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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Petrogenesis Of The Linked River Mountains Volcanic Section And Wilson Ridge Pluton, Denise Kelly Honn Aug 2012

Petrogenesis Of The Linked River Mountains Volcanic Section And Wilson Ridge Pluton, Denise Kelly Honn

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The River Mountains (RM) volcanic suite and Wilson Ridge pluton (WRP), in the northern Colorado River extensional corridor of southern Nevada and northwestern Arizona, provide an ideal opportunity to investigate one of the most fundamental questions in igneous petrology: Do volcanic rocks erupt from subjacent plutons and do plutons vent to form volcanic fields? The RM volcanic suite (14.47± 0.26 to 12.66 ± 0.54 Ma; uncertainties are 2sigma) consists of a stack of andesite and rhyolite sills beneath a stratovolcano that primarily erupted dacite with lesser volumes of basalt and rhyolite. This volcanic suite is cored by a multiphase quartz …


Land Surface Brightness Temperature Modeling Using Solar Insolation, Haroon Stephen, Sajjad Ahmad, Thomas C. Piechota Jan 2010

Land Surface Brightness Temperature Modeling Using Solar Insolation, Haroon Stephen, Sajjad Ahmad, Thomas C. Piechota

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Retrieval of land surface emissivity and temperature from microwave brightness temperature data is a complex problem. The diurnal variation of temperature due to the diurnal cycle of solar radiation and weather conditions makes this problem even more challenging. In this paper, we use solar radiation in modeling the temporal variation of the brightness temperature state of the surface. Solar insolation modeling is used to estimate the diurnal variation of land surface brightness temperature. Solar radiation and brightness temperature are linked through temperature of the surface which is derived based on the radiation balance equation. The temperature state model behaves consistent …


Tree Canopy Types Constrain Plant Distributions In Ponderosa Pine- Gambel Oak Forests, Northern Arizona, Scott R. Abella Feb 2009

Tree Canopy Types Constrain Plant Distributions In Ponderosa Pine- Gambel Oak Forests, Northern Arizona, Scott R. Abella

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Trees in many forests affect the soils and plants below their canopies. In current high-density southwestern ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests, managers have opportunities to enhance multiple ecosystem values by manipulating tree density, distribution, and canopy cover through tree thinning. I performed a study in northern Arizona ponderosa pine-Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) forests to measure the influences of tree canopy types on understory plant communities and soil properties. On ten 2.5-acre (1-ha) sites, I sampled five 43-ft2 (4-m2) plots below each of the following five canopy types: openings; single ponderosa pine; and Gambel oak single stems, dispersed clumps, and thickets. …


Estimating Soil Seed Bank Characteristics In Ponderosa Pine Forests Using Vegetation And Forest-Floor Data, Scott R. Abella, Judith D. Springer Sep 2008

Estimating Soil Seed Bank Characteristics In Ponderosa Pine Forests Using Vegetation And Forest-Floor Data, Scott R. Abella, Judith D. Springer

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Soil seed banks are important for vegetation management because they contain propagules of species that may be considered desirable or undesirable for site colonization after management and disturbance events. Knowledge of seed bank size and composition before planning management activities facilitates proactive management by providing early alerts of exotic species presence and of abilities of seed banks to promote colonization by desirable species. We developed models in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests in northern Arizona to estimate the size and richness of mineral soil seed banks using readily observable vegetation and forestfloor characteristics. Regression models using three or fewer predictors …


Species Richness And Soil Properties In Pinus Ponderosa Forests: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis, Daniel C. Laughlin, Scott R. Abella, W. Wallace Covington, James B. Grace Jan 2007

Species Richness And Soil Properties In Pinus Ponderosa Forests: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis, Daniel C. Laughlin, Scott R. Abella, W. Wallace Covington, James B. Grace

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Question: How are the effects of mineral soil properties on understory plant species richness propagated through a network of processes involving the forest overstory, soil organic matter, soil nitrogen, and understory plant abundance? Location: North-central Arizona, USA. Methods: We sampled 75 0.05-ha plots across a broad soil gradient in a Pinus ponderosa (ponderosa pine) forest ecosystem. We evaluated multivariate models of plant species richness using structural equation modeling. Results: Richness was highest at intermediate levels of understory plant cover, suggesting that both colonization success and competitive exclusion can limit richness in this system. We did not detect a reciprocal positive …


The Geology And Structural Significance Of The Arch Mountain Area, Northern Black Mountains, Mohave County, Arizona, Edward Eschner May 1989

The Geology And Structural Significance Of The Arch Mountain Area, Northern Black Mountains, Mohave County, Arizona, Edward Eschner

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Arch Mountain area of northwestern Mohave County, Arizona, is typified by rocks that range from Precambrian to Quatemary in age. Arch mountain is a north-trending horst bounded on the west by the Petroglyph Wash graben and on the east by the Virgin Basin. A low-angle normal fault, herein named the Arch Mountain detachment fault, is exposed for 6 km along strike just below the ridge crest of Arch Mountain, and it is typified by a 2-20 cm thick zone of hematite-impregnated breccia and cataclasite. The detachment fault places an upper plate of Precambrian gneiss, Paleozoic quartzite, shale and dolomite, …