Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Geotechnical Properties Of The Travis Peak (Hosston) Formation In East Texas: A Compressive And Tensile Strength Analysis Using Regression Analysis., Pawan Kakarla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The estimation of rock mass strength is a key parameter in geotechnical engineering which is used in the design of geotechnical structures like tunnels, dams and slopes. Geotechnical engineering is the branch of civil engineering which works on the principles of soil and rock mechanics to evaluate subsurface conditions, stability of slopes, foundations of structures and construction of earthworks. The main focus of this study was to calculate the strength of Lower Cretaceous Travis Peak Formation rocks of East Texas and to check the accuracy by comparing it with Regression analysis. The parameters which were used were the Uniaxial Compression …

Sedimentology Of A Small Estuarine Marsh Along East (Pensacola) Bay, Florida, Jesse Pfadenhauer

Honors Theses

Sediment samples from a marsh along East (Pensacola) Bay were analyzed using various laboratory techniques. The color, magnetic susceptibility, organic content, carbonate content, and sediment size distribution of each sample was measured to attain an overall profile of the sedimentary characteristics of the area. Using the GPS coordinates of each collection site, samples were categorized into sub-environments based on their position within the marsh. The trends within the study area and sub-environments were evaluated and interpreted. The data indicate that this marsh is a siliciclastic, fining-inland area that is frequently inundated with tidal fluctuations and storm surges. These storm surges …

Automatic Fracture Orientation Extraction From Sfm Point Clouds, Jon Kissi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Geology seeks to understand the history of the Earth and its surface processes through charac- terisation of surface formations and rock units. Chief among the geologists’ tools are rock unit orientation measurements, such as Strike, Dip and Dip Direction. These allow an understanding of both surface and sub-structure on both the local and macro scale.

Although the way these techniques can be used to characterise geology are well understood, the need to collect these measurements by hand adds time and expense to the work of the geologist, precludes spontaneity in field work, and coverage is limited to where the geologist …

Utilization Of Lidar Intensity Data And Passive Visible Imagery For Geological Mapping Of Planetary Surfaces, Taylor M. Haid

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

While lidar has been historically used for generating digital terrain maps and as a navigation tool, recent research demonstrates that lidar has many potential scientific applications, including high resolution analysis of geological outcrops. Case studies were completed at the Tunnunik impact structure, Victoria Island, Arctic Canada, and the Nickel Rim South mine, Sudbury, Canada, to assess the fidelity of characterizing and differentiating mineralogical and lithological units remotely by integrating passive visible imagery with lidar intensity data. Unsupervised classification via k-means clustering was performed on the fused datasets, with results indicating that lithologies can indeed be successfully differentiated with minor a …

Pore Characterizations And Distributions Within Niagaran – Lower Salina Reef Complex Reservoirs In The Silurian Northern Niagaran Pinnacle Reef Trend, Michigan Basin, Agam Arief Suhaimi

Masters Theses

The Northern Niagaran Pinnacle Reef Trend (NNPRT) has generated significant oil and gas production in Michigan. The best reservoir rock in the Reef Trend reservoirs are from porous and permeable dolomite of the Guelph Dolomite. Low-to-non reservoir limestone occurs interstratified with reservoir dolomite in many locations. This study utilizes available cores data, thin section Petrographic Image Analysis (PIA), Mercury Injection Capillary Pressure (MICP) and a newly developed Niagaran Reef depositional model (Rine, 2015) to characterize the distribution of pore geometry within each dolomitized Niagaran Reef Complex (Brown Niagaran – Lower Salina Group) reservoir facies and lithofacies. This study shows that …

Early And Middle Atokan Lithostratigraphy And Reservoir Development, Northern Arkoma Basin, Northwestern Arkansas, Matthew Alan Blaylock

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Arkoma Basin is a peripheral foreland arc basin associated with the Ouachita orogenic belt. In Arkansas, the basin is bounded by the Ouachita belt to the south and the Ozark Dome to the north. Sedimentary rocks of early to middle Atokan age are present in the shallow subsurface at the northern margin of the Arkoma Basin in northwestern Arkansas. Sedimentary units of this time interval reflect basinal subsidence, and the transition of the Arkoma Basin from a passive margin shelf to a rapidly evolving foreland arc basin. Sediment sources from the north and east produced a thickened Lower and …

Petrology Of The Paired Dominion Range 2010 Howardites: Indications Of Magmatic Complexity On Asteroid Vesta, Timothy Michael Hahn Jr.

Masters Theses

A comprehensive petrologic and geochemical characterization of six paired howardites collected from the Dominion Range, Antarctica was conducted. These howardites are megaregolith samples from the asteroid 4 Vesta. Collectively, they contain an assortment of igneous rock fragments that indicate magmatic processes were capable of producing a variety of rock types; 22 chemically and texturally discrete basaltic eucrite, cumulate eucrite, and diogenite lithologies are recognized. The implications for remote-sensing observations of Vesta are discussed. The petrogenesis of two previously unrecognized lithologies are described in further detail: an evolved dacite that we propose is a residual melt from extensive crystallization, and a …

Role Of Sorting On The Composition Of Siliciclastic Sediment: Implications For Interpreting Provenance After Limited Transport In An Arid Climate, Forrest Christopher Driscoll

Masters Theses

This study tested whether transport distances (< 500 m) have the capacity to shape the geochemistry of sediments across multiple grain-size populations due to sorting derived from a single source. In the Stepladder Mountains, Mojave Desert, CA, a < 1 km² [square kilometers] watershed allows for a controlled study to understand how modern sediments acquire their composition from a single granodioritic source in an arid climate where there is no chemical weathering. Sediments are naturally sorted into distinct grain-size populations, with modes ranging from very fine sand to gravel within a single, alluvial channel. Sediment samples representative of each population were petrographically and geochemically analyzed in order to test the effectiveness of commonly used discrimination diagrams. Sediments became proportionally enriched in plagioclase and biotite and depleted in K-feldspar and quartz with decreasing grain …

Behavior Of Rare Earth Elements And High-Field Strength Elements During Peridotite - Seawater Interaction, Carl Pasquale Frisby

Theses and Dissertations

Serpentinized abyssal peridotites are evidence for active communication between the Earth’s hydrosphere and the upper mantle, where exchange and retention of both major and trace elements occur. Rare earth elements (REE) and high-field strength elements (HFSE: Ti, Zr, Hf, Nb, Ta) are generally thought of as immobile during serpentinization. In partially serpentinized abyssal peridotites, clinopyroxenes typically retain radiogenic Nd and Hf isotopic signatures that have been used to infer the composition and high temperature processes in the upper mantle. However, bulk rock Nd isotopes in some serpentinized abyssal peridotites less radiogenic values that approach that of seawater, which has been …

Platinum Decoupling From Pge In Peridotitic Sulfides From The St. Elena Ophiolite In Costa Rica, Jessica A. Holm

Theses and Dissertations

The platinum group elements (Os, Ir, Ru, Rh, Pt, Pd) are important petrogenetic tracers of mantle processes and the Re-Os isotope system an important tool for tracing ancient depletion and refertilization processes in the mantle. A key characteristic of these elements is that they are siderophile and chalcophile, and their abundance in the Earth’s mantle is thought to be controlled by sulfides. Existing thermodynamic data suggests that at reducing conditions similar to those found at the early stages of serpentinization, PGE may exist as alloys in the mantle. While numerous studies report on the bulk peridotite PGE and sulfide PGE …

Geological Bodies, Savannah Fulmer

Honors Projects

‘Geological Bodies’ is a series of character designs that were developed to personify the traits of nine different rocks. The artwork is accompanied with written documentation of the research and execution.

The Mh-2 Core From Project Hotspot: Description, Geologic Interpretation, And Significance To Geothermal Exploration In The Western Snake River Plain, Idaho, Jerome A. Varriale

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Harnessing the earth’s natural heat generation as an energy resource has seen increased interest in recent history. While geothermal energy is a sustainable, low-carbon emitting, and viable source of energy in certain regions, large upfront risks, including costs of exploration and deep well drilling, have kept private sector investment at bay. Lowering the risks to capital investment that are inherent to subsurface exploration can help to assuage investors and bring this well-known energy-generating technology to the masses.

A blind potential geothermal system was encountered while drilling the MH2 science drill hole, on Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. The MH-2 …

Quantifying A Mining Investability Quotient To Mitigate Junior Mining Investment Risk, Jonathan Mickey Merguerian

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Uncertainty and risk are inherent features of investing in mineral exploration ventures. Investors rely on qualitative and quantitative analysis to evaluate risk of capital. The distinction between risk and uncertainty pertaining to mineral exploration is that risk is an opportunity for loss and uncertainty can be described as the range of probabilities that some condition may occur (Rose, 1987). Stakeholders rely on a combination of investment conferences, risk analysis equations, press releases, financial reports, and investment research to determine if an investment potential. J. M. Cozzolini developed a formula for Risk Adjusted Value (RAV) of an exploration venture. The study …

Archean Geodynamic Conditions Using P-T Constraints Of The East Pilbara Craton Ttgs, Andrew Kody Webb

LSU Master's Theses

We know very little about the tectonic setting present during the Hadean, but based on studies of surviving Hadean zircons, we know that a Hadean protocrust must have been established by at least 4.4 Ga (Kemp et al. 2010), and it must have also been able to accommodate minimum melt conditions (Harrison 2005). Tectonic models for Earth during the Hadean and Archean follow two trends: uniformitarianism and non-uniformitarianism. Uniformitarian models (following the famed geological concept that the present is the key to the past) argue that Hadean zircons and Archean rocks formed via processes akin to modern-style oceanic crust production …

Neuro-Fuzzy Classification Of Felsic Lava Geomorphology At Alarcon Rise, Mexico, Christina Hefron Maschmeyer

Theses and Dissertations

The Alarcon Rise is the only submarine oceanic spreading ridge setting where rhyolitic lavas have been found. This intermediate-rate spreading ridge provides a unique natural laboratory for studying the geomorphology of felsic submarine lava flows at oceanic spreading ridges. Seafloor observations of felsic lava indicate the flow morphology differs from typical submarine basaltic lava at the few other oceanic spreading ridges where differentiated compositions have been recorded. Morphologic variation between mafic and felsic lava flows, especially rhyolites, was also observed at Alarcon Rise.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute conducted mapping surveys with autonomous underwater vehicle D Allan B. in …

Evolution Of A Flood Basalt Crustal Magmatic System: In Situ Mineral Data And Computational Modeling Of The Steens Basalt, Megan Graubard

All Master's Theses

Flood basalts are gigantic basaltic eruptions that modify the mass of the crust via intrusion of mantle-derived magma, and change its composition through interaction between magma and crust. The Steens Basalt, located in southeast Oregon, erupted approximately 16.8 million years ago, and is the oldest member of the Columbia River Basalt Group, the youngest and best-exposed flood basalt province on Earth. The Steens Basalt has an eruption volume of approximately 31,800 km³ and the duration of eruption is estimated to be between ~50,000 and 300,000 years. Major- and trace element whole rock data from 111 stratigraphically controlled samples from …

Seismic Reflection Profiling Near Middletown, Ohio And Interpretation Of Precambrian Deformational Settings, David Joseph Peterman

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The reprocessing of four vibroseis seismic reflection lines at the AK Steel facility in Middletown, Ohio, provides new insight on the age, deposition, and structural deformation of the pre-Mount Simon sedimentary sequence below Butler and Warren Counties. Processing was focused on the pre-Mt. Simon reflections to reveal gently west-southwest dipping reflectors that make a slight angular unconformity with the overlying Paleozoic sedimentary strata. This pre-Mount Simon sedimentary sequence has been encountered in several wells from western Ohio, Indiana, and northern Kentucky and has been identified as the Middle Run Formation. Examination of the weak and discontinuous seismic character of the …