zone presumably separates rocks of the North Slope subterrane (Laurentian affinity) from a collection of smaller subterranes in the southern Brooks Range and Seward Peninsula (Baltic affinity).

The mountains of the …

Death-Defying Morphologies: Mass Extinction And Disparity In The Order Harpetida, James Desmond Beech

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The trilobite order Harpetida has long been easily recognized but poorly understood. This study seeks to better understand the phylogenetic relationships within Harpetida, with a view towards using this group to explore the relationship between extinction intensity and disparity. The harpetid response to the Late Ordovician mass extinction is of particular interest. A discrete morphological character matrix was created from the formal descriptions of harpetids in the published trilobite literature, and refined using first-hand observations of harpetid fossils. The final matrix consists of 76 discrete characters, including 69 cephalic characters, three thoracic characters, and four pygidial characters. This matrix is …

Discerning The Diets Of Sweep-Feeding Eurypterids Through Analyses Of Mesh-Modified Appendage Armature, Emily Samantha Hughes

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Eurypterids were a group of aquatic chelicerates that lived throughout most of the Paleozoic. While swimming eurypterids are generally considered to be active predators, the benthic stylonurine eurypterids appear to have had a mode of life similar to modern horseshoe crabs with the exception of two clades, the Stylonuroidea and the Mycteropoidea, both of which independently evolved modifications for sweep-feeding on their anterior appendages. Among extant suspension feeders, it has been shown that there is a linear correlation between the average spacing of feeding structures and prey sizes. This relationship was extrapolated to the sweep-feeding stylonuroid and mycteropoid eurypterids in …

Sediment Provenance Study Of The Lower Hamilton Group: An Analysis Of The Organic-Rich Facies And Its Depositional History, Luke Patrick Fritz

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Currently, insufficient geological models exist to explain the variability and distribution of TOC in the Marcellus Shale, within the Hamilton Group. TOC is one of the several limiting factors for natural gas production within the Marcellus Shale basin. One possible explanation for the low TOC regions is that detrital dilution was variable across the basin, with different sediment sources contributing detritus to low TOC areas, compared to surrounding regions with higher TOC. This hypothesis is tested by analyzing the source composition of inorganic detritus, using elemental and mineralogical proxies, with two cores in the Hamilton Group. The Armstrong #1 core …