Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Determining Temperatures Of Deformation In Mylonites From The Scandinavian Caledonides, With Implications For The Thermal And Kinematic Evolution Of Orogens, Andrea Marilina Wolfowicz

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Titanium-in-quartz (TitaniQ) thermobarometer was evaluated in ductilely sheared rocks (mylonites) from the Scandinavian Caledonides in comparison with several other thermometric methods, including: (1) TitaniQ thermometry in cross-cutting quartz veins, (2) garnet-biotite Fe-Mg exchange thermometry, (3) metamorphic phase equilibria, and (4) quartz microstructures as calibrated experimentally and empirically. In all instances, quartz vein temperatures mimic TitaniQ temperatures of the host rocks. Similarly, TitaniQ temperatures of dynamically recrystallized quartz, ranging from ~210°C at the thrust front to 475°C at the deepest structural levels, reflect the best estimate of the final temperature of deformation. Higher temperatures are also preserved locally and more …

Megathrust Splay Fault Geometry In Prince William Sound, Alaska, Shaun Patrick Finn

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

I present marine seismic reflection results from Prince William Sound, Alaska that document the location of active faults related to the subduction zone processes.

Subduction zones along convergent margins experience large earthquakes, magnitude >8, with recurrence intervals on the order of centuries. Smaller magnitude earthquakes with shorter recurrence intervals are probable along the same subduction zone fault zones. Convergent margin earthquakes also are associated with high uplift rates and tsunami generation, yet the location and uplift history of most tsunamigenic faults are unknown. In this thesis, I present the processed results of high resolution marine seismic reflection data of Prince …

Assessing Eolian Dust Inputs To Soils In Dry Creek Experimental Watershed, Sw Idaho, Brian Jameson Stark

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

A geochemical investigation of upland soils in the Dry Creek Experimental Watershed (DCEW) near Boise, Idaho was conducted to assess the potential contributions of eolian dust. Major and trace element compositions of soils within the watershed, loess deposits in the adjacent Western Snake River Plain (WSRP), and underlying granodiorite bedrock were evaluated. Multiple lines of evidence suggest a significant contribution of dust in the soils. Plots of Co/Ti, V/Ti and Cr/Ti indicate that the loess and bedrock occupy distinctly different compositional spaces and that the soils are of intermediate composition, suggesting that the soils are a mixture of the loess …

Lidar Investigations Of Snow Distribution In Mountainous Terrain, Alden Taylor Shallcross

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

An algorithm is constructed to use snow-depth estimates, derived from repeat airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), to identify the sampling strategy that requires the fewest total measurements to estimate the total snow volume in the Dry Creek Experimental Watershed (DCEW) Idaho. LiDAR is used to map snow cover by differencing the digital elevation models (DEMs) obtained from a snow-covered overflight and a snow-free overflight. Sixteen independent variables known to influence snow distribution are derived from a LiDAR digital elevation dataset, obtained during snow-free conditions, and used to predict snow distribution via binary regression trees. Variable ranges leading to the …

Congestion Mitigation By Traffic Dispersion In Wireless Sensor Networks, Sreekanth Yalamanchili

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are event-based systems that rely on the collective effort of several sensor nodes. When all nodes in an area sense an event and transmit that data, it causes sudden traffic bursts, which are spatially-correlated and lead to network congestion. Congestion can cause an increase in the amount of data loss, energy consumption, delay data transmission, and hinder network performance. To improve performance of event-driven applications, there arises a need for protocols that can reduce congestion and energy consumption. Existing protocols for sensing multiple events either handle congestion control or spatially-correlated contention, but not both, which can …

Regular Homotopy Of Closed Curves On Surfaces, Katherine Kylee Zebedeo

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The use of rotation numbers in the classification of regular closed curves in the plane up to regular homotopy sparked the investigation of winding numbers to classify regular closed curves on other surfaces. Chillingworth [1] defined winding numbers for regular closed curves on particular surfaces and used them to classify orientation preserving regular closed curves that are based at a fixed point and direction. We define geometrically a group structure of the set of equivalence classes of regular closed curves based at a fixed point and direction. We prove this group structure coincides with the one introduced by Smale [9] …

Stability And Convergence For Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations, Oday Mohammed Waheeb

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

If used cautiously, numerical methods can be powerful tools to produce solutions to partial differential equations with or without known analytic solutions. The resulting numerical solutions may, with luck, produce stable and accurate solutions to the problem in question, or may produce solutions with no resemblance to the problem in question at all. More such numerical computations give no hope of solving this troublesome feature and one needs to resort to investing time in a theoretical approach. This thesis is devoted not solely to computations, but also to a theoretical analysis of the numerical methods used to generate computationally the …

Congestion Avoidance Energy Efficient Mac Protocol For Wireless Sensor Networks, Alexander Sundling

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Wireless Sensor Network (WSNs) are generally energy-constrained and resource-constrained. When multiple simultaneous events occur in densely deployed WSNs, nodes near the base station can become congested, decreasing the network performance. Additionally, multiple nodes may sense an event leading to spatially-correlated contention, further increasing congestion. In order to mitigate the effects of congestion near the base station, an energy-efficient Media Access Control (MAC) protocol that can handle multiple simultaneous events and spatially-correlated contention is needed. Energy efficiency is important and can be achieved using duty cycles but they could degrade the network performance in terms of latency. Existing protocols either provide …

A Stochastic Parameter Regression Approach For Time-Varying Relationship Between Gold And Silver Prices, Birsen Canan-Mcglone

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, we studied the gold and silver relationship using stochastic-parameter regression models. We formulated their time-varying relationship as a state-space model and used the Kalman filter algorithm to estimate the stochastic regression parameters for gold and silver prices. The data set used in this thesis covers 31 years using the London fix prices between January 1969 and December 2000. The start date was selected as the first full year silver prices were included in the London fix prices. Our stochastic parameter regression model explained well the time-varying relationship between gold and silver prices. As a special case of …

Statistical Clustering Of Microseismic Event Spectra To Identify Subsurface Structure, Deborah Kay Fagan

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Understanding subsurface structure by studying microseismicity influences a wide range of activities, including energy extraction, aquifer storage, carbon sequestration, and seismic hazard assessment. Identifying individual fractures in a larger fault system is key to characterizing, understanding, and potentially mitigating risks of natural or induced seismicity.

A year-long study associated with a carbon dioxide (CO₂) sequestration project was conducted at the Aneth oil field in southeast Utah to record microseismicity at a single downhole geophone array. A previous analysis located events by first identifying event multiplets consisting of highly correlated time-domain waveforms on receivers shallower than the depth of …

Monitoring Co2 Sequestration In Basalt With Elastic Waves, Larry Thomas Otheim

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The continued burning of fossil fuels as a source of energy is contributing to greater concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere. Increased levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere have been linked to an increase of global mean surface temperature. To mitigate the continued release of CO₂, projects to capture this gas at large point sources and sequester it in geologic formations are in place. Carbon dioxide sequestration in basalts promises permanent trapping of the fluid as these rocks react with carbonic acid and precipitate carbonate minerals. It is important to monitor the injection …

On The K-Mer Frequency Spectra Of Organism Genome And Proteome Sequences With A Preliminary Machine Learning Assessment Of Prime Predictability, Nathan O. Schmidt

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

A regular expression and region-specific filtering system for biological records at the National Center for Biotechnology database is integrated into an object oriented sequence counting application, and a statistical software suite is designed and deployed to interpret the resulting k-mer frequencies|with a priority focus on nullomers. The proteome k-mer frequency spectra of ten model organisms and the genome k-mer frequency spectra of two bacteria and virus strains for the coding and non-coding regions are comparatively scrutinized. We observe that the naturally-evolved (NCBI/organism) and the artificially-biased (randomly-generated) sequences exhibit a clear deviation from the artificially-unbiased (randomly-generated) histogram distributions. …

Dynamic Diffusion For Congestion Avoidance In Wireless Sensor Networks, Sri Divya Deenadayalan

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are employed for either continuous monitoring or event detection in the target area of interest. In event-driven applications, it is critical to report the detected events in the area, and with sudden bursts of traffic possible due to spatially-correlated events or multiple events, the data loss due to congestion will result in information loss or delayed arrival of the sensed information. Congestion control techniques detect congestion and attempt to recover from packet losses due to congestion, but they cannot eliminate or prevent the occurrence of congestion. Congestion avoidance techniques employ proactive measures to alleviate future congestion …

Perfect Stripes From A General Turing Model In Different Geometries, Jean Tyson Schneider

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

We explore a striped pattern generated by a general Turing model in three different geometries. We look at the square, disk, and hemisphere and make connections between the stripes in each spatial direction. In particular, we gain a greater understanding of when perfect stripes can be generated and what causes defects in their patterns. In this investigation, we look at the difference between the solutions due to the different domain shapes. In the end, we propose a reason why stripes from a reaction-diffusion system with zero-flux boundary conditions can be perfect on a square or hemisphere, but not on a …

Assessing The Value Of Improved Snow Information In Operational Hydrologic Models, Alison Christine Burnop

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The National Weather Service’s (NWS) operational hydrologic model, the Sacramento Soil Moisture Accounting Model (SACSMA), coupled with their temperature index snowmelt model, SNOW-17, were implemented in the Dry Creek Experimental Watershed (DCEW), located in the semi-arid region of southwestern Idaho, just north of the city of Boise, Idaho. The model was downscaled from the standard 1 HRAP to ¼ HRAP spatial resolution then calibrated using a modified manual calibration procedure from the NWS. The main modification was to decouple the SNOW-17 and SACSMA models during the calibration stage in order to accurately simulate the snow distribution without the interference of …

Nmr Characterization Of Parathion: Properties, Transport, And Reaction Kinetics, Emma Catherine Baker

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The hydrolysis reaction of parathion (PTH) to produce para-nitrophenolate (pNP) and O,O-diethylthiophosphate (DETP) was examined in a minimally disturbed liquid-liquid biphasic reaction system by proton and phosphorous nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The effect of the micellar cationic surfactant, cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTAC), on PTH transport, hydrolysis, and system characteristics including reactant-product concentrations, pNP partition coefficients, pNP surface activity, ultraviolet degradation of pNP, oxidation of pNP, and impurities in PTH are reported. Surfactant reaction systems resulted in a 2.5 order of magnitude increase in the amount of PTH transported into the aqueous layer as compared to the control system at 2100 …

Climate Drivers And Landscape Response: Holocene Fire, Vegetation, And Erosion At City Of Rocks National Reserve, Idaho, Kerrie N. Weppner

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Climate exerts primary control over vegetation and fire occurrence but landscape structure, vegetation type, and density determine fire pattern, frequency and severity (i.e., fire regime), and the nature of fire-related geomorphic response. To explore these relationships, we compare alluvial charcoal records of fire and fire-related sedimentation with a woodrat midden reconstruction of vegetation at the northern migration front for single-leaf pinyon and Utah juniper at City of Rocks National Reserve (CIRO), south-central Idaho.

Radiocarbon ages from 37 charcoal macrofossils sampled from discrete fire-related deposits indicate five episodes of increased fire activity over the past ~11 ka. Fires burned following deglaciation …

Subsurface Characterization Using Head-Wave Artifacts In Seismic Interferometry, Thomas Dylan Mikesell

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Seismologists continually work to improve images of the Earth's interior. One new approach is seismic interferometry, which involves cross-correlating the seismic wave field recorded at two receivers to generate data as if one of the receivers was a source. Over the past decade, seismic interferometry has become an established technique to estimate the surface-wave part of the impulse response between two receivers; however, practical limitations in the source-energy distribution have made body-wave recovery difficult and causes spurious energy in the estimated impulse response. Rather than suppress such spurious energy, it can be useful to analyze coherent spurious events to help …

Hillslope Asymmetry Maps Reveal Widespread, Multi-Scale Organization, Michael John Poulos

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Hillslope asymmetry is the condition in which oppositely-facing hillslopes within an area have differing average slope angles, and indicates aspect-related variability in hillslope evolution. As such, the presence, orientation, and magnitude of asymmetry may be a useful diagnostic for understanding process dominance. We present a new method for quantifying and mapping the spatial distribution of hillslope asymmetry across large areas. Resulting maps for the American Cordillera of the Western Hemisphere and the western United States reveal that hillslope asymmetry is widespread, with distinct trends at continental to drainage scales. Spatial patterns of asymmetry correlate with latitude along the American Cordillera, …

Non-Destructively Mapping The In-Situ Hydrologic Properties Of Snow, Firn, And Glacial Ice With Georadar, Joel Matthew Brown

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is a useful tool for studying the in-situ properties of glacial ice, firn, and snowpacks. The main focus of this dissertation is improving and expanding methods employed when collecting, processing, and understanding GPR data collected in the Cryosphere, or the snow and ice covered areas of the earth. The data used herein were collected on the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) and on seasonal snowpacks of Western Montana, USA. This document has three sub-topics.

The first sub-topic is comparing the spatial variability of GPR data to the spatial variability of core data collected in two locations within …

A 14,000-Year Record Of Wildfire And Alluvial Fan Deposition Reveals Relationships Among Fire, Climate, Vegetation, And Sediment Yields In The Middle Fork Salmon River, Idaho, Kerry Elizabeth Riley

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Changes in climate influence vegetation distributions and the frequency and severity of fire and post-fire erosion. While the frequency of large fires has increased on all vegetated continents over the last decade, it remains unclear whether recent large fires are extraordinary over millennial timescales. In the Middle Fork Salmon River of central Idaho, over 40% of the watershed has burned in the last 30 years and the subsequent increase in erosion from severely burned hillslopes has produced many large fire-related debris flows. Fires have burned throughout the steep topographic gradient of the watershed that encompasses high elevation sub-alpine and mixed …

The Hydrologic Significance Of Lateral Water Flow Through Snow, David Parker Eiriksson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the mechanisms by which catchments route vertical water inputs laterally to stream channels is central to the development of accurate predictive models of watershed processes. It is commonly assumed that lateral redistribution occurs as overland or subsurface flow. Lateral flow can also occur within the snowpack during rain-on-snow (ROS) events or spring melt, sometimes resulting in surface expressions commonly called "runnels." This thesis examines lateral flow through snow and the role of the snowpack as a rapid down-slope water delivery mechanism, with the goal of determining if lateral flow through snow is an important control on streamflow generation and …

The Carbon Budget Impact Of Sagebrush Degradation, Andrew Connor Austreng

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

More than 20,000 km2 of sagebrush (Artemesia spp.) ecosystems within the Great Basin have been replaced, often following wildfire, by the nonnative winter annual cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum). At a field site in the central Snake River Plain of southern Idaho, the impact of this invasion on the soil carbon (C) reservoir has been evaluated and the potential soil C benefits of bunchgrass (Agropyron cristatum) seeding was assessed. Using a large soil C dataset (n = 850), differences in total organic carbon and root biomass were quantified in immediately-adjacent sagebrush, cheatgrass, and bunchgrass communities. Statistical …

On The Geometry Of Virtual Knots, Rachel Elizabeth Byrd

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Dehn complex of prime, alternating virtual links has been shown to be non-positively curved in the paper "Generalized knot complements and some aspherical ribbon disc complements" by J. Harlander and S. Rosebrock (2003) [7]. This thesis investigates the geometry of an arbitrary alternating virtual link. A method is constructed for which the Dehn complex of any alternating virtual link may be decomposed into Dehn complexes with non-positive curvature. We further study the relationship between the Dehn space and Wirtinger space, and we relate their fundamental groups using generating curves on surfaces. We conclude with interesting examples of Dehn complexes …