Earth Sciences Commons^™

Organic Amendments Alter Soil Hydrology And Belowground Microbiome Of Tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum), Taylor Readyhough

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Manure-derived organic amendments are a cost-effective tool that provide many potential benefits to plant and soil health. For example, amendment applications may increase soil fertility, improve soil structure, stimulate microbial activity, and suppress plant pathogens. Yet, responses to these applications may have unintended consequences. Inherent variability in the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of these materials can result in inconsistent outcomes observed after their application. These differences are manifested in plant growth, soil physiochemical properties, and soil microbial community composition. Popular manure-derived organic amendments include dairy manure compost and poultry manure pellets. Dairy manure is an abundant resource on many …

Assessing The Impact Of Changes In Acid Deposition On Dissolved Organic Carbon Mobilization From Two Forested Headwater Catchments: A Combined Lab And Field Study, Caitlin Bristol

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Over the past few decades, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations in headwater streams in the northern hemisphere changed. Because these changes in DOC coincided with decreased acid deposition, a potential link was proposed early on. More recent research indicated that catchment attributes, especially soil characteristics and the presence of Ca-bearing minerals, play an important role in modulating DOC release from watersheds, but further research is necessary.

To investigate the role of catchment characteristics on DOC dynamics, I use several watersheds in the Northeastern United States with similar attributes and well-constrained differences. Sleepers River Research Watershed (SRRW) has naturally occurring Calcium …

Distinguishing Different Styles Of Transpressional Deformation At An Obliquely Convergent Plate Margin, Fiordland, New Zealand, Emily Sarah Lincoln

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Fiordland, New Zealand provides one of the best-known and deepest (to 65 km) exposures of an Early Cretaceous magmatic arc root known to geologists. These exposures allow for us to study tectonic deformational processes at varying crustal depths, including the role of pre-existing structures on later reactivation. The well-preserved Grebe shear zone (GSZ) marks the boundary between major basement terranes in southern Fiordland and has undergone multiple episodes of deformation during the Cretaceous and Cenozoic time periods. The primary focus of this study is to recognize and characterize the differing phases of deformation that occurred along this shear zone. To …

Cluster Analysis Of Time Series Data With Application To Hydrological Events And Serious Illness Conversations, Ali Javed

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Cluster analysis explores the underlying structure of data and organizes it into groups (i.e., clusters) such that observations within the same group are more similar than those in different groups. Quantifying the ``similarity'' between observations, choosing the optimal number of clusters, and interpreting the results all require careful consideration of the research question at hand, the model parameters, the amount of data and their attributes. In this dissertation, the first manuscript explores the impact of design choices and the variability in clustering performance on different datasets. This is demonstrated through a benchmark study consisting of 128 datasets from the University …

Enhancing Ecosystem Services And Climate Resilience In Agriculture: A Transdisciplinary Approach, Alissa White

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

A complex of social, economic and environmental factors influences agricultural management in the northeastern US. Farmers often balance goals of farm viability, environmental stewardship, and resilience to climate change, while also under public pressure to enhance the provisioning of ecosystem services from their landscapes. Changes in farm management have been identified as cost-effective ways to address both local water quality issues, and global anthropogenic influences on greenhouse gas concentrations. Individual decision-making on the part of farmers that determines the fate of ecosystem service provisioning from agroecosystems, placing increasing importance on understanding how policy, outreach and research can support farmers’ capacity …

Phosphorus And Nitrogen Losses In Runoff From Fields With And Without Tile Drainage, Leanna Thalmann

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Nutrient losses in surface and subsurface drainage from crop fields have important water quality implications. The deterioration of water quality in segments of Lake Champlain has led to efforts to reduce phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) export from agricultural fields. This thesis presents data from two years of edge-of-field monitoring in two adjacent corn (Zea mays L.) silage fields in Keeseville, New York. One field has only surface drainage improvements with monitoring equipment, and the other has both surface and subsurface drainage modifications and monitoring equipment. The study took place from October 2018 to September 2020 and quantified flow and …

Characterizing Mass Loss In Central Cuba Using Long-Term Sediment Generation Rates And Rock Dissolution Rates, Mae Kate Campbell

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Knowledge of denudation rates over geologic timescales provides important insight into the processes that govern soil formation, the regulation of Earth’s climate, and the evolution of landscapes. Accurately establishing long-term denudation rates is also key to understanding how human actions have altered the rates and patterns of erosion over time. While cosmogenic nuclides are often used to measure long-term denudation rates at the basin scale, these rates can be unrepresentative of total landscape denudation in areas where significant mass loss occurs through rock dissolution. In tropical landscapes, mass loss by solution often represents a significant portion of total landscape mass …

Trace Metal Contamination In Urban Soils: A Field To Laboratory Methodological Framework For Characterization And Education, Sandra Leighanne Walser

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Urban soils around the world have been found to possess elevated concentrations of toxic trace metals such as As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Mn, Hg, Zn known to pose human health risks. Tightening environmental legislation and further elucidation of the detrimental health impacts from trace metals has necessitated more efficient means of contamination assessment, as well as greater public awareness. Within this thesis, I sought to develop an array of tools to holistically approach the socially relevant environmental challenges derived from heavy metal soil contamination. These tools consist in providing means to simplify Pb, Zn and Cu analysis in-situ, develop strategies …

Geomechanical, Geochemical, And Hydrological Aspects Of Co2 Injection Into Saline Reservoirs, Maziar Foroutan

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Carbon dioxide Capturing, and Sequestration (CCS) is a promising technique that helps mitigate the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. CCS process mainly involves capturing CO2 at the industrial plant, followed by transportation and injection into a suitable geological storage, under supercritical conditions. Saline aquifers are among the best geological storage candidates due to their availability, high storage capacity and injectivity. Despite the CCUS technology promise, several public safety concerns remain to be address, including but not limited to reservoir/wellbore stability and integrity, CO2 leakage, ground deformation (uplift) and induced seismicity.

The injected supercritical CO2 is trapped through different …