Earth Sciences Commons^™

Geology Newsletter- 1990, Department Of Geology

Geological and Environmental Sciences News

Vol.1, No. 15

• Institute for Water Sciences
• Ground-Water Education in Michigan
• Core Research Lab
• Awards and Scholarships
• Geology/ Earth Science Club
• Faculty News
• News from the Service Staff
• 1990 Speakers Program
• Geology Development and Scholarship Donations
• Alumni/ Friends/ Former Faculty Notes
• Donations

Radon Contamination Of Residences In A City Built Upon A Karst Landscape Bowling Green, Warren County, Kentucky, James William Webster

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 8 to 12% of U.S. homes have radon concentrations that equal or exceed 4 picocuries per liter (pCi/l). A statewide screening of Kentucky by EPA resulted in an average residential radon concentration of 2.8 pCi/l with 17% of the homes at or above 4 pCi/l. EPA requires routine monitoring and maintenance or worker health records in mines and caves having radon daughter concentrations at or above 0.30 working levels (WL).

Bowling Green is a city located in a karst region of south central Kentucky. Residents of Bowling Green have been subjected …

Groundwater Levels In Nebraska, 1989, Michael J. Ellis, Gregory V. Steele, Perry B. Wigley

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Implications Of Thermal Events On Thrust Emplacement Sequence In The Appalachian Fold And Thrust Belt: Some New Vitrinite Reflectance Data, Sharon E. Lewis, James C. Hower

Center for Applied Energy Research Faculty and Staff Publications

Interpretation of existing geothermometry data combined with new vitrinite reflectance data, within the framework of a detailed composite tectonic setting, elucidates the evolution of structural sequencing of thrust sheets during the Alleghanian event in the Valley and Ridge Province in Virginia. That the Pulaski thrust sheet preceded the Saltville thrust sheet in the emplacement sequence, and that both reached thermal maxima prior to, or during, respective emplacement may be inferred from vitrinite and other geothermometry data. In contrast, the Narrows and St. Clair thrust sheets probably each attained their thermal maximum after emplacement. New vitrinite reflectance data are consistent with …

Ua77/1 Alumni, Wku Alumni Relations

WKU Archives Records

WKU's alumni magazine. Contents:

• Dancing on Walls - Governor's Scholars Program
• An Anniversary Gift - Preston Health & Activities Center
• 1990 Alumni Annual Student Phonathon
• A Sturdy Individualist - Virginia Woods
• Turn Your Radio On - WKYU-FM
• Competitive Edge - Miss Kentucky, Miss Western
• Excitement! - 1990 Homecoming
• Mammoth Cave is a Cool Spot in a Hot Summer

Oil And Gas Developments In North Mid-Continent In 1989., Shirley E. Paul, Bruce W. Netzler, Raymond R. Burchett, Paul H. Roberts, Robert Peters, Donivan L. Gordon, John H. Mossler

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Ancient Channels Of The Susquehanna River Beneath Chesapeake Bay And The Delmarva Peninsula, Steven M. Colman, Jeffrey P. Halka, C. Hobbs, Robert B. Mixon, David S. Foster

VIMS Articles

Three generations of the ancestral Susquehanna River system have been mapped beneath Chesapeake Bay and the southern Delmarva Peninsula. Closely spaced seismic reflection profiles in the bay and boreholes in the bay and on the southern Delmarva Peninsula allow detailed reconstruction of each paleochannel system. The channel systems were formed during glacial low sea-level stands, and each contains a channel-fill sequence that records the subsequent transgression. The trunk channels of each system are 2 to 4 km wide and are incised 30 to SO m into underlying strata; they have irregular longitudinal profiles and very low gradients within the Chesapeake …

Postulated Evolution Of Platte River And Related Drainages, V. L. Souders, J. B. Swinehart, V. H. Dreeszen

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Tomlinsonia Stichkania Sp. Nov., A Permineralized Grass From The Pliocene To (?)Pleistocene China Ranch Beds In Sperry Wash, California, William D. Tidwell, E. M. V. Nambudiri

Faculty Publications

Permineralized specimens of grasses assignable to Tomlinsonia as a new species Tomlinsonia stichkania occur in the China Ranch beds of Pliocene to possible Pleistocene age in Sperry Wash in the Alexander Hills of southeastern California. The round culm of these grasses is generally solid or occasionally hollow with collateral vascular bundles in the distinct outer and indistinct inner rings. Two-ranked leaf sheaths alternately encircle and overlap the culm. Ridges and furrows occur in the abaxial surfaces of the sheaths. The epidermis of the leaf sheaths is similar to that of the culm. The leaf lamina consists of a three-layered mesophyll. …

Pliocene And Pleistocene Depositional Environments On The York-James Peninsula, Virginia; A Field Guidebook, Gerald H. Johnson, Carl H. Hobbs Iii

Reports

The late Cenozoic deposits of southeastern Virginia represent a wide variety of depositional environments and record numerous marine transgressions. The formations range in age from Miocene to Holocene. This fieldguide provides an opportunity to visit and sample highly fossilferous marine bay and fluvial-estuarine sediments exposed in river bluffs and borrow pits on the York-James Peninsula.

A “Drastic” Evaluation Of The Ground-Water Pollution Potential Of Karst Terrain: Lost River Ground-Water Basin, Warren County, Kentucky, David Baize

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Karst terrains, such as the Lost River Karst Ground-Water Basin, are extremely vulnerable to ground-water contamination. Seven physical factors: depth to water, recharge, aquifer media, soil media, topography, impact of the vadose zone, and hydraulic conductivity, are evaluated using the DRASTIC system to determine the ground-water pollution potential of the study area. A numerical value is calculated for each of the seven factors, and a map layer for each factor is produced. These layers are then “added” together to produce a DRASTIC ground-water pollution potential map. The effectiveness of each factor in evaluating the pollution potential of karst terrain is …

Bazile Triangle Groundwater Quality Study, David C. Gosselin

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Use Of Limestone, Lime, And Dolomite For So2 Emission Control In Kentucky, Garland R. Dever Jr.

Information Circular--KGS

Flue-gas desulfurization and atmospheric fluidized-bed combustion systems for sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emission control have been installed at 13 coal- and gas-fired plants and one research laboratory in Kentucky. Limestone, lime, and dolomite are the principal SO₂ sorbents used in these systems.

Nine coal-fired, electricity-generating plants in the State have installed wet-scrubbing systems for flue-gas desulfurization. Lime-based scrubbers are using Thiosorbic® lime, produced from the Camp Nelson Limestone (Ordovician) of north-central Kentucky, and carbide lime, a byproduct from the manufacture of acetylene in Louisville. Limestone-based scrubbing systems at three of the plants have used stone from the Warsaw, …

High-Volume Oil Discovery In Clinton County, Kentucky, Terence Hamilton-Smith, Brandon C. Nuttall, Patrick J. Gooding, Dan Walker, James A. Drahovzal

Information Circular--KGS

The Syndicated Options Limited of Austria No. 9372 Ferguson Brothers well, located in southern Clinton County, Kentucky, has recently produced oil at reported initial rates of 400 to 130 barrels per hour. Cumulative production for the first 8 weeks of flow following discovery on September 25, 1990, is reported to be nearly 150,000 barrels. The well is the result of deepening a previously abandoned well. Production is from the Middle Ordovician High Bridge Group (equivalent to the Stones River Group of Tennessee) at a depth of 1,008 feet. The reservoir is apparently a fractured carbonate rock, and the fracturing is …

Constraints On The Emplacement And Uplift History Of The Pine Mountain Thrust Sheet, Eastern Kentucky: Evidence From Coal Rank Trends, Kieran D. O'Hara, James C. Hower, Susan M. Rimmer

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

In this paper coal rank trends on both sides of the Pine Mountain thrust in eastern Kentucky are used to place constraints on thrust evolution. Vitrinite reflectance () measurements on a single Pennsylvanian coal horizon (Fire Clay coal) in eastern Kentucky increase from 0.5% in the north to about 1.0% toward the SE in front of the Pine Mountain thrust. The same horizon in the hangingwall of the thrust displays lower R_max values (0.8-0.85%). The reflectance isograds are subparallel to the thrust within approximately 10 km of the trace of the fault. We attribute thermal maturation to (1) pre-orogenic …

Lottery Proceeds In California Pay For Installation Of A Ground-Water Monitoring System, June Ann Oberdorfer, J. W. Williams, M. G. Smelser

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Annual Report Of Nebraska-1990, Karl E. Starch, Raymond R. Burchett

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Richardson County Test Hole Logs, Raymond R. Burchett, Frank A. Smith

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Significant Rises And Declines In Nebraska Groundwater Levels (From Pre-Development As Of Fall 1989)/Registered Irrigation Wells In Nebraska (As Of January 1, 1990), Mark Burbach

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Drying Out Wet Basements, Mark S. Kuzila

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Annual Departures From Average Annual Precipitation In Nebraska, 1850-1989, Conservation Survey Division

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Significant Rises And Declines In Nebraska Groundwater Levels (From Pre-Development As Of Fall 1988) /Registered Irrigation Wells In Nebraska (As Of January 1, 1989), Conservation Survey Division

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Location Of Registered Irrigation Wells In Nebraska As Of 1990.

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Mineral Facts For Nebraska, Raymond R. Burchett

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Annual Installation Of Irrigation Wells In Nebraska Through 1989, Conservation Survey Division

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Postfolding Remagnetization That Passes The Fold Test, Russ R. Burmester, Myrl E. Beck Jr., D. R. Bazard

Geology Faculty Publications

The palaeomagnetism of folded Cretaceous redbeds in the Methow-Pasayten belt of Washington was studied in an attempt to resolve the tilt versus translation origin of shallow inclinations found in most Cretaceous plutonic rocks of the Pacific Northwest. After elimination of results from apparently strained, overturned beds, correction to palaeohorizontal of the high-temperature, dominant components produced two distinct directions, one from each of two areas. Treated separately, the magnetizations from these two areas appear to pass the fold test. Both directions are anomalously shallow which is typical of the region, but the discrepancy between them casts doubt that both could have …

Biological Markers In Lower Jurassic Synrift Lacustrine Black Shales, Hartford Basin, Connecticut, U.S.A., Michael A. Kruge, John F. Hubert, Jay F. Akes, Paul E. Meriney

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The East Berlin Formation (Lower Jurassic, Hartford basin, Connecticut, U.S.A.) is distinctive for its six cyclic units of lacustrine black shale and gray mudstone. separated by playa and fluvial redbeds. The black shales arc each about a meter thick and were deposited in subtropical, thermally stratified, oligomictic lakes, the youngest of which (lakes 3 through 6) were large enough to flood most of the basin and attained depths of several tens of meters.

The saturate fractions of solvent extracts of organic-rich black shales from each of the six lakes, collected at fresh roadcuts near East Berlin, arc dominated by extended …

Organic Geochemistry Of A Lower Jurassic Synrift Lacustrine Sequence, Hartford Basin, Connecticut, U.S.A., Michael A. Kruge, John F. Hubert, David F. Bensley, John C. Crelling, R Jay Akes, Paul E. Meriney

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Synrift terrestrial strata of the Lower Jurassic East Berlin Formation (Hartford basin, Connecticut, U.S.A.) record cyclical expansion and contraction of major lakes, six of which were deep enough to develop anoxic bottom waters. We have studied one representative lacustrine sequence in detail, sampling a new roadcut near the village of East Berlin. The section examined is 4 m thick, with a gray siltstone at the base, deposited in shallow water, overlain by an organic-rich black shale (deep water), succeeded in turn by another gray siltstone, deposited as the lake waters gradually receded. The upper gray siltstone is chemically distinct from …

Significant Rises And Declines In Nebraska Groundwater Levels (From Pre-Development As Of Fall 1989)/Registered Irrigation Wells In Nebraska (As Of January 1, 1990), Mark Burbach

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

35th Annual Midwest Groundwater Conference Program With Abstracts, P. B. Wigley, K. E. Stork, D. C. Gosselin

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.