Geomorphology Commons^™

Opening Of The Gulf Of Mexico: What We Know, What Questions Remain, And How We Might Answer Them, Irina Filina, James Austin, Tony Doré, Elizabeth Johnson, Daniel Minguez, Ian Norton, John Snedden, Robert J. Stern

Papers in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

The Gulf of Mexico is an economically important basin with more than a century-long history of hydrocarbon exploration. However, the opening history of the basin remains debated for two reasons: 1) the quality of data does not allow for reliable interpretations of crustal features beneath thick and complex overburden, and 2) most industry well and geophysical data are proprietary. The last concerted effort by industry and academia to summarize the state of knowledge regarding the Gulf of Mexico’s formation was three decades ago and resulted in publication of a major volume as part of the Decade of North American Geology …

Vegetation Effects On Coastal Foredune Initiation: Wind Tunnel Experiments And Field Validation For Three Dune-Building Plants, Bianca Reo Charbonneau, Stephanie M. Dohner, John P. Wnek, Don Barber, Phoebe Zarnetske, Brenda B. Casper

Geology Faculty Research and Scholarship

As the land-sea interface, foredunes buffer upland habitats with plants acting as ecosystem engineers shaping topography, and thereby affecting storm response and recovery. However, many ecogeomorphic feedbacks in coastal foredune formation and recovery remain uncertain in this dynamic environment. We carried out a series of wind tunnel experiments testing how the morphology, density, and configuration of three foredune pioneer dune building plant species influence the most basic stage of dune initiation — nebkha formation around individual plants. We established monocultures of native Ammophila breviligulata and Panicum amarum and invasive Carex kobomugi in 1 m × 1 m planter boxes of …

Rock Glacier Hydrological Significance In A Warming World: A Geoecological Transect In The North Cascades, Washington, Jessica Abadie Coffey

All Master's Theses

Mountain environments are some of the most climate-sensitive areas on the planet. Due to recent warming trends, the 0℃ isotherm is rising in elevation and subsequently melting glaciers, snowpack, and permafrost. However, rock glaciers are a type of permafrost that is climate-resilient; therefore, research on their distribution and water volume equivalence (WVEQ) will be increasingly valuable in a warming world.

The purpose of this research was to determine the hydrological significance of different altitude belts of alpine permafrost in Washington State’s North Cascades. Additionally, this study analyzed how much rock glacier permafrost will be exposed to melting temperatures with climate …

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 …

Wave Climate Associated With Changing Water Level And Ice Cover In Lake Michigan, Chenfu Huang, Longhuan Zhu, Gangfeng Ma, Guy A. Meadows, Pengfei Xue

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Detailed knowledge of wave climate change is essential for understanding coastal geomorphological processes, ecosystem resilience, the design of offshore and coastal engineering structures and aquaculture systems. In Lake Michigan, the in-situ wave observations suitable for long-term analysis are limited to two offshore MetOcean buoys. Since this distribution is inadequate to fully represent spatial patterns of wave climate across the lake, a series of high-resolution SWAN model simulations were performed for the analysis of long-term wave climate change for the entirety of Lake Michigan from 1979 to 2020. Model results were validated against observations from two offshore buoys and 16 coastal …

Aeolian Sand Stringers In The Upper Midwest, Usa: Morphology, Stratigraphy, And Paleoenvironmental Significance, Kenzie L. Shandonay

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Sand stringers are subtle (~1-10 m high), elongate (several km long, up to 100 m wide) aeolian landforms that lack a slip face and generally have a northwest-southeast orientation. They are ubiquitous across the Upper Midwest, including southeast Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Despite their prevalence, the timing, processes, and environmental conditions during sand stringer formation and evolution are poorly understood. This research aims to describe sand stringer morphology and stratigraphy, reconstruct regional paleoclimate, and characterize the timing and geomorphic processes of sand stringer formation and evolution in response to shifts in environmental conditions. This study investigates two sand stringers: Good-1 …

Mapping Michigan's Historic Coastlines, Ryan A. Williams

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This five-year project, sponsored by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, is working to map how Michigan’s Great Lakes shorelines have changed over the past 80+ years. Products of this project include publicly available digital, georeferenced, historic aerial photography datasets, as well as map layers depicting the locations of historic shorelines and bluff lines from 1938, 1980, 2009, 2016, 2018, and 2020. Additional products include bluff retreat risk areas, shoreline rate of change map layers, and tools to assist in the development of future Coastal Vulnerability Index projects for the Great Lakes. All products are available as …

Annual Report 2020 Conservation And Survey Division, Robert Matthew Joeckel

Conservation and Survey Division

The Conservation and Survey Division (Nebraska Geological Survey), the natural resource survey component of the School of Natural Resources, is a unique, multi-disciplinary research, service and data-collection organization established by state statute in 1921.

The Division's mission is to investigate and record information about Nebraska's geologic history, its rock and mineral resources, the quantity and quality of its water resources, land cover and other aspects of its geography, as well as the nature, distribution and uses of its soils.

Environmental Controls On The Spatial Distribution Of Greenfin Darters And Biodiversity In The Blue Ridge Mountains, Dri Tattersfield

CMC Senior Theses

Disproportionate concentrations of biodiversity in mountains worldwide suggest linkages between geologic processes and biodiversity that are not yet well understood. The Tennessee River Basin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the southeastern U.S. is a global hotspot for freshwater fish biodiversity. To investigate drivers of biodiversity in the Tennessee River Basin, and explore links to geologic processes, I study the Greenfin Darter (Nothonotus chlorobranchius), a small fish endemic to the upper Tennessee River Basin. I use generalized linear models (GLMs) to evaluate the influence of topography, lithology, climate and land use on the distribution of the Greenfin Darter, …

Biophysical Controls Of Marsh Soil Shear Strength Along An Estuarine Salinity Gradient, Megan N. Gillen, Tyler C. Messerschmidt, Matthew L. Kirwan

VIMS Articles

Sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion, and wave erosion threaten coastal marshes, but the influence of salinity on marsh erodibility remains poorly understood. We measured the shear strength of marsh soils along a salinity and biodiversity gradient in the York River estuary in Virginia to assess the direct and indirect im-pacts of salinity on potential marsh erodibility. We found that soil shear strength was higher in monospecific salt marshes (5–36 kPa) than in biodiverse freshwater marshes (4–8 kPa), likely driven by differences in below ground biomass. However, we also found that shear strength at the marsh edge was controlled by sediment characteristics, …

The Role Of Infrequently Mobile Boulders In Modulating Landscape Evolution And Geomorphic Hazards, Charles M. Shobe, Jens M. Turowski, Ron Nativ, Rachel C. Glade, Georgina L. Bennett, Benedetta Dini

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

A landscape’s sediment grain size distribution is the product of, and an important influence on, earth surface processes and landscape evolution. Grains can be large enough that the motion of a single grain, infrequently mobile in size-selective transport systems, constitutes or triggers significant geomorphic change. We define these grains as boulders. Boulders affect landscape evolution; their dynamics and effects on landscape form have been the focus of substantial recent community effort. We review progress on five key questions related to how boulders influence the evolution of unglaciated, eroding landscapes: 1) What factors control boulder production on eroding hillslopes and the …

Freshwater Tidal Wetland Sediment Flux In The Hudson River, Ny, Kelly Mckeon, Jonathan Woodruff

Data and Datasets

This study primarily used a 16-year tidal flux dataset generated by the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve (HRNERR) to generate highly detailed sediment budgets for two freshwater tidal wetlands in the Hudson River. Throughout this dataset, Tivoli North Bay is a marsh and files associated with it will be labeled TVN. Tivoli South Bay is a mudflat and files associated with this bay will be labelled TVS. The HRNERR dataset is publicly available through their centralized data management office at cdmo.baruch.sc.edu. To supplement the publicly available water level, turbidity, and suspended sediment concentration (SSC) data, we deployed additional current …

Subsurface Architecture Of Alpine Icy Debris Fans: Integration Of Ground-Penetrating Radar And Surface Observations In Alaska And New Zealand, Robert W. Jacob, Jeffrey M. Trop, R. Craig Kochel

Faculty Journal Articles

Icy debris fans (IDFs) are extremely dynamic supraglacial landforms at the mouths of bedrock catchments between valley glaciers and icecaps. Recent studies quantified the nature, pace, and volume of mass flow processes contributing ice and sediment to IDFs by integrating field observations, drone and time-lapse imagery, and terrestrial laser scanning. New geophysical data presented herein characterize the subsurface architecture of IDFs along the McCarthy Glacier in Alaska and the Douglas, La Perouse, and Mueller Glaciers in New Zealand. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) profiles and soundings from field surveys during 2013–2015 provide stratigraphic evidence of the following subsurface processes important in …

Landslide Site Assessment And Characterization Using Remote Sensing Techniques, Batmyagmar Dashbold

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Landslides are common and dangerous natural hazards that occur worldwide, often causing severe direct impacts on human lives, public and private properties. It is imperative to identify the landslide susceptible areas to avoid or mitigate the possible damage. Landslide prediction can be presented in a slope failure in spatial and/ or temporal terms. If it is presented in spatial term, it is considered a landslide susceptibility map (LSM) defined as the probability of spatial occurrence of slope failures. If it is presented in a combination of spatial and temporal distribution of the landslide susceptibility, it is commonly referred to as …

Long-Term Geomorphic Effects Of The Glines Canyon Dam Removal On The Elwha River, Washington, Usa, Alyssa D. Demott

All Master's Theses

The Elwha River once provided vital habitat for a variety of salmonid species, but after two dams were emplaced on the river in the early 1900s, habitat diminished, and salmon populations declined. From 2011-2014, the dams were finally removed to restore the Elwha ecosystem. To understand the long-term geomorphic impacts of the Glines Canyon Dam removal on the Elwha River, I quantified changes in four parameters: in-channel large wood, main channel sinuosity, channel braiding, and sedimentation. High-resolution imagery from 2012-2020 was used to map large wood and digitize main and secondary river channels, and field surveys were completed at study …

Inventory Of Rock Glaciers In The American West And Their Topography And Climate, Allison Reese Trcka

Dissertations and Theses

Rock glaciers are flowing geomorphic landforms composed of an ice/debris mixture. A uniform rock glacier classification scheme was created for the western continental US, based on internationally recognized criteria, to merge the various regional published inventories. A total of 2249 rock glaciers (1564 active, 685 inactive) and 7852 features of interest were identified in 10 states (WA, OR, CA, ID, NV, UT, ID, MT, WY, CO, NM). Sulfur Creek rock glacier in Wyoming is the largest active rock glacier (2.39 km²). The mean area and elevation for active and inactive rock glaciers are 0.18 km², 3384 …

Hydrometeorological Factors Determining The Development Of Water Table Cave Patterns In High Alpine Zones. The Ordesa And Monte Perdido National Park, Ne Spain, Antonio González-Ramón, Jorge Jódar, José M. Samsó, Sergio Martos-Rosillo, Javier Heredia, Ane Zabaleta, Iñaki Antigüedad, Emilio Custodio, Luis J. Lambán

International Journal of Speleology

This study is focussed on the geomorphological characterization and the processes driving the evolution of the highest karst system in Western Europe, which is located in the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park (PNOMP), in the central-southern Pyrenees. The karst system does not seem to have a well-developed epikarst. The studied area shows a karst network of polygenic branchwork type in the vadose zone. Additionally, the explored karst conduits in the epiphreatic zone show a water table cave pattern that is different to the looping one, which is the expected cave pattern development for a karst located in a mountain …

Enforcing Higher Standards For Flood Hazard Mitigation In Vermont, Tamsin Flanders

Masters Theses

The state of Vermont faces increasing risk of costly damage from catastrophic flooding events as climate change increases the frequency of heavy rains and cumulative precipitation. In addition to increasing flood inundation risk, extreme precipitation events are leading to high rates damage from fluvial erosion—erosion caused by the force of floodwater and the materials it carries. As in all U.S. states, flood hazard governance in Vermont is shared by multiple levels of government and involves a complex compliance model that relies on local governments to regulate private property owners to achieve community, state, or federal goals.

To encourage municipalities to …

Species Distribution Modeling For Arid Adapted Habitat Specialists In Zion National Park, Sam Driver, Daniel R. Unger, David L. Kulhavy, Chris M. Schalk

Student Publications

The Arizona toad (Anaxyrus microscaphus) and Jones’ waxy dogbane (Cycladenia humilis var. jonesii) are habitat specialists with historical ranges in the desert southwest and specifically, Zion National Park (ZION). The machine learning method, MaxEnt, constructed species distribution models (SDMs) in ZION for the two study species at 30 m and 900 m spatial resolutions using climate, topographic, and remotely sensed data. Additionally, 900 m forecasting models were constructed to observe the shifts in suitable habitat for the years 2050 and 2070, based off two representative concentration pathway scenarios. Results indicate promising predictive power for both high …

Species Distribution Modeling For Arid Adapted Habitat Specialists In Zion National Park, Sam Driver, Chris M. Schalk, Daniel Unger, David Kulhavy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Arizona toad (Anaxyrus microscaphus) and Jones’ waxy dogbane (Cycladenia humilis var. jonesii) are habitat specialists with historical ranges in the desert southwest and specifically, Zion National Park (ZION). The machine learning method, MaxEnt, constructed species distribution models (SDMs) in ZION for the two study species at 30 m and 900 m spatial resolutions using climate, topographic, and remotely sensed data. Additionally, 900 m forecasting models were constructed to observe the shifts in suitable habitat for the years 2050 and 2070, based off two representative concentration pathway scenarios. Results indicate promising predictive power for both high …