Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Ucg Pilot Tests In The United States And Their Contributions To Modern Ucg Technologies, Huang Wan, Wang Jun, Wang Lingxia, Yi Tongsheng, Chen Kexin, Qin Yong

Coal Geology & Exploration

The industrialization of underground coal gasification (UCG), which is conducive to the transformation and development of the coal energy structure and the improvement in the low-carbon utilization level of coal resources, is an environmentally friendly energy development technology in line with the sustainable development strategy. The international energy crisis from the 1980s to the 1990s prompted the United States to vigorously develop UCG technologies. Accordingly, this country has successively carried out six series of UCG pilot tests, which contribute greatly to the progress in UCG technologies and provided the critical foundation for the formation of modern UCG technologies worldwide. This …

Binational Reflections On Pathways To Groundwater Security In The Mexico–United States Borderlands, Rosario Sanchez, José Agustin Breña-Naranjo, Alfonso Rivera, Randall T. Hanson, Antonio Hernández-Espriú, Rick J. Hogeboom, Anita Milman, Jude A. Benavides, Adrian Pedrozo-Acuña, Julio Cesar Soriano-Monzalvo, Sharon B. Megdal, Gabriel Eckstein, Laura Rodriguez

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Shared groundwater resources between Mexico and the United States are facing unprecedented stressors. We reflect on how to improve water security for groundwater systems in the border region. Our reflection begins with the state of groundwater knowledge, and the challenges groundwater resources face from a physical, societal and institutional perspective. We conclude that the extent of ongoing cooperation frameworks, joint and remaining research efforts, from which alternative strategies can emerge, still need to be developed. The way forward offers a variety of cooperation models as the future offers rather complex, shared and multidisciplinary water challenges to the Mexico–US borderlands.

Action Plan For The International Year Of Rangelands And Pastoralists (Iyrp): The Case For The United States, Canada, And Mexico, Barry Irving, Larry Howery, Jürgen Hoth, Jess Peterson

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The GAP analysis (A Case of Benign Neglect: Knowledge gaps about sustainability in rangelands and pastoralism) points to several gaps that are relevant to the US, Canada and Mexico. North American rangelands span the ecological continuum of polar to hot deserts and arid to humid climates that exhibit highly variable ecological and forage production potential across time and space. Although there is a great deal of rangeland research, extension, and inventory capacity in all three countries, a weak link is the dissemination of information to North American pastoralists (conventionally referred to as ranchers or producers). Although the extension system in …

Integrated Research To Reduce Poisoning From Oxytropis And Astragalus Spp In U.S.A., Michael H. Ralphs, B. L. Stegelmeier, K. E. Panter, Dale R. Gardner, J. A. Pfister, S. E. Lee, L. F. James, K. C. Mcdaniel, Rebecca Creamer, J. R. Valdez, D. R. Child

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

No abstract provided.

Procedures For Estimation Of The Livestock Ecological Footprint In Us Drylands, Robert A. Washington‐Allen, John E. Mitchell

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

No abstract provided.

The Transition From Planar To En Echelon Morphology In A Single Vein In Shale: Insights From X-Ray Computed Tomography Scanning, Graham Dm Andrews, Sarah R. Brown, Johnathan Moore, Dustin Crandall, Paige Mackey

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

En echelon fractures and veins are among the most common and distinctive geological structures, yet their three-dimensional forms and relationships to surrounding structures are commonly unclear. X-ray computed tomography (CT) offers an unrivaled ability to examine structures within rocks in three dimensions, and it is applied here to a sample of drill core from the Marcellus Shale of southwestern Pennsylvania (USA). CT images yield qualitative and quantitative data on the transition from a pyrite-rich planar vein to an en echelon veinlet array, and on the heterogeneity of veinlets within the array. Using a combination of three- and two-dimensional images, geometric …

Distributary Channel Networks As Moving Boundaries: Causes And Morphodynamic Effects, Robert C. Mahon, John B. Shaw, Wun-Tao Ke, Christopher A. Cathcart

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

We propose an exploratory model to describe the morphodynamics of distributary channel network growth on river deltas. The interface between deep channels and the shallow, unchannelized delta front deposits is modeled as a moving boundary. Steady flow over the unchannelized delta front is friction dominated and modeled by Laplace's equation. Shear stress along the network boundary produces nonlinear erosion rates at the interface, causing the boundary to move and network elements (channels and branches) to form. The model was run for boundary conditions resembling the Wax Lake Delta in coastal Louisiana, 20 parameterizations of sediment transport, and 3 …

Geomorphology Of Icy Debris Fans: Delivery Of Ice And Sediment To Valley Glaciers Decoupled From Icecaps, R. Craig Kochel, Jeffrey M. Trop, Robert W. Jacob

Faculty Journal Articles

The pace and volume of mass flow processes contributing ice and sediment to icy debris fans (IDFs) were documented at sites in Alaska and New Zealand by integrating field observations, drone and time-lapse imagery, ground penetrating radar, and terrestrial laser scanning. Largely unstudied, IDFs are supraglacial landforms at the mouths of bedrock catchments between valley glaciers and icecaps. Time-lapse imagery recorded 300–2300 events reaching 15 fans during intervals from nine months to two years. Field observations noted hundreds of deposits trapped within catchments weekly that were later remobilized onto fans. Deposits were mapped on images taken three to four times …

Shear Wave Tomography Beneath The United States Using A Joint Inversion Of Surface And Body Waves, E. M. Golos, H. Fang, H. Yao, H. Zhang, Scott Burdick, F. Vernon, A. Schaeffer, S. Lebedev, R. D. Van Der Hilst

Environmental Science and Geology Faculty Research Publications

Resolving both crustal and shallow-mantle heterogeneity, which is needed to study processes in and fluxes between crust and mantle, is still a challenge for seismic tomography. Body wave data can constrain deep features but often produce vertical smearing in the crust and upper mantle; in contrast, surface wave data can provide good vertical resolution of lithospheric structure but may lack lateral resolution and are less sensitive to the deeper Earth. These two data types are usually treated and inverted separately, and tomographic models therefore do not, in general, benefit from the complementary nature of sampling by body and surface waves. …

Overpumping Leads To California Groundwater Arsenic Threat, Ryan G. Smith, Rosemary Knight, Scott Fendorf

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Water resources are being challenged to meet domestic, agricultural, and industrial needs. To complement finite surface water supplies that are being stressed by changes in precipitation and increased demand, groundwater is increasingly being used. Sustaining groundwater use requires considering both water quantity and quality. A unique challenge for groundwater use, as compared with surface water, is the presence of naturally occurring contaminants within aquifer sediments, which can enter the water supply. Here we find that recent groundwater pumping, observed through land subsidence, results in an increase in aquifer arsenic concentrations in the San Joaquin Valley of California. By comparison, historic …

Provenance Analysis Of The Ochoco Basin, Central Oregon: A Window Into The Late Cretaceous Paleogeography Of The Northern U.S. Cordillera, Kathleen D. Surpless, Kirk D. H Gulliver

Geosciences Faculty Research

Cretaceous forearc strata of the Ochoco basin in central Oregon may preserve a record of regional transpression, magmatism, and mountain building within the Late Cretaceous Cordillera. Given the volume of material that must have been eroded from the Sierra Nevada and Idaho batholith to result in modern exposures of mid- and deep-crustal rocks, Cretaceous forearc basins have the potential to preserve a record of arc magmatism no longer preserved within the arc, if forearc sediment can be confidently linked to sources. Paleogeographic models for mid-Cretaceous time indicate that the Blue Mountains and the Ochoco sedimentary overlap succession experienced postdepositional, coast-parallel, …

U.S. Geological Survey (Usgs) Topographic Map Collection, Kentucky Library Research Collections

Research Collections

This is a listing of the Topo maps housed in the KLRC; 7.5, 15 and 30 minute Kentucky and Boundary State Maps. These maps are helpful in genealogy to show how the landscape may have changed and they may have the locations of lost towns and cemeteries and indicate houses, barns, and other structures and how place names, roads, and streams changed over time.

A New Approach To Probabilistic Lava Flow Hazard Assessments, Applied To The Idaho National Laboratory, Eastern Snake River Plain, Idaho, Usa, Elisabeth Gallant, Jacob Richardson, Charles Connor, Paul Wetmore, Laura Connor

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

We present a new probabilistic lava flow hazard assessment for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) nuclear facility that (1) explores the way eruptions are defined and modeled, (2) stochastically samples lava flow parameters from observed values for use in MOLASSES, a lava flow simulator, (3) calculates the likelihood of a new vent opening within the boundaries of INL, (4) determines probabilities of lava flow inundation for INL through Monte Carlo simulation, and (5) couples inundation probabilities with recurrence rates to determine the annual likelihood of lava flow inundation for INL. Results show a 30% probability of …

Lithospheric Layering And Thickness Beneath The Contiguous United States, Lin Liu

Doctoral Dissertations

"The Upper Mississippi Embayment (UME), where the seismically active New Madrid Seismic Zone resides, experienced two phases of subsidence commencing in the Late Precambrian and Cretaceous, respectively. To provide new constraints on models proposed for the mechanisms responsible for the subsidence, we computed and stacked P-to-S receiver functions recorded by 49 USArray and other seismic stations located in the UME and the adjacent Ozark Uplift and modeled Bouguer gravity anomaly data. The inferred thickness, density, and Vp/Vs of the upper and lower crustal layers suggest that the UME is characterized by a mafic and high-density upper crustal layer of ∼30 …

The Impact Of Upland Development And Marsh Width On Groundwater Composition In Estuarine Tidal Creeks In The Southeastern Coastal United States, Meghan Shanahan

Theses and Dissertations

Coastal upland development has been shown to negatively impact surface water quality in tidal creeks along the southeastern coastal United States, but the impact of development on groundwater quality is not well understood. Increases in impervious cover associated with development has the potential to increase groundwater contamination as well as reduce fresh rainwater infiltration into the subsurface, which may decrease discharge of fresh groundwater to the estuary. We hypothesized that groundwater nutrient concentrations and salinity ranges would be higher in developed watersheds than in undeveloped watersheds.

Groundwater discharging from coastal uplands often travels through salt marshes before discharging to tidal …

Assessment Of Upper Cretaceous Strata For Offshore Co2 Storage: Southeastern United States, Khaled F. Almutairi

Theses and Dissertations

This is the first assessment of Upper Cretaceous strata for offshore CO2 storage resources in the southeastern United States outer continental shelf. This research focuses on Upper Cretaceous geological units using legacy industry 2-D seismic reflection and well data. It provides an integrated description and reliable subsurface evaluation of Upper Cretaceous potential storage reservoirs. In addition, it provides a detailed evaluation on how rock porosities and permeabilities are distributed across the Upper Cretaceous strata restricted to the South Georgia Embayment (SGE). Structure and thickness (isochore) maps were generated for the main potential reservoirs and seals on a regional and local …

Usarray Imaging Of Continental Crust In The Conterminous United States, Xiaofei Ma, Anthony R. Lowry

Geosciences Faculty Publications

The thickness and bulk composition of continental crust provide important constraints on the evolution and dynamics of continents. Crustal mineralogy and thickness both may influence gravity anomalies, topographic elevation, and lithospheric strength, but prior to the inception of EarthScope’s USArray, seismic measurements of crustal thickness and properties useful for inferring lithology are sparse. Here we improve upon a previously published methodology for joint inversion of Bouguer gravity anomalies and seismic receiver functions by using parameter space stacking of cross correlations of modeled synthetic and observed receiver functions instead of standard H-κ amplitude stacking. The new method is applied to estimation …

Facies Architecture And Provenance Of A Boulder-Conglomerate Submarine Channel System, Panoche Formation, Great Valley Group: A Forearc Basin Response To Middle Cretaceous Tectonism In The California Convergent Margin, T. J. Greene, Kathleen D. Surpless

Geosciences Faculty Research

Tectonic reorganization induced by a rapid increase in plate motion ­obliquity and rate beginning at ca. 100 Ma affected California’s Andean-style convergent margin, with concomitant changes in the accretionary prism of the Franciscan Complex, the Great Valley forearc basin, and the Sierran continental arc. Using facies analysis and a combined provenance approach, we suggest that this ca. 100 Ma tectonic signal is preserved in a Cenomanian (Upper Cretaceous) boulder-conglomerate outcrop along the San Luis Reservoir (SLR) in the southern Great Valley, which represents the thickest and coarsest deep-water deposit ever described in the Great Valley Group (GVG). We document a …

St. Louis Area Earthquake Hazards Mapping Project: Seismic And Liquefaction Hazard Maps, Chris H. Cramer, Robert A. Bauer, Jaewon Chung, J. David Rogers, Larry Pierce, Vicki Voigt, Brad Mitchell, David Gaunt, Robert A. Williams, David J. Hoffman, Gregory L. Hempen, Phyllis J. Steckel, Oliver Salz Boyd, Connor M. Watkins, Kathleen B. Tucker, Natasha S. Mccallister

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present probabilistic and deterministic seismic and liquefaction hazard maps for the densely populated St. Louis metropolitan area that account for the expected effects of surficial geology on earthquake ground shaking. Hazard calculations were based on a map grid of 0.005°, or about every 500 m, and are thus higher in resolution than any earlier studies. To estimate ground motions at the surface of the model (e.g., site amplification), we used a new detailed near-surface shear-wave velocity model in a 1D equivalent- linear response analysis. When compared with the 2014 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Seismic Hazard Model, which uses …

Effects Of Sea Level Rise On Hydrology: Case Study In A Typical Mid-Atlantic Coastal Watershed, Xixi Wang, Rui Li, Homa Jalaeian Taghadomi, Shohreh Pedram, Xiao Zhao

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Sea level rise (SLR) can negatively affect the hydrology of coastal watersheds. However, the relevant information is incomplete and insufficient in existing literature. The objective of this study is to present a modeling approach to predict long-term effects of SLR on changes of flood peak, flood stage, and groundwater table with an assumption that the historical climate would reoccur in the future. The study was conducted for a typical coastal watershed in southeast USA. The results indicate that sea level had been rising at a rate of 4.21 mm yr⁻¹ from 1948 to 1982 but at a faster rate …

Agenda: Coping With Water Scarcity In River Basins Worldwide: Lessons Learned From Shared Experiences, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Coping with Water Scarcity in River Basins Worldwide: Lessons Learned from Shared Experiences (Martz Summer Conference, June 9-10)

Water scarcity is increasingly dominating headlines throughout the world. In the southwestern USA, the looming water shortages on the Colorado River system and the unprecedented drought in California are garnering the greatest attention. Similar stories of scarcity and crisis can be found across the globe, suggesting an opportunity for sharing lessons and innovations. For example, the Colorado River and Australia's Murray-Darling Basin likely can share many lessons, as both systems were over-allocated, feature multiple jurisdictions, face similar climatic risks and drought stresses, and struggle to balance human demands with environmental needs. In this conference we cast our net broadly, exploring …

Slides: The Era Of River Anthropology: Social And Eco-Hydrological Science Connections And Capacity For Environmental Flows: Us Case Studies, Joseph E. Flotemersch, Lisa-Perras Gordon

Coping with Water Scarcity in River Basins Worldwide: Lessons Learned from Shared Experiences (Martz Summer Conference, June 9-10)

Presenter: Joe Flotemersch, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Research and Development

21 slides

Agenda: Indigenous Water Justice Symposium, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Indigenous Water Justice Symposium (June 6)

Indigenous peoples throughout the world face diverse and often formidable challenges of what might be termed “water justice.” On one hand, these challenges involve issues of distributional justice that concern Indigenous communities’ relative abilities to access and use water for self-determined purposes. On the other hand, issues of procedural justice are frequently associated with water allocation and management, encompassing fundamental matters like representation within governance entities and participation in decision-making processes. Yet another realm of water justice in which disputes are commonplace relates to the persistence of, and respect afforded to, Indigenous communities’ cultural traditions and values surrounding water—more specifically, …

Crop Modeling For Assessing And Mitigating The Impacts Of Extreme Climatic Events On The Us Agriculture System, Zhenong Jin

Open Access Dissertations

The US agriculture system is the world’s largest producer of maize and soybean, and typically supplies more than one-third of their global trading. Nearly 90% of the US maize and soybean production is rainfed, thus is susceptible to climate change stressors such as heat waves and droughts. Process-based crop and cropping system models are important tools for climate change impact assessments and risk management. As data- science is becoming a new frontier for agriculture growth, the incoming decade calls for operational platforms that use hyper-local growth monitoring, high-resolution real-time weather and satellite data assimilation and cropping system modeling to help …

A Uniform Database Of Teleseismic Shear-Wave Splitting Measurements For The Western And Central United States: December 2014 Update, Bin B. Yang, Kelly H. Liu, Haider H. Dahm, Stephen S. Gao

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present a new version of a shear-wave splitting (SWS) database for the western and central United States (WCUS) using broadband seismic data recorded up to the end of 2014 to update a previous version that used data recorded prior to the end of 2012, when the USArray Transportable Array stations were still recording in the easternmost region of theWCUS. A total of 7452 pairs of additional measurements recorded by 1202 digital broadband seismic stations are obtained, and all the measurements in the previous database are rechecked. The resulting uniform SWS database contains a total of 23,448 pairs of well-defined …

Hidden Intrabasin Extension: Evidence For Dike-Fault Interaction From Magnetic, Gravity, And Seismic Reflection Data In Surprise Valley, Northeastern California, Noah D. Athens, Jonathan M.G. Glen, Simon L. Klemperer, Anne E. Egger, Valentina C. Fontiveros

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

The relative contributions of tectonic and magmatic processes to continental rifting are highly variable. Magnetic, gravity, and seismic reflection data from Surprise Valley, California, in the northwest Basin and Range, reveal an intrabasin, fault-controlled, ~10-m-thick dike at a depth of ~150 m, providing an excellent example of the interplay between faulting and dike intrusion. The dike, likely a composite structure representing multiple successive intrusions, is inferred from modeling a positive magnetic anomaly that extends ~35 km and parallels the basin-bounding Surprise Valley normal fault on the west side of the valley. A two-dimensional high-resolution seismic reflection profile acquired across the …

Seismic-Hazard Map Of Southeast Missouri And Likely Magnitude Of The February 1812 New Madrid Earthquake, Jaewon Chung, J. David Rogers

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The New Madrid seismic zone lies beneath the upper Mississippi Embayment, straddling the border between southeastern Missouri and northwestern Tennessee. In late 1811 and early 1812, it produced five earthquakes of magnitudes >6.5, violently shaking the central and eastern United States (CEUS). Its magnitude and recurrence are of concern to today's central United States regions. By considering the effects of local geology, deterministic scenario maps (M_w 7.3 and 7.7) were produced for ground motions intended to simulate the 7 February 1812 event (NM3), which was the largest felt. These maps include spatial estimates of peak ground acceleration and of …

Slides: The (Largely) Untold Success Story Of Urban Water Conservation, Peter Mayer

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Peter Mayer, P.E., Water Demand Management

20 slides

Dynamic Triggering In The Coso Geothermal Field, 2004-2013, Richard A. Alfaro-Diaz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

We take advantage of EarthScope’s USArray Transportable Array (TA), regional seismic networks to investigate 154 M ≥ 7 earthquakes over a ten-year period (2004- 2013), in search of remotely triggered seismicity within the continental United States. We conduct an automated search to detect high frequency signals (which may indicate triggering of small local earthquakes) using a time window of 5 hours before and after each mainshock. The automated detection applies a short-term average (STA) to long-term-average (LTA) algorithms, to create a catalogue of detections. Using the catalog we search for an increase in detection rates after each main-shock. Sharp increases …

Comparison Of The Ground-Motion Attenuation Relationship Between The Wenchuan, China, Area And The Central And Eastern United States, Jiwei Feng, Zhenming Wang, Edward W. Woolery, Shanyou Li

Report of Investigations--KGS

An M_w-7.9 earthquake occurred in Wenchuan, China, in 2008, along the Longmenshan Fault, which is located on the western border of the South China stable continental region. A detailed comparison of the Wenchuan ground-motion attenuation relationships with the relationships for the central and eastern United States (also a stable continental region) showed that the ground-motion prediction equation for the Wenchuan area is similar to those for the central and eastern United States. Thus, the strong-motion records from the Wenchuan earthquake can be used for constraining the ground-motion prediction equation and engineering analysis for the central and eastern United …