Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Refining The Sedimentology And Geochemistry Of The Mid-Permian Blaine Formation Of The Rebecca K. Bounds Core From Greeley County, Kansas, Brigitte Petras

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Red siliciclastics and evaporites of Permian Nippewalla Group in mid-continental US were deposited in western equatorial Pangea. Previous studies of these rocks record Permian air temperatures as high as 73 °C, saline lake waters with a pH as low as ~1, and sedimentology that shows arid conditions. This current study conducts detailed sedimentological observations and geochemical analyses of the Blaine Formation of the Nippewalla Group. The Rebecca K. Bounds core from west-central Kansas is used to interpret the depositional environments and diagenetic history of the Blaine Formation.

The lithologies of the Blaine Formation, listed in order of most to least …

An Experimental Study Of Evaporites On Titan: Implications For Lake Composition And Future Missions, Ellen Czaplinski

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Titan is the only other planetary body in the solar system with liquid on the surface. With a surface temperature and pressure of 89 – 94 K and 1.5 bar (N2), respectively, Titan’s lakes are comprised of liquid hydrocarbons, predominantly methane and ethane. Over time, Titan’s lakes may evaporate, leaving behind residual deposits (evaporites). The evaporation processes and composition of the evaporites is poorly understood. I address these outstanding questions by experimentally investigating the physical and spectral properties of evaporites at Titan surface conditions using an experimental chamber.

Chapter 1 addresses the formation of ethylene evaporites. Ethylene evaporites form more …

Evolution Of Extreme Continental Saline Environments: A Sedimentological Investigation Of Permo-Triassic Redbeds And Evaporites In Northern Ireland And Kansas, Anna Sofia S. Andeskie

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The Permo-Triassic was a time of extreme environments, unusually warm and arid climates, and biotic crises. This study investigates Pangean environments and climate leading to extreme acid saline lake systems represented by the Permian Nippewalla Group of Kansas and the Triassic Mercia Mudstone Group of Northern Ireland. Sedimentological observations of the underlying rocks, the Permian Hutchinson Salt Member of Kansas and the Permian Belfast Harbour Evaporite Formation of Northern Ireland, help to understand trends in environmental and climatic conditions leading to these extreme environments. This dissertation also refines the geographic extent of extreme acid saline lake and groundwater systems through …

Beneath The Gypsum Dunes: Cenozoic History Of Wind And Water From A Core Drilled At White Sands, New Mexico, Jackson Bentley Jakeway

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

White Sands, New Mexico is the largest gypsum dune field on planet Earth, the result of reworking of gypsum deposits. The dunes have been well studied, but the Cenozoic history preceding the formation of the dune field has been poorly studied. A core drilled to a depth of 192 ft (58.5 m) beneath the modern dune field contains deposits from saline lakes, sandflats, perennial freshwater lakes, perennial brackish to saline lakes, and saline mudflats.

The core is composed of bottom-growth bedded gypsum, gypsum sandstone and siltstone, mixed siliciclastic-gypsum sandstones and siltstones, laminated siliciclastic mudstones, gypsum mudstones, and carbonate mudstones. Bottom-growth …

Hydrogeological Flow In Gypsum Karst Areas: Some Examples From Northern Italy And Main Circulation Models, Bartolomeo Vigna, Ilenia M. D'Angeli, Adriano Fiorucci, Jo De Waele

International Journal of Speleology

A Messinian succession containing gypsum beds crops out in northern Italy, mainly in Piedmont and along the northern flank of the Apennine mountains in Emilia-Romagna. These gypsum bodies have been extensively quarried at the surface, in outcrops, and through underground quarries. In Emilia-Romagna these gypsum outcrops can be rather extensive, several km long and up to 1 km wide, while in Piedmont they are mostly covered by silty-marly deposits of Upper Messinian and Pliocene age and show only sparse and small outcrops. The underground quarrying of these evaporite bodies in Piedmont has allowed studying in detail their hydrogeology, and the …

Sources Of Water And Solutes To The Salar De Atacama, Chile: A Coupled Hydrologic, Geochemical, And Groundwater Modeling Study, Lilly G. Corenthal

Masters Theses

Focused groundwater discharge in endorheic basins provides opportunities to investigate mechanisms for closing hydrologic budgets in arid regions. The Salar de Atacama (SdA), a closed basin in northern Chile, has accumulated over 1800 km³ of halite and a lithium-rich brine since the late Miocene primarily through evapotranspiration of groundwater. The hydrologic balance of SdA and sources of water and solutes required to explain this deposit are not well constrained. An adapted chloride mass balance method drawing on a database of over 200 water sample sites is applied to a remotely-sensed precipitation dataset to estimate spatially-distributed modern groundwater recharge. Comparing …

Calcitized Evaporites In The Precambrian: Deposition And Diagenesis In A Low Sulfate Ocean, Ashley René Manning Berg

Masters Theses

One of the most profound byproducts of the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) was the onset of oxidative weathering on land and the riverine delivery of sulfate to marine systems. The marine sulfur system therefore plays a critical role in reconstructing the oxygenation of the early Earth. Although the exact nature of marine oxygenation in aftermath of GOE remains uncertain, examination and modeling of marine sulfate suggest that sulfate concentrations remained below 2 millimolar (mM) until at least the middle Mesoproterozoic, and may have only reached about 10 mM in the latest Neoproterozoic. Such a low concentration of marine sulfate had …

Linkage Of Asteroids And Meteorites By The Study Of Terrestrial Analogs, Daniel Robert Ostrowski

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Asteroids are one group of the bodies that can provide insights into the origin and early history of the solar system. Asteroids are considered to be fairly pristine, with alterations only occurring to their surface from the space environment. Studying them provides opportunities to learn about the primordial solar system, its materials, and processes and how it evolved into the current condition. Many asteroids have been discovered, but few have their surface compositions determined. The C and X complexes provide a difficulty in determination because their near infrared spectrum is featureless.

The C asteroids have been long associated with the …

Epigene And Hypogene Karst Manifestations Of The Castile Formation: Eddy County, New Mexico And Culberson County, Texas, Usa, Kevin W. Stafford, Raymond Nance, Laura Rosales-Lagarde, Penelope J. Boston

Faculty Publications

Permian evaporites of the Castile Formation crop out over ~1,800 km2 in the western Delaware Basin (Eddy County, New Mexico and Culberson County, Texas, USA) with abundant and diverse karst manifestations. Epigene karst occurs as well-developed karren on exposed bedrock, while sinkholes dominate the erosional landscape, including both solutional and collapse forms. Sinkhole analyses suggest that more than half of all sinks are the result of upward stoping of subsurface voids, while many solutional sinks are commonly the result of overprinting of collapsed forms. Epigene caves are laterally limited with rapid aperture decreases away from insurgence, with passages developed along …

Epigene And Hypogene Gypsum Karst Manifestations Of The Castile Formation: Eddy County, New Mexico And Culberson County, Texas, Usa, Kevin W. Stafford, Raymond Nance, Laura Rosales-Lagarde, Penelope J. Boston

International Journal of Speleology

Permian evaporites of the Castile Formation crop out over ~1,800 km² in the western Delaware Basin (Eddy County, New Mexico and Culberson County, Texas, USA) with abundant and diverse karst manifestations. Epigene karst occurs as well-developed karren on exposed bedrock, while sinkholes dominate the erosional landscape, including both solutional and collapse forms. Sinkhole analyses suggest that more than half of all sinks are the result of upward stoping of subsurface voids, while many solutional sinks are commonly the result of overprinting of collapsed forms. Epigene caves are laterally limited with rapid aperture decreases away from insurgence, with passages developed …

Tourmalinities In Neoproterzoic Metaevaporitic Deposit Of Duruchas Formation, Damar Belt, Central Namibia, Haiting Sun

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Tourmalinites from a well-developed meta-evaporite sequence in the Neoproterozoic Duruchaus Formation of central Namibia contain tourmalines with chemical and textural features that are excellent recorders of their environment of formation. Unlike most other meta-evaporitic deposits, this tourmalinite locality exhibits only minor deformation. The tourmalinites form as finely laminated units ca. 1 m thick within a sequence of quartzites, mica schists, dolomitic marbles, and carbonate breccias. Well-preserved pseudomorphs are considered to replace a variety of evaporitic minerals. The meta-sedimentary rocks of the Duruchaus Formation have been interpreted as representing lacustrine, playa lake, fluvial, and non-marine evaporite deposition in an intracontinental rift …

The Jabal Qarah Caves Of The Hofuf Area, Northeastern Saudi Arabia: A Geological Investigation, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Mahbub Hussain, Fadhel Al-Khalifah

Publications and Research

The Jabal Al Qarah Caves, located approximately 13 km east of Al Hofuf, Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, are an intricate cave system developed in the calcareous sandstone, marl and clay of the Upper Miocene to Lower Pliocene Hofuf Formation. Physiographically, the hill of Jabal Al Qarah is an outlier mesa that is located at the eastern edge of the Shedgum Plateau, the southern extension of the As Summan Plateau, and the larger Syrian Plateau to the north. Based on cave morphology and interpreted evolutionary histoty, the Jabal Al Qarah caves appear to be significantly different from other limestone caves …

Hydrologic Variation During The Last 170,000 Years In The Southern Hemisphere Tropics Of South America, Sherilyn C. Fritz, Paul A. Baker, Tim K. Lowenstein, Geoffrey O. Seltzer, Catherine A. Rigsby, Gary S. Dwyer, Pedro M. Tapia, Kimberly K. Arnold, Teh-Lung Ku, Shangde Luo

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Despite the hypothesized importance of the tropics in the global climate system, few tropical paleoclimatic records extend to periods earlier than the last glacial maximum (LGM), about 20,000 years before present. We present a well-dated 170,000-year time series of hydrologic variation from the southern hemisphere tropics of South America that extends from modern times through most of the penultimate glacial period. Alternating mud and salt units in a core from Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia reflect alternations between wet and dry periods. The most striking feature of the sequence is that the duration of paleolakes increased in the late Quaternary. This …