Characterization Of Landslide Processes From Radar Remote Sensing And Hydromechanical Modeling, 2021 Southern Methodist University
Characterization Of Landslide Processes From Radar Remote Sensing And Hydromechanical Modeling, Yuankun Xu
Earth Sciences Theses and Dissertations
Landsides are a natural geomorphic process yet a dangerous hazard which annually causes thousands of casualties and billions of property loss in a global scale. Understanding landslide motion kinematics from early initiation to final deposition is critical for monitoring, assessing, and forecasting landslide movement in order to mitigate their hazards. Landslides occur under diverse environmental settings and appear in variable types; however, all types of landslides can be mechanically attributed to shearing failure at the basal surface due to stress regime shift contributed by internal and/or external forcing. Typical internal factors include soil/rock weathering, whereas typical external triggering forces encompass …
Landscape Evolution At Endeavour And Gale Craters On Mars, And How Terrain Characteristics Correlate With Mineralogy On Lower Mount Sharp, Gale Crater, 2021 Washington University in St. Louis
Landscape Evolution At Endeavour And Gale Craters On Mars, And How Terrain Characteristics Correlate With Mineralogy On Lower Mount Sharp, Gale Crater, Madison Nicole Hughes
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The geomorphic expression of terrain provides information such as the underlying lithologic properties and the dominant surface processes. By examining the surface morphology of two impact craters on Mars that have been explored by rovers, we can synergistically combine orbital and ground observations to obtain a deeper insight into the geologic history. In this dissertation, we analyze the landscape evolution of Endeavour and Gale craters, which have been explored by the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, respectively. This is accomplished largely by analyzing the topography on a larger scale using images from Mars orbiters and their associated Digital Elevation Models, combined …
Linking Human Activities To Water Quality In Coastal New England: Past And Present, 2021 University of Connecticut
Linking Human Activities To Water Quality In Coastal New England: Past And Present, Amelia Hurst
University Scholar Projects
This project examines the timing and effect of direct and indirect anthropogenic and natural influences on the marine environment in embayments in southern New England over the past decades to century timescale. We investigated the effects of human land use from colonial through post-industrial times, determined baseline conditions and natural climatic variability, and analyzed the response of marine ecosystems to specific local management actions aimed to improve water quality. A coastal sediment core was taken in Mumford Cove, CT and was analyzed downcore for eutrophication markers (C: N, %C, %N, d15N, d13C) and metals (Hg, Pb, …
Late Amazonian Wind Regimes And Landscape Evolution In Northern Meridiani Planum, Mars, 2021 Augustana College
Late Amazonian Wind Regimes And Landscape Evolution In Northern Meridiani Planum, Mars, Thomas Stritch
Geology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works
Aeolian process have dominated the lower latitudes of Mars for billions of years. Aeolian landforms can act as records of current and past climates and landscape evolution processes. The etched deposits of Meridiani Planum, a vast suite of layered bedrock extending from southwest Arabia Terra to Schiaparelli crater, have long been noted to have been eroded by aeolian processes. However, little detailed work on the aeolian landforms of Meridiani Planum beyond the Opportunity rover landing site has been done. In this study, I examine wind streaks, aeolian bedforms (including dunes and large ripples), and yardangs in a valley about 370 …
Joint Spacing In The Caples Lake Granodiorite Of The Sierra Nevada Batholith In Eldorado National Forest, California: A Comparative Analysis Of Joint Sets And Data Resolution, 2021 University of Nebraska at Omaha
Joint Spacing In The Caples Lake Granodiorite Of The Sierra Nevada Batholith In Eldorado National Forest, California: A Comparative Analysis Of Joint Sets And Data Resolution, Jimmy Wood
Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects
Joints are the most common deformation structure in the Earth’s upper crust and exert a significant influence on structural stability, landscape morphology, and fluid flow . Therefore, a greater understanding of fracture parameters (e.g., length, aperture, etc.) allows us to more accurately predict their presence, persistence, and prevalence, in the subsurface . We study the fracture spacing of two sub-orthogonal joint sets—66 NE-246 SW and 330 NW-150 SE—in the Caples Lake granodiorite of the Sierra Nevada Batholith, California. Specifically, we investigate 1) their spacing distributions with a keen interest in power-law (fractal) spacing, 2) distribution comparisons between master and cross …
Architectural-Element Analysis And Depositional Models For Pre-Vegetation Braidplain And Braid-Delta Environments, With Modern Analogues, 2021 University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Architectural-Element Analysis And Depositional Models For Pre-Vegetation Braidplain And Braid-Delta Environments, With Modern Analogues, Jason Gerhard Muhlbauer
Doctoral Dissertations
Pre-vegetation landscapes that blanketed the continents before the emergence vascular plants in the late-Silurian are proposed habitats for the earliest terrestrial biota and are analogous to martian setting thought to have potentially hosted life. Analysis of the middle member of the Wood Canyon Formation, a Cambrian age sandstone, reveal new details about terrestrial pre-vegetation environments. In fluvial middle-member stratigraphy, units are defined by stacking patterns of three facies associations (FA1-3). In FA1, stacked cosets, interpreted as braidplain barforms and channel fills, preserve vertical- and downstream-accretion elements under unimodal paleoflow. Floodplains, represented by FA2, include red-orange intervals of fine- to medium-grained …
Assessing Soil-Related Terroir Factors In Sunnyslope District Vineyards Of Southwest Idaho, 2021 Boise State University
Assessing Soil-Related Terroir Factors In Sunnyslope District Vineyards Of Southwest Idaho, Rachael Nicole Haggen
Boise State University Theses and Dissertations
Terroir is the set of factors including climate, soil, and management practices that influence the character of a wine. Of these factors, soil texture and chemistry is a major determinant in wine grape quality (van Leeuwen et al., 2009). Understanding the characteristics of the soil is key to making decisions that support the production of the highest possible quality grapes from the resources available. Few studies have been conducted in the Snake River Valley AVA (SRVAVA). This study seeks to build upon the data already available and provide analysis of vineyard-scale terroir in a leading grape growing district of the …
Effects Of The Triassic-Jurassic Central Atlantic Magmatic Event Recorded In Continental Strata In Western Pangea: The Δ13c Record Of Warner Valley & Zion National Park, 2021 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Effects Of The Triassic-Jurassic Central Atlantic Magmatic Event Recorded In Continental Strata In Western Pangea: The Δ13c Record Of Warner Valley & Zion National Park, Dennis Mmasa
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
The Triassic is a period of abrupt climate change bracketed by mass extinctions including one driven by the eruption of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) in the Late Triassic. The Moenave Formation (MF) of Utah and Arizona is ideal to investigate effects of the CAMP on continental strata distal to the eruptive center. This study focuses on the C-isotopic composition of bulk carbonate C from two localities, Blacks Canyon, Zion National Park, UT and Olsen Canyon within Warner Valley, UT. The data collected was used to document a chemostratigraphic record to compare to globally established records and bulk organic …
Small-Scale Resuspension And Redistribution Of Surface Sediments In The Northeast Gulf Of Mexico, 2021 The University of Southern Mississippi
Small-Scale Resuspension And Redistribution Of Surface Sediments In The Northeast Gulf Of Mexico, Austin Harris
Master's Theses
Following the release of ~4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from the Macondo wellhead, a vast area of the seafloor contained recently deposited marine sediments contaminated by the oil spill. The initial deposition of these contaminated marine sediments was likely not the end of the journey for the particles. Downslope gravitational processes and events of increased current speed in the deep ocean setting can result in recently deposited sediments to resuspend and be moved laterally with the current flow, increasing the area effected by the oil spill. Erosion experiments performed in a closed-loop resuspension flume were …
Biis: The Last British Ice Sheet, A Review Of The Most Recent Major Glaciation Of Great Britain And Ireland, 2021 Wayne State University
Biis: The Last British Ice Sheet, A Review Of The Most Recent Major Glaciation Of Great Britain And Ireland, Benediktas Gaskevicius
Honors College Theses
The British Irish Ice Sheet was a substantial ice mass covering the British Isles during the most recent glaciation that ended around 11,700 years ago. Oftentimes referred to as the BIIS, it is subdivided into two sections, a western and eastern side that covered Great Britain and Ireland, with the Irish basin in the middle. Some notable areas of study around Great Britain and Ireland include the ’Bizzle’ in Northern England, which was transformed by the effects of the eastern margin of the BIIS, the Carstair Kames in Scotland, a locality known internationally for its esker system, The Minch region …
328— Watershed Analysis Of The Eberswalde Delta (Early Hesperian), Mars, 2021 SUNY Geneseo
328— Watershed Analysis Of The Eberswalde Delta (Early Hesperian), Mars, Jason Mueller
GREAT Day Posters
The Eberswalde Delta is an impressive Martian fluvial-deltaic system. It is fed by an Earth-like dendritic river system that indicates past precipitation. This study is designed to quantify controls on network morphometry and its past extent using Esri ArcMap. Upstream contributing area (km2), elevation (m), depth (m), width (m), W/D ratio, and slope (-m/m), were calculated and graphed by stream order and long profiles. Width/depth increased with distance downstream but fluctuated in the fifth-order channel that was convex with knickpoints. This implied the system was youthful. The fourth-order stream was concave and in a sedimentary sub-basin. This sub-basin may have …
205— Revisiting The Geologic History Of The Pathfinder Landing Site At Ares Vallis, Mars, 2021 SUNY Geneseo
205— Revisiting The Geologic History Of The Pathfinder Landing Site At Ares Vallis, Mars, Andrew Agent
GREAT Day Posters
Before NASA sent the Pathfinder lander and Sojourner rover to the mouth of Ares Vallis in 1997, they anticipated the discovery of Hesperian-age (3.6 Ga-3.0 Ga) sediments deposited from catastrophic outflows. When pictures came back, the rocks they discovered were large, boulder-size, angular, and were largely inconsistent with transport by large floods. The origin of the deposits at the Pathfinder landing site remains controversial. This study aims to constrain the surface geology of the Pathfinder landing site using new high-resolution imagery and crater statistics. Context Camera (CTX) images along with High-Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) images were used to map surface …
069— Geomorphic Characteristics Of Canadice Lake, Ny, Watersheds And The Anthropogenic Effects On Watershed Output And Sensitivity, 2021 SUNY Geneseo
069— Geomorphic Characteristics Of Canadice Lake, Ny, Watersheds And The Anthropogenic Effects On Watershed Output And Sensitivity, Carla Crampton
GREAT Day Posters
Land use and size of watershed catchment areas affects the overall health and water quality of Canadice Lake. Methods in ArcGIS Pro were used for high resolution imagery and topography data to analyze the geomorphology of watersheds at Canadice Lake. Watersheds were mapped using ArcGIS Hydrology tools by constructing flow direction and accumulation grids. In each individual watershed, total area of the watershed, area of residential and agricultural land use, and total length of roads was determined to evaluate which watersheds are most sensitive to human impact and which watersheds are likely to contribute the highest flow discharge and sediment …
Glacial Geology Of Readfield Maine, 2021 University of Maine at Farmington
Glacial Geology Of Readfield Maine, Bryer Carlson
Michael D. Wilson Symposium
This poster explores the glacial geology in the town of Readfield Maine. With the use of GPR (ground penetrating radar), LiDar imaging and the State's surficial geology maps, evidence for a specific glacial feature called an "esker" was sought out and collected.
Climatic Controls On The Kinematics Of The Hooskanaden Landslide, Curry County, Oregon, 2021 Portland State University
Climatic Controls On The Kinematics Of The Hooskanaden Landslide, Curry County, Oregon, Kara Kingen
Dissertations and Theses
Slow-moving earthflows represent major sources of sediment transport and erosion and are problematic for the management of critical infrastructure. The Hooskanaden Landslide -- a slow-moving earthflow on the southwest coast of Oregon -- crosses US Highway 101 and has been a site of continued interest to the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) due to the weak lithology, erosive environment, and recurrent surge behavior (every ~15 years). Past surges, including the most recent (2019), have occurred during the winter, suggesting that velocity changes are predominantly controlled by climatic inputs. To examine the response of the Hooskanaden Landslide to seasonal and other …
Serial Interaction Of Primitive Magmas With Felsic And Mafic Crust Recorded By Gabbroic Dikes From The Antarctic Extension Of The Karoo Large Igneous Province, 2021 University of Helsinki
Serial Interaction Of Primitive Magmas With Felsic And Mafic Crust Recorded By Gabbroic Dikes From The Antarctic Extension Of The Karoo Large Igneous Province, Jussi S. Heinonen, Arto V. Luttinen, Frank J. Spera, Saku K. Vuori, Wendy A. Bohrson
Geological Sciences Faculty Scholarship
Two subvertical gabbroic dikes with widths of ~ 350 m (East-Muren) and ≥ 500 m (West-Muren) crosscut continental flood basalts in the Antarctic extension of the ~ 180 Ma Karoo large igneous province (LIP) in Vestfjella, western Dronning Maud Land. The dikes exhibit unusual geochemical profiles; most significantly, initial (at 180 Ma) εNd values increase from the dike interiors towards the hornfelsed wallrock basalts (from − 15.3 to − 7.8 in East-Muren and more gradually from − 9.0 to − 5.5 in West-Muren). In this study, we utilize models of partial melting and energy-constrained assimilation‒fractional crystallization in deciphering the …
Hydro-Morphodynamics Of Sandy Coastal Embayments, 2021 Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
Hydro-Morphodynamics Of Sandy Coastal Embayments, Shamim Murshid
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation investigates the hydro-morphodynamics of two major components of a sandy coastal environment: tidal inlets and embayment shorelines. In the first study, I focused on the evolution of inlet geometry by compiling and analyzing a database with 226 inlets worldwide with a special attention given to their width to depth ratio (or aspect ratio). I found that the aspect ratio has a weak dependency on tidal range and wave height, and they lie in different ranges for three types of tidal inlets: engineered, natural single-thread, and natural compound. I also developed a 2D hydro-morphodynamic model of an idealized barrier-inlet …
Glaciology, Geomorphology Giant Roger Hooke Passes Away At 82, 2021 The University of Maine
Glaciology, Geomorphology Giant Roger Hooke Passes Away At 82, Division Of Marketing And Communications
General University of Maine Publications
Roger Hooke, beloved University of Maine mentor and researcher and giant in the fields of glaciology and geomorphology, died March 10 [2021] at the age of 82.
Hooke joined the School of Earth and Climate Sciences and Climate Change Institute in 2000 as a research professor and adviser. One of Hooke's interests during his time at UMaine involved examining what glacial landforms in Maine revealed about the Laurentide Ice Sheet.
Evaluation Of Manual And Semi-Automated Deep-Seated Landslide Inventory Processes: Willapa Hills, Washington, 2021 Portland State University
Evaluation Of Manual And Semi-Automated Deep-Seated Landslide Inventory Processes: Willapa Hills, Washington, Tiffany E. Justice
Dissertations and Theses
Recent advances in remote sensing data and technology have allowed for computational models to be designed that successfully extract landforms from the landscape. The goal of this work is to create one such semi-automated model to extract deep-seated landslides located in complex geomorphic terrain. This is accomplished using geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) techniques, considered by leaders in the field of image analysis to have an advantage over traditional automated classification methods. GEOBIA methods can mimic human visual interpretation by including more characteristic features used to assess the relationship between image data and the ground surface such as color reflectance …
Quantifying Thresholds Of Barrier Geomorphic Change In A Cross-Shore Sediment-Partitioning Model, 2021 Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Quantifying Thresholds Of Barrier Geomorphic Change In A Cross-Shore Sediment-Partitioning Model, Daniel J. Ciarletta, Jennifer L. Miselis, Justin L. Shawler, Christopher J. Hein
VIMS Articles
Barrier coasts, including barrier islands, beach-ridge plains, and associated landforms, can assume a broad spectrum of morphologies over multi-decadal scales that reflect conditions of sediment availability, accommodation, and relative sea-level rise. However, the quantitative thresholds of these controls on barrier-system behavior remain largely unexplored, even as modern sea-level rise and anthropogenic modification of sediment availability increasingly reshape the world's sandy coastlines. In this study, we conceptualize barrier coasts as sediment-partitioning frameworks, distributing sand delivered from the shoreface to the subaqueous and subaerial components of the coastal system. Using an idealized morphodynamic model, we explore thresholds of behavioral and morphologic change …