Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Effect Of Mica Content On Surface Infiltration Of Soils In Northwestern Kern County, California, Steven Keyes Stakland

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A soils infiltration rate (IR) is the measured rate that soil is able to absorb water, either from precipitation or irrigation. A low IR can cause damage to crops if the necessary amount of water cannot penetrate to the plant roots in the time needed. The damage can be common in permanent plantings such as almond and pistachio orchards where regular tillage is avoided. This indicates a physical aspect to the problem because tillage increases IR. However, there is also an electrochemical side to infiltration problems because certain calcium surfactant treatments can increase IR. Various other methods have been used …

Estimates Of The Hydraulic Parameters Of Aquifers In Cache Valley, Utah And Idaho, Paul C. Inkenbrandt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Hydraulic parameters of aquifers in Cache Valley were compiled from existing but largely unpublished data, from specific capacity data reported in well drillers' records, and from aquifer tests conducted for this study. A GIS database was also created to organize this information.

A complete and thorough literature review was performed, which included obtaining unpublished aquifer test data from state and federal agencies, as well as reviewing Drinking Water Source Protection plans for each municipality in the valley.

Well drillers' records were obtained from the Utah Division of Water Rights website and examined for pertinent information. Screened unit intervals from 1,314 …

Feasibility Of Extending An Artificial Salmon Spawning Stream, Marx Creek Near Hyder, Alaska, Tom Nelson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Marx Creek, near Hyder in southeast Alaska, is a groundwater-fed, artificial salmon-spawning stream that was constructed to enhance the habitat of the atypically large chum salmon. The success of the upper Marx Creek has been limited primarily by the infiltration of silty water from the Salmon River through its flood-control dike, which results in a turbid stream environment that is not conducive to salmon spawning.

The purpose of this project was to determine whether baseflow from the groundwater system is sufficient to support a proposed 1,000-foot extension of Marx Creek. The extension would be constructed approximately 500 feet east of …

High-Resolution Holocene Alluvial Chronostratigraphy At Archaeological Sites In Eastern Grand Canyon, Arizona, Erin Margaret Tainer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Understanding the nature of Colorado River deposits in Grand Canyon helps reveal how the river responds to changes in its Colorado Plateau tributaries and Rocky Mountain headwaters. This study focused on Holocene alluvial deposits associated with archaeological sites excavated near Ninemile Draw in Glen Canyon and at Tanner Bar in eastern Grand Canyon. Two previously-developed conceptual models of deposition were tested based on previous work. Previous researchers have suggested that Holocene alluvial deposits in Grand Canyon are a series of inset aggradational packages that correlate to valley fills and arroyo-cutting cycles in Colorado Plateau tributaries and are laterally consistent throughout …

Examination Of Deformation In Crystalline Rock From Strike-Slip Faults In Two Locations, Southern California, David H. Forand

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Damage zones adjacent to or associated with faults are important to the geologic community because of their implications to hazards and their ability to preserve evidence for, and show history of, slip, fluid flow, and deformation associated with large strike-slip faults. We examine two fault zones in southern California where fault zone damage is expressed. We revisit the drilled crystalline core from the Cajon Pass California drill hole, 4 km northeast of the San Andreas fault (SAF), and 1 km north of the Cleghorn fault, to perform a systematic structural analysis of deformation and alteration associated with strike-slip faulting at …

Random Forests Applied As A Soil Spatial Predictive Model In Arid Utah, Alexander Knell Stum

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Initial soil surveys are incomplete for large tracts of public land in the western USA. Digital soil mapping offers a quantitative approach as an alternative to traditional soil mapping. I sought to predict soil classes across an arid to semiarid watershed of western Utah by applying random forests (RF) and using environmental covariates derived from Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and digital elevation models (DEM). Random forests are similar to classification and regression trees (CART). However, RF is doubly random. Many (e.g., 500) weak trees are grown (trained) independently because each tree is trained with a new randomly …