Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Storm Induced Beach Profile Changes Along The Coast Of Treasure Island, West-Central Florida, U.S.A., Zhaoxu Zhu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Storms play a significant role in beach morphodynamics. Storm-induced beach-profile changes and their longshore variations are investigated in this study. The impacts of four summer tropical storms and two series of winter storms over the last 10 years along the coast of Treasure Island were documented. Tropical storms Alberto in 2006, Fay in 2008, Debby in 2012, Hermine in 2016 and winter storms in winter seasons of 2014 and 2015 are discussed in this study. In general, the Treasure Island beach experienced more erosion generated by tropical storms with greater intensity, but shorter duration, as compared to winter storms due …

Miocene Contourite Deposition (Along-Slope) Near Desoto Canyon, Gulf Of Mexico: A Product Of An Enhanced Paleo-Loop Current, Shane Christopher Dunn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A Neogene contourite depositional system was identified and mapped along the DeSoto Slope in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, U.S.A. A series of drift deposits comprising the larger contourite depositional system were interpreted from a 2-D industry seismic data set. The now subsurface drift deposits are adjacent to the anomalous seabed feature, the DeSoto Canyon, and these data suggest contourite deposition and ocean currents are in integral part of the canyon’s depositional history. The contourite depositional system is underlain by an extensive, middle Miocene aged, erosional unconformity formed by ocean currents. The timing of this erosional surface is in alignment …

An Early Paleogene Palynological Assemblage From The Sabrina Coast, East Antarctica: New Species And Implications For Depositional History, Catherine Davies Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Palynological analyses of 13 samples from two sediment cores retrieved from the Sabrina Coast, East Antarctica, provide the first information regarding the paleovegetation within the Aurora Subglacial Basin. The assemblages, hereafter referred to as the Sabrina Flora, are dominated by angiosperms, with complexes of Gambierina (G.) rudata and G. edwardsii representing 38–66% of the assemblage and an abundant and diverse Proteaceae component. The Sabrina Flora also includes Battenipollis sectilis, Forcipites sp. and Nothofagidites spp. (mostly belonging to the N. cf. rocaensis-flemingii complex), along with a few fern spores, including Laevigatosporites ovatus, a moderate presence of conifers, and …

Lava Flow Hazard Assessment For The Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, And Pocatello, Idaho, U.S.A., Elisabeth Gallant

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study presents a probabilistic lava flow hazard assessment for the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and the cities of Idaho Falls and Pocatello, Idaho. The impetus of this work is to estimate the conditional probability that a lava flow on the eastern Snake River Plain (ESRP) will impact the areas of interest given the formation of a new volcanic vent in the region. A list of 288 eruptive events, derived from a previously published inventory of 506 surface and 32 buried vents, was created to reduce the biasing of spatial density maps towards eruptions with multiple dependent vents. Conditional probabilities …

Abundance Of Archaias Angulatus On The West Florida Coast Indicates The Influence Of Carbonate Alkalinity Over Salinity, Sean Thomas Beckwith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Archaias angulatus, a large symbiont-bearing foraminifer (Order Miliolida) that produces a Mg-calcite shell, is common throughout the Caribbean and warm western Atlantic region. This species lives abundantly in seagrass beds along the Springs Coast of northwest Florida (up to 4 adults per gram of sediment) where spring-fed rivers emerge from a limestone aquifer, and in Florida Bay to the southeast (25 adults/g) where the sediment is primarily biogenic carbonate. In contrast, live specimens are seldom found in the seagrass beds along the central-west coast of Florida, where barrier islands are dominated by quartz sand. My working hypothesis is that substratum …

A Molluscan Record Of Monsoonal Precipitation Along The Western Shoreline Of The Late Maastrichtian Western Interior Seaway, Scott Allen Ishler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Global warming in response to increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 concentration (pCO₂) has generated concern over the effects of increasing surface temperature on the hydrologic cycle. Investigating precipitation dynamics during past ‘greenhouse’ intervals provide important insights necessary to better constrain potential future climate scenarios. The Late Cretaceous greenhouse is characterized by elevated pCO₂ and surface temperatures, with a prolonged cooling trend which initiated in the late Campanian and an associated 4^th-order sea-level regression recorded in the Western Interior Seaway (WIS), providing an opportunity to examine the hydrologic cycle under conditions of changing temperature and sea-level. …

Optimizing Methods For Extraction Of Organic Compounds From Molluscan Shells, Kaydee Jo West

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mollusk shells contain proteins within and between the crystals of calcium carbonate. These organic molecules play an important role in biomineralization and shell function, and their stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen are also thought to record important ecological information about the animal's diet and nutrient sources. These proteins can be preserved for millions of years, offering potential insight into pre-anthropogenic ecological conditions. However, shell organics in older shells are typically recovered in reduced abundances due to leaching and remaining organics are often converted from insoluble proteins to soluble, free amino acids, making them difficult to detect and recover. …

Pollutants And Foraminiferal Assemblages In Torrecillas Lagoon: An Environmental Micropaleontology Approach, Michael Martinez-Colon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Torrecillas Lagoon in the North Coast of Puerto Rico has experienced extensive anthropogenic influence over the past 400 years. Elevated concentrations of Potential Toxic Elements (PTEs) have been reported in surficial sediments. The main goal of this dissertation was to implement in Puerto Rico the use of benthic foraminifers as a bioindicators of PTEs and to compare the impact of Cu(II) on field samples with results of experimental work using cultures.

Analyses included geochemical assessment for bulk and carbonate- soluble bioavailable concentrations of PTEs in surface, core and pore-water samples, as well as analyses of grain-size, Percent Total Organic Carbon …

Alumni Narratives On Computational Geology (Spring 1997 – Fall 2013), Victor J. Ricchezza

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent meetings and publications have discussed what geoscience undergraduates should learn for professional success, and among other items, have identified several quantitative skills and habits of mind as being necessary for geoscience students; many of these items are commonly associated with Quantitative Literacy (QL). The Computational Geology course in the geology department has been evolving at USF for 20 years. The course teaches QL in a geologic setting independent of specific core geology topics. This course has long preceded the national acknowledgment of the need for what it teaches within the field. As the first of a series of related …

Morphodynamics Of Egmont Key At The Mouth Of Tampa Bay: West-Central Florida, Zachary James Tyler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Egmont Key, located at the mouth of Tampa Bay, is part of a dynamic system with many interrelated natural and anthropogenic factors influencing its morphodynamics. This study started in August 2012. During the 3-year period until August 2015, 28 beach profile transects were established and surveyed 10 times. Seventeen historical aerial images from 1942 to 2013 were geo-rectified and analyzed. Three hundred and fourteen sediment samples were procured from the navigation channel dredge area and the beach nourishment area and analyzed for grain size. A numerical wave model was established to simulate the nearshore wave field. The overall goals of …

A New Volcanic Event Recurrence Rate Model And Code For Estimating Uncertainty In Recurrence Rate And Volume Flux Through Time With Selected Examples, James Adams Wilson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recurrence rate is often used to describe volcanic activity. There are numerous documented ex- amples of non-constant recurrence rate (e.g. Dohrenwend et al., 1984; Condit and Connor, 1996; Cronin et al., 2001; Bebbington and Cronin, 2011; Bevilacqua, 2015), but current techniques for calculating recurrence rate are unable to fully account for temporal changes in recurrence rate. A local–window recurrence rate model, which allows for non-constant recurrence rate, is used to calculate recurrence rate from an age model consisting of estimated ages of volcanic eruption from a Monte Carlo simulation. The Monte Carlo age assignment algorithm utilizes paleomagnetic and stratigraphic information …

Modeling The Construction And Evolution Of Distributed Volcanic Fields On Earth And Mars, Jacob Armstrong Richardson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Magmatism is a dominant process on Earth and Mars that has significantly modified and evolved the lithospheres of each planet by delivering magma to shallow depths and to the surface. Two common modes of volcanism are present on both Earth and Mars: central-vent dominated volcanism that creates large edifices from concentrating magma in chambers before eruptions and distributed volcanism that creates many smaller edifices on the surface through the independent ascent of individual magmatic dikes. In regions of distributed volcanism, clusters of volcanoes develop over thousands to millions of years. This dissertation explores the geology of distributed volcanism on Earth …