Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Isotopic Insights Into Water Of Condensation, Cross-Formation Water Flow, And Natural Hydrocarbon Migration In Sedimentary Basins, Lisa J. Molofsky

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation applies geochemical tools to track the movement, transformation, and behavior of water and gases in hydrocarbon-bearing sedimentary basins. During petroleum exploration and production, hydrocarbons are generated at the surface along with other fluids naturally present in the formation, such as formation water. In addition, where hydraulic fracturing is used to stimulate shale gas and oil production, a percentage of the injected fracturing fluid also returns to the surface. Understanding the origin and movement of these water sources, as well as targeted and non-targeted hydrocarbon gases is critical to evaluating reservoir performance and properly managing fluids at the surface. …

Rock-Fluid Interaction And The Incorporation Of Cations Into Calcite During Recrystallization In Multiple Hydrothermal Systems., Van Anh Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations

Fluid-rock interaction causes an exchange of isotopes or elements through various reactions. The rate of these reactions strongly depends on temperature. The interaction involves dissolution precipitation, chemical exchange reactions, redox reactions, diffusion, and their combinations. The goal of studying fluid-rock interaction is to understand the change in mineral chemistry of the rock materials when in contact with an aqueous solution. These processes occur in all regions of the Earth where aqueous solutions are found. This work is comprised of three independent studies which provide an understanding about crystallization processes under multiple hydrothermal conditions with geological and environmental applications.

In the …

Investigating The Impact Of Meteoric Diagenesis On The Geochemistry Of Carbonate Eolianites, Eleuthera And Water Cay, The Bahamas, Graham S. Bonnot

LSU Master's Theses

The geochemical signatures imparted in major, minor, and trace elements, combined with light isotopes, suggest promising applications regarding the stabilization of meteorically altered limestone eolianites. Previous high-resolution studies have indicated that elements associated with carbonate diagenesis such as Mg and Sr can be valuable proxies for salinity and aragonite dissolution, respectively. In addition to testing these proxies, the analyses of several temperature-, diagenetic-, bioactive-, and redox-sensitive elements were evaluated using laser ablation inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) to identify additional indicators during carbonate diagenesis. Two geochemical drivers of U were identified; (1) aragonite dissolution similar to Sr and (2) oxidation …

Miocene-Pleistocene Diatom Oxygen Isotope And Biogenic Silica Record From Iodp Site U1523, Ross Sea, Antarctica, Donald James Mclennan

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) plays a significant role in Earth’s climate. WAIS is currently retreating due to changes in wind-driven oceanic currents resulting in an increasing flux of warm waters to ice margins. Brine rejection in the Ross Sea is also major source of High Salinity Shelf water (HSSW) and Antarctica Bottom Waters (AABW), which creates a stratified ocean and plays a significant role in regulating Earth’s climate. Currently, there are very limited proxies that can quantify the variable input of HSSW formation on geologic time scales. Here we provide a 18Odiatom and biogenic silica (BSi) record which …

Characterizing Peridotite Xenoliths From Southern Vietnam: Insight Into The Underlying Lithospheric Mantle, Kirby Hobbs

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Extrusion tectonics has been invoked to explain the extensive basaltic magmatism that has erupted over Indochina within the last 17 Ma. The basalts display two-stage eruptive cycles consisting of tholeiites followed by alkaline basalts. Lithospheric mantle xenoliths recently sampled from the alkaline basalts of two volcanic centers, Pleiku and Xuan Loc, primarily consist of fertile spinel lherzolites, and Xuan Loc also contains refractory spinel harzburgites. We measured major elements in xenolith mineral separates, trace elements in clinopyroxenes and orthopyroxenes, and Pb-Sr-Nd isotopic compositions in clinopyroxenes to determine the origin and history of the subcontinental lithospheric mantle (SCLM) beneath Vietnam. Most …

Temporal Transport Dynamics Of The Amazon River Plume Revealed Using Radium Isotope Analysis, Elana J. Ames

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Amazon River is the largest river by discharge in the world. It carries terrestrial nutrients into the Western Tropical North Atlantic via a buoyant freshwater plume, conveying water hundreds to thousands of kilometers away and driving critical biogeochemical cycles near the coast. Factors controlling the delivery of nutrients offshore by the plume are complicated and interconnected, yet these nutrients impact the foundation of phytoplankton community structures across the entire plume ecosystem. To better understand the temporal dynamics of this massive, highly influential region, we employ naturally occurring radium isotopes (223Ra, 224Ra, 226Ra, and 228Ra) to analyze mixing and transport …

Identification Of The Causes And Extent Of Elevated Methane Concentrations In The Groundwater Of Eastern Kentucky, Cristopher Alvarez Villa

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

Recent development of unconventional oil and gas (UOG) resources has prompted concerns about its potential impact on public health and the quality of water and air resources. Elevated dissolved methane concentrations (> 1 mg/L) have been associated with proximity to UOG development and stray gas, but also with natural microbial activity. Baseline gas data, local hydrogeology and geochemistry context can aid assessment of methane sources and interactions. Methane concentrations in eastern Kentucky groundwater are above the “immediate action” level in some private/domestic water wells, show wide variations over small distances, and have been hypothesized to have different relationships to mining. …

Characterizing Hydrothermal System Groundwater Dynamics Using Conservative And Non-Conservative Tracers: Insights And Implications Drawn From Study At The Taupo Volcanic Zone (New Zealand) And Valles Caldera (Usa), Joshua Michael Blackstock

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hydrothermal systems constitute an important component of heat and mass transport within Earth’s crust having direct and indirect impacts to society. Investigating contemporary hydrochemical differences and change are critical to evaluating and deconvolving factors that influence geothermal systems through time. In this dissertation, groundwater mixing approaches were used to study hydrochemical differences in two globally significant hydrothermal areas, which included fabrication of a low-cost dissolved CO2 monitoring for dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). In the Taupo Volcanic Zone (New Zealand), empirical spatial relations were used to derive low-temperature groundwater end-members of Cl and Cl/Br for end-member mixing analysis (EMMA). Using EMMA, …

The Potential Of Radium-224 As A Tracer Of Timescales Of Gulf Of Mexico Crude Oil Exposure To The Marine Environment, Matthew T. Kurpiel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Petroleum pollution in the marine environment can be deleterious to coastal and marine ecosystems and can have sustained effects for years. While oil slicks on the surface of the ocean are tracked with relative ease using satellite-based technology, deep sea, neutrally-buoyant hydrocarbon plumes remain exceedingly difficult to track. We provide evidence for the utility of Ra-224 as a potential hydrocarbon tracer to determine the marine exposure time of crude oil. We employed time course incubations to constrain a time dependent Ra-224 release signature and tested a variety of timescales, temporal resolutions, oil sources, seawater, and experimental treatments to determine potential …

Tree-Ring Isotopes Adjacent To Lake Superior Reveal Cold Winter Anomalies For The Great Lakes Region Of North America, Steven L. Voelker, Simon S.-Y Wang, Todd E. Dawson, John S. Roden, Christopher J. Still, Fred J. Longstaffe, Avner Ayalon

Earth Sciences Publications

Tree-ring carbon isotope discrimination (Δ¹³C) and oxygen isotopes (δ¹⁸O) collected from white pine (Pinus strobus) trees adjacent to Lake Superior show potential to produce the first winter-specific paleoclimate reconstruction with inter-annual resolution for this region. Isotopic signatures from 1976 to 2015 were strongly linked to antecedent winter minimum temperatures (T_min), Lake Superior peak ice cover, and regional to continental-scale atmospheric winter pressure variability including the North American Dipole. The immense thermal inertia of Lake Superior underlies the unique connection between winter conditions and tree-ring Δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O …

The Geotraces Intermediate Data Product 2017, Reiner Schlitzer, Robert F. Anderson, Elena Masferrer Dodas, Maeve Lohan, Walter Geibert, Alessandro Tagliabue, Andrew Bowie, Gregory A. Cutter, Peter N. Sedwick, Bettina Sohst

OES Faculty Publications

The GEOTRACES Intermediate Data Product 2017 (IDP2017) is the second publicly available data product of the international GEOTRACES programme, and contains data measured and quality controlled before the end of 2016. The IDP2017 includes data from the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, Southern and Indian oceans, with about twice the data volume of the previous IDP2014. For the first time, the IDP2017 contains data for a large suite of biogeochemical parameters as well as aerosol and rain data characterising atmospheric trace element and isotope (TEI) sources. The TEI data in the IDP2017 are quality controlled by careful assessment of intercalibration results and …

Giant Plagioclase In The Steens Basalt, Se Oregon: Cumulate Entrainment Revealed By Textural And In Situ Chemical Analysis, Conner H. Toth

All Master's Theses

Many of the lava flows comprising the Steens Basalt in SE Oregon, the oldest and most mafic formation of the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG), contain exceptionally large (up to 5 cm) and abundant (up to 40 modal %) plagioclase crystals. This thesis presents a model for giant plagioclase formation in a complex system that integrates petrographic and in situ plagioclase compositional analyses with whole-rock data and computational modeling to explain systematic textural and chemical differences between plagioclase of the lower and upper Steens Basalt sub-sections. Lower Steens plagioclase are typically more chemically homogenous than upper Steens plagioclase and exhibit …

A New Method For Ultra-Low Sulfate Extraction And A Pilot Study In Arid Soils, Marisela Montelongo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Sulfur in soils is a crucial nutrient for all organisms including plants. Sulfate (SO42-), a water soluable anion, is a good source of this important element. Because of the importance of sulfur for agriculture, the use of sulfate has been well studied in temperate climate zones, and it is generally accepted that microbes play a critical role in controlling the availability of sulfate. Organically bound sulfur, such as sulfate esters and carbon-bonded sulfur, compounds that are generated and decomposed by microbes, are essential sulfur sources for plants under these conditions. For arid environments, knowledge of sulfate turnover in soils by …

Evaluation Of Cryptic Sulfur Cycling In Marine Sediments, Michael Ngari Mathuri

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Despite the importance of marine sediments as a carbon sink and many efforts to integrate microbiological with geochemical and geological data, the understanding of microbial organic carbon mineralization processes in marine sediments remains incomplete. There is growing evidence for the existence of an unrecognized oxidative sulfur cycling (cryptic sulfur cycling) above, within and below of the main sulfate reduction zone. For example, sulfate exists in supposedly sulfate-free methanogenic marine sediments from the Aarhus Bay and Black Sea. This implies that sulfur cycling is an ongoing process in the deep biosphere. Quantification of cryptic sulfur cycling is a major challenge because …

A Stable Isotope Investigation Of Pollen From Pinery Provincial Park, Southwestern Ontario, Canada, Deana M. Schwarz

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Pollen is a useful proxy for reconstructing paleoclimate; however, the relationship between its stable isotopic composition and the environment in which it forms is still poorly understood. We examine the stable oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen isotope compositions of pollen from tree (coniferous and deciduous), grass (C₃ and C₄), and marsh species from Pinery Provincial Park, Ontario, and its environs, and maple and oak tree species from eight localities across the United States of America, to (i) determine the major environmental influences on pollen δ¹⁸O, δ¹³C, and δ¹⁵N values, (ii) examine the …

Geochemical And Petrological Studies On The Origin Of Nickel-Copper Sulfide Mineralization At The Eagle Lntrusion In Marquette County, Michigan, Benjamin Davis Hinks

Masters Theses

The Eagle magmatic intrusion is located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in Marquette County. It hosts a high grade magmatic nickel-copper sulfide ore deposit. Country rocks surrounding the Eagle intrusion are metamorphosed slate and greywacke of the Proterozoic Michigamme Formation and Archean granite-gneiss. The aim of this thesis is to characterize the magmatic sulfide mineral deposit at Eagle and to establish its relationship to the surrounding host rocks of the Baraga Basin area.

The Eagle East intrusion is located 600 meters east of the Eagle intrusion. These two intrusions are similar in composition and sulfide mineralization. Sulfide textural domains …

Taxonomy, Location Of Origin, And Health Status Of Proboscideans From Western Canada Investigated Using Stable Isotope Analysis, Jessica Z. Metcalfe, Fred Longstaffe, Christopher N. Jass, Grant D. Zazula, Grant Keddie

Earth Sciences Publications

We investigated the application of stable isotope analysis of proboscidean remains (collagen in bone/dentin/cementum and structural carbonate in enamel bioapatite) for genus-level identification of isolated specimens, assessment of geographic origins, and testing for nutritional stress. Mammoths (Mammuthus sp.) tended to have higher δ¹⁵N_col and lower δ¹³C_col than mastodons (Mammut americanum), but differences were not significant in every location. Determining the genus of isolated specimens may be possible for locations and time periods with good isotopic baselines, but environmental changes can confound interpretations. For example, an Alberta proboscidean with a δ¹⁵N …

Carbon And Nitrogen Isotopic Investigations Of The Late Pleistocene Paleoecology Of Eastern Beringia, Yukon Territory, Using Soils, Plants And Rodent Bones, Farnoush Tahmasebi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

During the late Pleistocene (130-12 ka), Beringia, a largely ice-free land located in the Mammoth Steppe Ecosystem, was home to a large grazing community of megafauna. Many of these animals, including the woolly mammoth, became extinct at the terminal Pleistocene. Assessment of the paleoenvironment, nutrient cycling and foraging ecology in Beringia should help to understand the role of climate change in their extirpation. Such information might also help to explain the curiously higher δ¹⁵N of woolly mammoths relative to other coeval herbivores.

This study assessed eastern Beringian paleoecology using stable nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) isotopic analyses of …

Reconstructing Late Holocene Hydrographic Variability Of The Gulf Of Maine, Nina Millicent Whitney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I present an annually resolved reconstruction of seawater temperatures in the

western North Atlantic from 1695-1915. This paleoclimate record was constructed

using oxygen isotopes measured in precisely dated Arctica islandica shells collected

off of Seguin Island in the western Gulf of Maine. The temperature reconstruction

was derived from this oxygen isotope time series using a modern d¹⁸O_w-salinity

mixing line developed for coastal waters in the Gulf of Maine from water samples

collected over the last decade. The d¹⁸O_w and salinity composition of these water

samples indicate that coastal surface waters consist of a …

Stable Isotopes As A Tool To Characterize Carbon Cycling And Develop Hydrologic Budgets In Mantled Karst Settings, Katherine Knierim

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Isotopes of water (δ2H/δ18O), carbon dioxide (δ13C-CO2), and dissolved inorganic carbon (δ13C-DIC) were used to explore water quality, trace carbon cycling, and quantify recharge sources through mantled karst and into Blowing Spring Cave (BSC). Of the possible sources of contamination in the BSC recharge area, septic-tank effluent was hypothesized to degrade water quality at the spring outlet of BSC because of the dominance of septic tanks for waste treatment, unsuitable topography and soil for septic-tank absorption fields, increased nitrate and chloride concentrations concomitant with increased urbanization, and increased Escherichia coli with discharge. Carbon cycling between the soil and BSC was …

Mantle-Crust Interaction In Granite Petrogenesis In Post-Collisional Settings: Insights From The Danubian Variscan Plutons Of The Romanian Southern Carpathians, Ciprian Cosmin Stremtan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The issue of granite petrogenesis plays a key role in our overall understanding of the growth and differentiation of continents, as well as in our ability to unravel the tectonic histories of orogenic belts. Granites are ubiquitous magmatic products found in almost all tectonic settings: oceanic and continental rifts (i.e., plagiogranites - extreme basalt differentiates), active continental margins (e.g,. the granitic batholiths of central and southern Andes), continent-continent collision zones (e.g., the orogenic batholiths of the Himalayas, Western Anatolia), post-collisional settings (e.g., the Variscan provinces of Europe), complex within-plates settings (e.g., Limmo massif, Afar, Ethiopia). Furthermore, granitoids are characterized by …

Hf-Nd Isotopic Variability In Mineral Dust From Chinese And Mongolian Deserts: Implications For Sources And Dispersal, Wancang Zhao, Youbin Sun, William Balsam, Huayu Lu

Dartmouth Scholarship

Mineral dust provenances are closely related to the orogenic processes which may have distinct Hf-Nd isotopic signatures. Here we report the clay-sized (<2 μm) Hf-Nd isotope data from Asian dust sources to better constrain the source and transport dynamics of dust deposition in the North Pacific. Our results show that there is a more positive radiogenic Hf isotopic composition with clay-sized fractions than the corresponding bulk sample and a decoupling of the Hf-Nd couplets in the clay formation during the weathering process. The clay-sized Hf-Nd isotopic compositions of the desert samples from the Sino-Korean-Tarim Craton (SKTC) are different from those of the Gobi and deserts from the Central Asian Orogeny Belt (CAOB) due to varying tectonic and weathering controls. The Hf-Nd isotopic compositions of dust in the North Pacific central province (NPC) match closely with those from the Taklimakan, Badain Jaran and adjacent Tengger deserts, implying that the NPC dust was mainly transported from these potential sources by the westerly jet. Our study indicates that dusts from the CAOB Gobi deserts either didn't arrive in NPC or were quantitatively insignificant, but they were likely transported to the North Pacific margin province (NPM) by East Asian winter monsoon.

Identifying Sources Of Aeolian Mineral Dust: Present And Past, Daniel R. Muhs, Joseph M. Prospero, Matthew C. Baddock, Thomas E. Gill

Publications of the US Geological Survey

Aeolian mineral dust is an important component of the Earth’s environmental systems, playing roles in the planetary radiation balance, as a source of fertilizer for biota in both terrestrial and marine realms and as an archive for understanding atmospheric circulation and paleoclimate in the geologic past. Crucial to understanding all of these roles of dust is the identification of dust sources. Here we review the methods used to identify dust sources active at present and in the past. Contemporary dust sources, produced by both glaciogenic and non-glaciogenic processes, can be readily identified by the use of Earth-orbiting satellites. These data …

Assessing Ageing At Beaver Reservoir, Northwest Arkansas: Limnological, Geochemical & Paleolimnological Approach, Byron Anthony Winston

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Access to potable water has been arguably one of the most important requisites for the advancement of human civilization on earth. As a result, man in his infinite wisdom devised the dam and formed reservoirs, (man- made lakes), to exploit water resources at will. In all natural lakes and reservoirs changes occur in the water quality parameters as it relates to chemical nutrients, temperature and turbidity over time. These changes are collectively referred to as "Reservoir Ageing", of which sedimentation and eutrophication are primary. Reservoir Ageing has consequences which adversely affect and defeat many of the intended uses of the …

Measuring The Rate Of Garnet Growth: Implications For Rb-Sr Garnet Chronology, Jessica Sousa

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Garnet growth rates have provided valuable information for understanding the rates of tectonometamorphic processes. In theory, during its growth, garnet records the decay of 87Rb within a rock matrix as steadily increasing ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr from core to rim. By measuring the Sr isotopic zoning within garnet and matrix Rb/Sr and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, the rate of garnet growth can be determined. To test this, we used ID-TIMS to measure Rb-Sr data for five samples from three major orogenic belts: central New England, southernmost Chile, and western Italian Alps. These new data introduce two major difficulties encountered using …

A Sequence Stratigraphic And Isotopic Study Of Uppermost Pennsylvanian-Lower Permian Carbonate Strata, Orogrande Basin, New Mexico, Jesse Koch

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Determining how the tropics respond to glaciation is important for improving our global understanding of icehouse worlds. The impetus behind this study is to identify the far-field impacts of Gondwanan glaciation during the Early Permian. Impacts including climate and sea-level change should be evident in sensitive carbonate systems, such as the upper Paleozoic paleotropical strata in the Orogrande Basin. A sequence stratigraphic and stable isotopic approach is used to examine the effects of late Paleozoic climate change in the Orogrande Basin during the acme and subsequent demise of the late Paleozoic ice age.

Sequence stratigraphic analysis suggests the occurrence of …

Application Of Copper And Zinc Isotopes To Fingerprint Metal Sources And Identify Attenuation Mechanisms In The Abandoned Waldorf Mine Area, Clear Creek County, Colorado, Suzan Aranda Luna

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Acid rock drainage (ARD) is caused by the oxidative weathering of sulfide minerals. Sulfur is oxidized by dissolved oxygen or Fe(III) and sulfate ions, metals, and protons are released into the environment. Hence, the pH of nearby water and soils often decreases in response to ARD while metal concentrations increase. Because a large part of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado are highly mineralized (i.e., the Colorado Mineral Belt), ARD is a serious problem in this region. Moreover, the many abandoned mining areas in the Rocky Mountains that include waste rock piles, tailings impoundments, and surface disturbances add to the problem …

Comparison Of Source Rock Geochemistry Of Selected Rocks From The Schei Point Group And Ringnes Formation, Sverdrup Basin, Arctic Canada, P. K. Mukhopadhyay, F. Goodarzi, Michael A. Kruge, M. H. Alimi

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Organic-rich from the Schei Point group (middle to late Triassic in age) and the Ringnes formation (late Jurassic) from the Sverdrup basin of the Canadian arctic archipelago have been geochemically evaluated for source rock characterization. Most samples from the Schei Point group are organic-rich (> 2% TOC) and are considered as immature to mature oil-prone source rocks [kerogen types I, I-II (IIA) and II (IIA)]. These kerogen types contain abundant AOM1, AOM2 and alginite (Tasmanales, Nostocopsis, Leiosphaeridia, acritarch and dinoflagellate) with variable amounts of vitrinite, inertinite and exinite. Samples from the Ringnes formation contain dominant vitrinite and inertinite …