Paleontology Commons^™

Geology Of Southeastern Nebraska, Robert Matthew Joeckel, Dana Divine, Leslie M. Howard, Kathleen Cameron, Michele M. Waszgis

Conservation and Survey Division

No abstract provided.

Maps Showing The Physical Hydrogeology And Changes In Saturated Thickness (Predevelopment To Spring 2016 And Spring 2011 To Spring 2016) In The Middle Republican Natural Resources District, Southwestern Nebraska., Jesse T. Korus Dr., Leslie M. Howard

Conservation and Survey Division

This report accompanies fourteen new maps summarizing the hydrogeology and changes in saturated thickness in the Middle Republican Natural Resources District (MRNRD). The purpose of these maps is to assist the MRNRD in their groundwater management programs and in planning and installing an observation well network. Maps include:

• base of the principal aquifer;

• water table surfaces for predevelopment, Spring 2011, and Spring 2016;

• saturated thicknesses for predevelopment, Spring 2011, and Spring 2016;

• changes in saturated thickness (both in absolute magnitude and in percent) from predevelopment to Spring 2016 and from Spring 2011 to Spring 2016;

• …

Physicochemical Properties And Availability Of Tahar-Güzelöz (Nevşehir) Diatomite, Ayşegül Yildiz, Ali Gürel, Dilan Okutan

Bulletin of the Mineral Research and Exploration

In this study, the use areas of diatomites located within the late Miocene-Pliocene volcano sedimentary units, which formed due to the volcanism and outcropped around the Tahar and Güzelöz localities, Nevşehir, were investigated in terms of raw materials. To do this, three stratigraphic sections were measured in the study area, one of which was measured in the Tahar area (TK), and two others were measured in the Güzelöz area (GÜ1 and GÜ2). Various physicomechanical, chemical, mineralogical and analytical methods were applied on the collected samples. The analysis results of diatomites in the investigated area were determined as follows; the amount …

The Biological Significance And Utility Of Feeding By Dermestes Maculatus, Braymond Adams

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

With their efficient feeding habits and tolerance to very low moisture and humidity, beetles in the Family Dermestidae are especially adapted to variable environments and habitats. Dermestid cultures have been in use since 1922 in cleaning tissue and flesh from bones, and proven benefit in multiple fields, including zoology, ornithology, and forensics. Dermestid feeding behaviors when coupled with known life stage and insect succession information aids in providing significant entomological evidence. However, the feeding activities of insects, like those of vertebrate scavengers and predators, change remains and may leave artifacts that can be sometimes be difficult to assign to a …

An Early Late Cretaceous Nodosaur From The Marine Eagle Ford Group Of North Central Texas, A Test Of The Endothermy In The Mosasaurs From The Late Cretaceous Of Angola, And The Ontogeny Of A New Pipid Frog From The Miocene Of Ethiopia, Matt Clemens

Earth Sciences Theses and Dissertations

The first two chapters of this dissertation detail the study of the newly recovered Holland Farm nodosaur (SMU 77100) from the Eagle Ford Group (95.29 ± 0.04 MA) of Mansfield in north central Texas. The objectives of this research are (1) to describe the anatomy of the Holland Farm nodosaur, (2) to determine its phylogenetic position within Ankylosauria, (3) to elaborate the substantial differences in body size and osteoderm morphology in armored dinosaurs occurring in north central Texas during the short duration of the Late Albian and Early Cenomanian, and (4) to provide a radiometric date for the lowermost member …

Stable Isotope Geochemistry Of Bioapatite, Amanda E. Drewicz

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Cenozoic Era was a time period where dynamic shifts in climate created for both warm-wet greenhouse environments of the mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO), and cool-dry, glacial periods of the late Pleistocene. The Cenozoic is close to our own time period, and although past climate reconstructions cannot be used as direct analogs for future climate change, understanding previous environmental responses can help inform policy surrounding future climate change. Presented here are climate reconstructions of the interior western United States, from two different geologic time periods. Each had a different climate, that differed greatly from modern day environments. The use of …

Evaluating Stable Isotope And Geochronologic Techniques For Paleoclimate Reconstruction: Case Study Of The Santa Cruz Formation, Argentina, Robin B. Trayler

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Stable isotope analysis has become the method of choice for many studies investigating the paleoecology and paleoclimate of fossil mammal faunas. While organic tissues (collagen, keratins, proteins) persist for < 10⁵ years highly mineralized tooth enamel is resistant to alteration and degradation and faithfully preserves its isotopic composition for millions (> 10⁶) years. Reconstructing past climates from these records relies on both understanding both micro-scale mechanisms of isotope incorporation into individual teeth, and macro-scale changes in isotope compositions over hundreds of thousands or millions of years. In this dissertation I address three questions.

First, how does the geometry and …

Late Quaternary Evolution And Stratigraphic Framework Influence On Coastal Systems Along The North-Central Gulf Of Mexico, Usa, Robert Hollis

Master's Theses

Coastal systems in the Gulf of Mexico are threatened to reduced sediment supply, storm impacts and relative sea level rise (RSLR). The geologic record can provide insights of geomorphic threshold crossings (formation, progradation, transgression, destruction) to these forcing mechanisms to predict future barrier evolution to climate change. The stratigraphic framework and antecedent topography directly influence coastal evolution over geologic timescales. This study synthesizes ~2100km of geophysical data, 700+ sediment cores, and 63 radiocarbon dates to regionally map two sequence boundaries, multiple ravinement surfaces and fourteen depositional facies. One marine isotope stage (MIS) 6 valley’s fill provided up to 300 x10 …

Hydrogeologic Framework Studies Of Portions Of The Niobrara River, Douglas R. Hallum, Steven S. Sibray, Leslie M. Howard

Conservation and Survey Division

The Nebraska Department of Natural Resources (NeDNR) and Upper Niobrara-White Natural Resources District (UNWNRD) expressed interest in improving understanding and their ability to effectively manage water resources in and around a particular reach of the Niobrara River. Aquifer-thickness contours mapped by the Conservation and Survey Division (CSD) indicate that the principle aquifer has zero thickness in this area. Additionally, the statewide geologic bedrock map produced by CSD shows non-aquifer strata of the White River Group along the same reach, and this setting is consistent with the designation of an “aquifer absent area,” as in the present document. Water-management policy development …

Are The Oxygen Isotope Values Of The Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway Different From The Open Ocean?, Camille H. Dwyer, Corinne Myers, Viorel Atudorei

Shared Knowledge Conference

The Western Interior Seaway (WIS) was a North American epicontinental sea that was connected to the open ocean through the passage of the northern Boreal Sea and the southern Tethys Sea from the early Albian (~113 million years ago) to the early Paleogene (~65 million years ago). The WIS began to recced and lost its connection to the southern Tethys Sea in the late Campanian (~72 million years ago). In the early Paleogene, the WIS dried up completely. The oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of benthic bivalves was measured from the upper Campanian and lower Maastrichtian (75 million years ago to …

New Insights Into Carboniferous Cyclothems. The Fourth Biennial Field Conference Of The American Association Of Petroleum Geologists (Aapg) Midcontinent Section Fourth Biennial Field Conference Abstracts And Guidebook, Robert Matthew Joeckel, Christopher R. Fielding

Conservation and Survey Division

The term “cyclothem” was coined by Wanless & Weller (1932) to describe repetitive stratigraphic successions of Carboniferous age in Illinois. Nonetheless, comparable rhythmicity had been identified in Carboniferous rocks both in the central and eastern USA, and in Europe during the preceding century. Cyclothems were found to comprise repetitive vertical successions of sandstones, heterolithic (thinly interbedded) sandstones and mudrocks, mudrocks, limestones, and coals, in many cases with pedogenic overprinting of these lithologies. As usage of the term “cyclothem” increased, so did the diversity of successions to which the term was applied, to the point where many geologists advocated abandonment of …

Little Lasting Impact Of The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum On Shallow Marine Molluscan Faunas, Linda Ivany, Carlie Pietsch, John Handley, Rowan Lockwood, Warren Allmon, Jocelyn Sessa

Faculty Publications

Global warming, acidification, and oxygen stress at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) are associated with severe extinction in the deep sea and major biogeographic and ecologic changes in planktonic and terrestrial ecosystems, yet impacts on shallow marine macrofaunas are obscured by the incompleteness of shelf sections. We analyze mollusk assemblages bracketing (but not including) the PETM and find few notable lasting impacts on diversity, turnover, functional ecology, body size, or life history of important clades. Infaunal and chemosymbiotic taxa become more common, and body size and abundance drop in one clade, consistent with hypoxia-driven selection, but within-clade changes are not …

County-Wide Assessment Of Irrigation Expansion On Air Temperature, Humidity And Evapotranspiration Rates In Nebraska, 1979-2015, Jozsef Szilagyi

Conservation and Survey Division

Total irrigated land area has been expanding in Nebraska over the last 40 years, propelling the state into a leading position within the US in terms of irrigated acreages. Typically, those counties which display the largest degree of irrigation development had a significant portion of their land area already irrigated in 1978. Large-scale irrigation in Nebraska affects its atmospheric environment. During the typical irrigation season of May to August, counties with the largest rate of irrigation expansion have cooled by about 0.2 – 0.3 °F per decade in the summer months of June, July and August, while counties with the …

A New Lower Actinopterygian Fish From The Upper Mississippian Bluefield Formation Of West Virginia, Usa, Kathryn Mickle

College of Life Sciences Faculty Papers

The Upper Mississippian Bluefield Formation of the Mauch Chunk Group in southeastern West Virginia is known for its preservation of a variety of invertebrate taxa and early tetrapod trackways, but no lower actinopterygian remains have been formally described from these Carboniferous rocks. Here, the first lower actinopterygian fish is described from the Bluefield Formation of West Virginia. This fish is represented by a nearly complete articulated specimen with a three-dimensional snout and an unobstructed view of the gular and branchiostegal region. This new taxon is defined by a unique set of characters, which include features of the snout, circumorbital series, …

The Effect Of An Historical Geology Course On Students’ Attitudes Towards Science And Their Knowledge Of Deep Time As A Threshold To Their Knowledge Of Evolution, Allan Nolan

Dissertations

In America there exists a conflict between a small group of its citizens and the concept of evolution. Researchers have studied this conflict and the ways in which teachers might approach educational methodologies that not only address evolution in a sensitive manner, but also remain legally acceptable.

This research was designed to address teaching evolution in the context of deep time – the concept that time is vast and that geology and biology operate in a timescale of hundreds of millions to billions of years. In previous peer-reviewed works, it has been stated that deep time acts as a threshold …

The Geochemistry And Mineralogy Of Surface Hydrothermal Alteration At Nesjavellir, Sw Iceland, Chase Glenister

Theses and Dissertations

Abundant sulfates have been detected by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in the Columbia Hills of Mars, consistent with extensive alteration of basalt by hydrothermal processes. This study uses Iceland’s Nesjavellir geothermal system as an analogue for Columbia Hills hydrothermal alteration. This terrestrial site is home to a variety of acidic and near-neutral waters that are actively altering the Mars-like basalt of host volcano Mt. Hengill. Hydrothermal features heated by H2S gas and phase-segregated steam created oxidizing acid-sulfate conditions at the surface with pH values varying between 3.0 and 2.0 and near-boiling temperatures. Mobilization of cations (FeO, MgO, CaO, Na2O, …

A Quantitative Analysis Of Calcareous Nannofossils Across A Late Oligocene Paleolatitude Transect Of The North Atlantic Ocean, William Barrett Clark

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Samples from ODP Sites 926, 628, 563, U1406, 647, and 918, were analyzed quantitatively across a paleolatitude transect of the North Atlantic Ocean to determine the paleolatitudinal distribution of calcareous nannofossils in the Late Oligocene and the effects of that distribution on biostratigraphic resolution. Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA), a Temperature index (TI), and the Shannon Diversity Index (H), were used to examine the paleoenvironmental gradients which exerted the most control over the distribution of species and their abundances. The temperature index correlates significantly to the first axis of the DCA, suggesting that thermal controls were the most important factor in …

Sequence Stratigraphy Of Campanian-Maastrichtian Strata In Eastern Alabama, David Simmons

Master's Theses

Eastern Alabama is an area of interest due to the transition from the Gulf Coastal Plain to the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Coastal Plain investigations have been sparse compared to research conducted in the oil rich areas down dip in the Gulf of Mexico. A sequence stratigraphic framework using the T-R cycle methodology of Embry (2002) has been established by integrating surface and subsurface lithologic data with biostratigraphic zonations into Petra ®. High sedimentation from the ancestral Chattahoochee River and lower relative sea-level formed an additional depositional sequence within the Santonian-Campanian aged Blufftown Formation in eastern Alabama. The sequence is approximately …

A Characterization Of Petrified And Mummified Wood From An Eocene Deposit In Mississippi, Nayeon Lee, Sungkwang Mun, Mark Horstemeyer, Stephen J. Horstemeyer, David J. Lang

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

This study experimentally investigates pieces of fossilized wood that include both mummified and petrified portions within the same pieces collected from the Red Hills Lignite Mine in Mississippi, USA. To the authors’ knowledge, having petrified and mummified regions within the same piece of wood has not been previously reported. Our study analyzes the chemical compositions, microstructures, and nanohardness to characterize the fossilized wood. The chemical analysis revealed that the composition of the mummified regions included mainly carbon, oxygen, and small amount of minerals indicating these regions were similar to currently growing wood, and the petrified regions included silicon and oxygen …

Feathered Dinosaurs Reconsidered: New Insights From Baraminology And Ethnotaxonomy, Matthew Mclain, Matt Petrone, Matthew Speights

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Birds could not have evolved from land animal ancestors because Genesis clearly states that birds and land animals were created on separate days. As a result, young-earth creationists have consistently opposed the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Nevertheless, numerous fossils of dinosaurs with feathers, including some very bird-like dinosaurs, have been found in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. We determined to understand what these fossils mean in a creationist context through a survey of their fossil record and statistical baraminological analyses. While the survey demonstrates that feathered dinosaur fossils do, in fact, exist, the baraminological analyses suggest …