Digital Commons Network^™

Insights Into Initial Continental Rifting Of Marginal Seas From Seismic Evidence For Slab Relics In The Mid-Mantle Of The Woodlark Rift, Southwestern Pacific, Youqiang Yu, Frederik Tilmann, Stephen S. Gao, Kelly H. Liu, Jiaji Xi

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The initiation and evolution of marginal seas, especially those developing under a convergent setting, is one of the more enigmatic aspects of plate tectonics. Here, we report the presence of slab relics in the mid-mantle of the Woodlark rift in the southwestern Pacific based on a new map of the topography of the mantle discontinuities from a receiver function analysis and evidence from body-wave tomography. the widespread mantle transition-zone thickening rules out active mantle upwelling, and the revealed slab relics in both the upper and middle mantle may hydrate the upper mantle, which can be expected to further weaken the …

Insights To Surfactant Huff-Puff Design In Carbonate Reservoirs Based On Machine Learning Modeling, Ya Yao, Yue Qiu, Yue Cui, Mingzhen Wei, Baojun Bai

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Surfactants could react with adsorbates on carbonate rock surface to alter wettability from oil-wetness to water-wetness, which is effective to enhance oil recovery. Surfactant huff-puff treatment is mostly applied for this purpose and the resulting surfactant performance is the outcome of complex interfacial processes. Currently, the effect of important parameters on surfactant performance is not completely reported and the contribution of each parameter to surfactant performance is hard to be quantified. Traditional methods to optimize surfactant performance are time-consuming and show strong dependency on extensive experiments. in this paper, we address these problems from machine learning (ML) perspectives. Several ML …

Erratum: New Estimates Of The Magnitude Of The Sea-Level Jump During The 8.2 Ka Event, (Geology (2022), 50(1), (86–90), (10.1130/G49296.1)), Jonathan Obrist-Farner, Mark Brenner, Jeffery R. Stone, Marta Wojewódka-Przybył, Thorsten Bauersachs, Andreas Eckert, Marek Locmelis, Jason H. Curtis, Susan R.H. Zimmerman, Alex Correa-Metrio, Lorenz Schwark, Edward Duarte, Antje Schwalb, Etienne Niewerth, Paula Gabriela Echeverría-Galindo, Liseth Pérez

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Plastic Storage In River Sediments Across An Urbanization Gradient In The Ipswich Watershed In Massachusetts, Jackie L. Harris

Honors Theses and Capstones

The importance of plastic pollution research has become apparent as plastic pollution has increased exponentially since its introduction in the 1950s. Plastics mechanically break down into minuscule particles called microplastics, which are plastic particles with a size range of 0.1 micrometers (μm) to 5 millimeters (mm). Most of the research on microplastic pollution has centered around marine ecosystems rather than freshwater ecosystems. More freshwater microplastic research to date is emerging but is still nascent and sparse. Furthermore, the idea that rivers are merely conduits of microplastics to the ocean is even more limited and ignores microplastic loading and retention in …

Carbonates In The Critical Zone, M. D. Covington, J. B. Martin, L. E. Toran, J. L. Macalady, N. Sekhon, P. L. Sullivan, Á. A. García Jr., J. B. Heffernan, W. D. Graham

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Earth's Critical Zone (CZ), the near-surface layer where rock is weathered and landscapes co-evolve with life, is profoundly influenced by the type of underlying bedrock. Previous studies employing the CZ framework have focused primarily on landscapes dominated by silicate rocks. However, carbonate rocks crop out on approximately 15% of Earth's ice-free continental surface and provide important water resources and ecosystem services to ∼1.2 billion people. Unlike silicates, carbonate minerals weather congruently and have high solubilities and rapid dissolution kinetics, enabling the development of large, interconnected pore spaces and preferential flow paths that restructure the CZ. Here we review the state …

Preface : Fruit And Vegetable Waste Utilization And Sustainability, Sachin A. Mandavgane, Ipsita Chakravarty, Amit Jaiswal

Books/Book Chapters

Fruits and vegetables are an important source of nutrition and a key element of a healthy balanced diet. Several organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO), and Food Health England suggest consuming more than 400 g of fruits and vegetables per day (roughly five portions per day) to improve overall health and reduce the risk of certain cardiovascular diseases and cancer; subsequently, consumption and production of fruits and vegetables are on the rise. The increased consumption/production of fruits and vegetables has resulted in huge quantities of waste (approximately 42% of the …

Investigating Pore Body, Pore Throat, Nano-Pore Wettability Preference In Several Unconventional Kuwaiti Carbonate Reservoirs, Saleh Al-Sayegh, Ralph E. Flori, Hussain Alajaj, Waleed Hussien Al-Bazzaz

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This study will investigate measuring the wettability contact angles of native unconventional tight carbonate as well as other unconventional pore system reservoir samples that hosts varied pore shapes and subsequent wettability contact angle distributions in both reservoir matrix and possible natural fractures. Also, the investigation will include validation of the grain/ pore-wall wettability regions and classify the natural wettability preference available inside pores of the rock and their overall wettability performance and recovery efficiency contributions. Further investigation will include modeling pore throat contact angle wettability, and to understand their new physics that will advance reservoir characterization and oil recovery improvement.

Kuwaiti Carbonate Reservoir Oil Recovery Prediction Through Static Wettability Contact Angle Using Machine Learning Modeling, Saleh Al-Sayegh, Ralph E. Flori, Waleed Hussien Al-Bazzaz, Hasan Al-Saedi, Mostafa Al-Kaouri, Ali Qubian

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The objective of this study is to predict EOR efficiencies through static wettability contact angle measurement by Machine Learning (ML) modeling. Unlike conventional methods of measuring static wettability contact angle, the unconventional digital static wettability contact angle is captured and measured, then (ML) modeled in order to forecast the recovery based on wettability distribution phenomenon. Due to success in big data collection from reservoir imaging samples, this study applies data science lifecycle logic and utilizes Machine Learning (ML) models that can predict the recovery through wettability contact angles and thus identify the treatment of oil recovery for a candidate reservoir. …

Re-Assembling Polymer Particle Package For Conformance Control And Fluid Loss Control, Jingyang Pu, Baojun Bai, Thomas P. Schuman

Patents

This invention is broadly concerned with compositions and processes for oilfield applications. More specifically, this invention relates to novel polymer constructed packages that, when pumped into a petroleum well, provide tunable characteristics of transformation and delayed self-assembly with each other under reservoir conditions to yield strong, elastic, bulk gel materials. The compositions comprise a polymer, assembling agents, and optional additives used for the re-assembly stage are uniformly-distributed within the initial gel particles. The polymer particle packages absorb water and swell upon exposure to water, thus exposing the "assembling agents" that enable re-assembly. Both swelling and re-assembly are proportionally controlled via …

Cylindrical Mega-Voids In Quaternary Aeolianites, Little Exuma Island, The Bahamas: Georadar Response, Ilya Val Buynevich, H. Allen Curran, Bosiljka Glumac, Michael Savarese, Lisa Park Boush

Geosciences: Faculty Publications

In addition to karst features, tropical carbonates contain a wide range of smaller cylindrical voids (“pipes”) attributed to bioturbation, tree molds, or dissolution, among others. During geophysical investigation of the Little Exuma Island, The Bahamas, several sites with enigmatic voids were investigated using a high-frequency ground-penetrating radar (GPR) imaging.

The aim of the paper is to assess the feasibility of GPR to detect voids within lithified Holocene calcarenites of the Hannah Bay Member

Active Learning For Efficient Soil Monitoring In Large Terrain With Heterogeneous Sensor Network, Hui Chen, Ju Wang

Publications and Research

Soils are a complex ecosystem that provides critical services, such as growing food, supplying antibiotics, filtering wastes, and maintaining biodiversity; hence monitoring soil health and domestication is required for sustainable human development. Low-cost and high-resolution soil monitoring systems are challenging to design and build. Compounded by the sheer size of the monitoring area of interest and the variety of biological, chemical, and physical parameters to monitor, naive approaches to adding or scheduling more sensors will suffer from cost and scalability problems. We investigate a multi-robot sensing system integrated with an active learning-based predictive modeling technique. Taking advantage of advances in …

Effects Of Lead Exposure On Birds Breeding In The Southeast Missouri Lead Mining District, Rebecka Brasso, Danielle Cleveland, Frank R. Thompson Iii, David E. Mosby, Kathy Hixson, Melissa Roach, Barnett A. Rattner, Natalie K. Karouna-Renier, Julia S. Lankton

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Lead mining in the Southeast Missouri Lead Mining District began in the 1700s and continued for nearly 300 years; the waste piles associated with smelting, mining, and milling of lead ores have released metal residues that have contaminated soil and water in the region. Previous studies in the district have indicated potential harm to wildlife, including birds, because of elevated lead concentrations associated with mining. Exposure to soil-borne lead was correlated with elevated lead concentrations in tissues, inhibition of δ-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase (δALAD), and renal lesions in birds foraging on ground-dwelling invertebrates at contaminated sites (compared to reference sites) in …

A Method For Successful Collection Of Multicores And Gravity Cores From Antarctic Subglacial Lakes, Brad E. Rosenheim, Alexander B. Michaud, James Broda, Alan Gagnon, Ryan A. Venturelli, Timothy D. Campbell, Amy Leventer, Molly Patterson, Matthew J. Siegfried, Brent C. Christner, Dennis Duling, David M. Harwood, John E. Dore, Martyn Tranter, Mark L. Skidmore, John C. Priscu, Salsa Science Team

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

During the 2018–2019 Antarctic field season, the Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access project team cleanly accessed Mercer Subglacial Lake, West Antarctica, to sample water and sediments beneath 1087 m of overlying ice. A multicorer was successful in sampling the sediment–water interface, with 4 deployments retrieving 10 cores between 0.3 and 0.4 m in length. Gravity coring was also successful, retrieving cores of 0.97 and 1.78 m in glacial diamict. However, sediment cores retrieved by the gravity cores were shorter than the core barrel penetration (as measured by mud streaks on the outside of the coring system), indicating that the system …

Reply To The Discussion And Comments Of Azerêdo Et Al. (2023) And Schneider Et Al. (2023) On The Paper By Magalhães Et Al. ‘Middle Jurassic Multi-Scale Transgressive–Regressive Cycles: An Example From The Lusitanian Basin’, The Depositional Record, 9, 174–202, Antonio J.C. Magalhães, Gerson J.S. Terra, Felipe Guadagnin, Daniel G.C. Fragoso, Mirian C. Menegazzo, Nuno L.A. Pimentel, Sissa Kumaira, Gerson Fauth, Alessandra Santos, David K. Watkins, Mauro D.R. Bruno, Daiane Ceolin, Simone Baecker-Fauth, Guilherme P.R. Gabaglia, Washington L.E. Teixeira, Francisco P. Lima-Filho

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

cently published paper. The exchange of ideas, data and interpretation improves our knowledge and is the right way to discuss science's advances. This reply considers the points raised by Azerêdo et al. (2023) and Schneider et al. (2023). In both manuscripts, these authors raised many issues about sedimentological and stratigraphic aspects that can be separated into two groups: (a) those related to the age of the studied succession; and (b) those assigning the studied succession to the Candeeiros Formation.

Berriasian–Valanginian Geochronology And Carbon-Isotope Stratigraphy Of The Yellow Cat Member, Cedar Mountain Formation, Eastern Utah, Usa, Robert M. Joeckel, Celina A. Suarez, Noah M. Mclean, Andreas Möller, Gregory A. Ludvigson, Marina B. Suarez, James I. Kirkland, Joseph Andrew, Spencer Kiessling, Garrett A. Hatzell

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

The Early Cretaceous Yellow Cat Member of the terrestrial Cedar Mountain Formation in Utah, USA. has been interpreted as a “time-rich” unit because of its dinosaur fossils, prominent paleosols, and the results of preliminary chemostratigraphic and geochronologic studies. Herein, we refine prior interpretations with: (1) a new composite C-isotope chemostratigraphic profile from the well-known Utahraptor Ridge dinosaur site, which exhibits δ¹³C features tentatively interpreted as the Valanginian double-peak carbon isotope excursion (the so-called “Weissert Event”) and some unnamed Berriasian features; and (2) a new cryptotephra zircon eruption age of 135.10 ± 0.30/0.31/0.34 Ma (2σ) derived from the CA-ID-TIMS …

Oh The Places Snow Blows: Observations And Impacts Of Snow Redistribution On Arctic Sea Ice, David Clemens-Sewall

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Arctic sea ice has declined dramatically due to climate change. This decline impacts Arctic communities, ecosystems, international trade, and the world's climate. However, due to uncertain physical processes, climate models generally do not capture the severity of the observed decline---adding uncertainty to projections of future climate change. A major uncertainty in the Arctic sea ice component of climate models is how much heat passes through the snow on top of the ice in the winter. This heat flux controls how much ice grows each winter, impacting how much ice survives the summer melt. Snow is an excellent thermal insulator (about …

Rain-Induced Hazards In Remote, Low-Resource Communities: A Case Study Of Flash Flooding In The Usulután Department, El Salvador, Natalea Cohen

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Rain-induced natural hazards can lead to devastating and potentially life-threatening impacts. Understanding areas susceptible to flash flooding and characterizing the intensity of flash flood events is critical in improving the mitigation and emergency preparedness of vulnerable communities. Flash floods occur on small spatial scales and for short durations making it challenging to classify flash flood susceptibility and forecast events. Modeling flash flooding becomes even more difficult when focusing on data-poor regions. This study is based in California, El Salvador, an agricultural community located in the Central American Dry Corridor (CADC), a region experiencing the impacts of climate change and associated …

Soil And Compost Tea: A New Restoration Technique?, Carol E. Day

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Historically, prairie restorations have lacked the plant diversity seen in remnant prairies. Most restoration practices focus on reestablishing the plant community but overlook the soil microbial community even though microbes are critical to habitat functioning. Developing techniques that increase soil microbes in prairie restorations is critical to ensuring diverse restored habitats. We compared how microbial communities differed between remnant and restored prairie sites. We also investigated if soil and compost teas could be used to reintroduce microbes to restored prairie soil and if the teas affected native plant establishment. We found significant differences in the levels of bacterial taxa between …

Using Soil And Forest Type To Map Bedrock In Nemo, South Dakota, Madison R. Isaac

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Bedrock mapping can be used to locate economic deposits, assess natural disaster (e.g., mass wasting) risk, and decipher the geologic history of a region. This study examines a site at Nemo, South Dakota to assess whether two contrasting types of bedrock produce different soil that result in different types of forest cover. Although bedrock varied, other soil forming factors were uniform. Within an approximately 1 km² area, quartzite and metagabbro bedrock, ponderosa pine and quaking aspen forests were mapped. The soil above the quartzite bedrock is thinner and sandier and is dominated by ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa). …

Electron Beam Treatment For The Removal Of 1,4-Dioxane In Water And Wastewater, Robert Pearce, Xi Li, John Vennekate, Gianluigi Ciovati, Charles Bott

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Electron beam (e-beam) treatment uses accelerated electrons to form oxidizing and reducing radicals when applied to water without the use of external chemicals. In this study, electron beam treatment was used to degrade 1,4-dioxane in several water matrices. Removal improved in the progressively cleaner water matrices and removals as high as 94% to 99% were observed at a dose of 2.3 kGy in secondary effluent. 1,4-dioxane removal was confirmed to be primarily through hydroxyl radical oxidation. The calculated electrical energy per order was found to be 0.53, 0.26, and 0.08 kWh/m³/order for secondary effluent (Avg. total organic carbon …

Elevation-Distributed Multistage Reverse Osmosis Desalination With Seawater Pumped Storage, Hani E. Elsayed-Ali

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A seawater reverse osmosis (RO) plant layout based on multistage RO with stages located at different elevations above sea level is described. The plant uses the weight of a seawater column from pumped storage as head pressure for RO (gravity-driven multistage RO) or to supplement high-pressure pumps used in RO (gravity-assisted multistage RO). The use of gravitational force reduces the specific energy for RO compared to using high-pressure pumps. By locating the RO stages at different elevations based on demand sites, the total specific energy consumption for RO and permeate transport to different elevations above sea level is reduced from …

Interactions Of Bioactive Trace Metals In Shipboard Southern Ocean Incubation Experiments, Shannon M. Burns, Randelle M. Bundy, William Abbott, Zuzanna Abdala, Alexa R. Sterling, P. Dreux Chappell, Bethany D. Jenkins, Kristen N. Buck

OES Faculty Publications

In the Southern Ocean, it is well‐known that iron (Fe) limits phytoplankton growth. Yet, other trace metals can also affect phytoplankton physiology. This study investigated feedbacks between phytoplankton growth and dissolved Fe, manganese (Mn), cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), and cadmium (Cd) concentrations in Southern Ocean shipboard incubations. Three experiments were conducted in September–October 2016 near the West Antarctic Peninsula: Incubations 1 and 3 offshore in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and Incubation 2 inshore in Bransfield Strait. Additions of Fe and/or vitamin B₁₂ to inshore and offshore waters were employed and allowed assessment of metal (M) …

Relationships Between Geochemistry, Carbon Content, And Grain Size In Clastic Cave Sediments, Rebekah Rose Nicholas

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Understanding geochemical and physical properties of cave sediment gives insight to sediment characterization and carbon storage in the cave system. Previous work on clastic sediments largely encompasses physical properties, neglecting the importance of geochemical parameters on sediment deposition.

This study reports physical and chemical properties of sediment cores from three caves: two caves in Puerto Rico and one cave in Virginia. A total of 25 cores were used in this study; 6 of these cores were new and collected in 2022 from Butler Cave (BTC) in Virginia to focus on the effects of water level. Core samples were analyzed for …

Evaluating The Relative Influence Of Soil Water Potential, Soil Moisture, And Vapor Pressure Deficit On Semi-Arid Vegetation Dynamics, Kayla R. Jamerson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Knowledge of vegetation’s response to soil water availability and atmospheric demand is critical to understanding the impact of climate change on semi-arid ecosystems. However, limited field-based research has been conducted to assess the relative importance of these drivers and previous research has simplified the assessment of soil water availability by relying on soil volumetric water content (VWC) as a primary control on plant growth, which, as opposed to soil water potential (Ψsoil), does not account for the effects of soil texture on plant available water. To address these gaps, we compared remotely sensed indicators of vegetation response to field based …

Methods For Improving Potassium Fertilizer Recommendations For Corn In South Dakota, Andrew J. Ahlersmeyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Corn (Zea mays L.) is a vital commodity in South Dakota’s agricultural sector. Optimal corn production occurs when there are sufficient mineral nutrients in the soil, especially potassium (K). Applications of K fertilizer are used when soil test K (STK) levels are deficient. Therefore, producers need reliable, thoroughly tested fertilizer recommendations to make profitable decisions and maintain environmental stewardship. South Dakota K fertilizer recommendations have not been updated in nearly 20 years. Simultaneously, changes in corn genetics, management practices, and climate patterns suggest that the critical soil test value (CSTV) for STK may have shifted in that same time frame. …

Climate Changes In El Salvador: Impacts Of ‘La Canícula’ (Midsummer Drought) On Agricultural Practices And Decision-Making In Rural Communities, Paola M. Rivera González

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Central American Dry Corridor (CADC), a tropical, dry-forest region, is characterized by distinct rainy and dry seasons, which influence the local agricultural calendar and planting decisions in rural communities. La canícula is a period of decreased precipitation during the rainy season, which occurs during the corn-planting season in El Salvador. La canícula is expected to change in intensity and duration in the next decades, which would impact small-scale farmers and their livelihoods. Climate variability and uncertainty has led to crop loss, water scarcity, and food insecurity in rural communities dependent on subsistence farming. Farmers’ experiences with a changing climate …

Structural Analysis And Slip Kinematics Of The Keweenaw Fault System Between Bête Grise Bay And Gratiot Lake, Keweenaw County, Michigan, Daniel J. Lizzadro-Mcpherson

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Keweenaw fault is perhaps the most significant geologic structure on the Keweenaw Peninsula, with an estimated 7-11 km of reverse slip juxtaposing volcanic strata of the ~1.1 Ga Portage Lake Volcanics above ~1.0 Ga Jacobsville Sandstone. The fault has been interpreted as a rift-bounding normal fault later inverted by compressional pulses of the Grenville Orogeny or, more recently, as part of a detached thrust fault system unrelated to an earlier normal fault. The fault is shown on published maps as a single continuous fault trace whose sinuosity implies multiple fault segments and complex slip dynamics. Mapping along Bête Grise …

Comprehensive Analysis Of Seismic Signals From Pacaya Volcano Using Deep Learning Event Detection, Jessica L. Devlieg

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Pacaya volcano located 30 km SW of Guatemala City, Guatemala, has been erupting intermittently since 1961. Monitoring of seismicity is crucial to understanding current activity levels within Pacaya. Traditional methods of picking these small earthquakes in this noisy environment are imprecise. Pacaya produces many small events that can easily blend in with the background noise. A possible solution for this problem is a machine learning program to pick first arrivals for these earthquakes. We tested a deep learning algorithm (Mousavi et al., 2020) for fast and reliable seismic signal detection within a volcanic system. Data from multiple deployments were used, …

An Investigation Of Microseismicity During The 2018 Kilauea Caldera Collapse, Isabella S. Metts

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The 2018 Kīlauea volcano eruption and incremental caldera collapse was accompanied by more than 60,000 seismic events cataloged by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory as well as 62 caldera collapse events that occurred roughly once per day. The majority of seismicity occurred on the eastern side of the caldera between daily collapses. However, the majority of caldera subsidence occurred to the west. To understand the collapse mechanics behind this variance in subsidence and seismicity across the caldera region, repetitive waveforms and source properties can be studied.

Repeating seismic events suggest a common source that is not moving or destroyed. At Kīlauea, …

Magmatic Evolution Of The Chasca Orkho Lava Series And Its Magmatic Enclaves, Volcán Ollagüe, Central Andes, Nathaniel W. Lenhard

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Magma mixing is a common factor in the creation of intermediate composition magmas and a potential instigator of a volcanic eruption. Magmatic enclaves, physical evidence of magma mixing within a volcanic system, are a phenomenon whose mechanisms remain unclear and debated. Common hypotheses explaining the occurrence of magmatic enclaves within a host lava range from the repeated injection of a new magma into a shallow reservoir to the disruption of equilibrium within a stratified magma chamber. Within the Andean Central Volcanic Zone (CVZ), the occurrence of magmatic enclaves yields similar geochemical compositions to their respective host rocks, bringing more difficulty …