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Image Magnification Using Level-Set Reconstruction, Bryan S. Morse, Duane Schwartzwald Dec 2001

Image Magnification Using Level-Set Reconstruction, Bryan S. Morse, Duane Schwartzwald

Faculty Publications

Image magnification is a common problem in imaging applications, requiring interpolation to “read between the pixels”. Although many magnification/interpolation algorithms have been proposed in the literature, all methods must suffer to some degree the effects of impefect reconstruction―false high-frequency content introduced by the underlying original sampling. Most often, these effects manifest themselves as jagged contours in the image. This paper presents a method for constrained smoothing of such artifacts that attempts to produce smooth reconstructions of the image’s level curves while still maintaining image fidelity. This is similar to other iterative reconstruction algorithms and to Bayesian restoration techniques, but instead …

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Houghing The Hough: Peak Collection For Detection Of Corners, Junctions And Line Intersections, William A. Barrett, Kevin D. Petersen Dec 2001

Houghing The Hough: Peak Collection For Detection Of Corners, Junctions And Line Intersections, William A. Barrett, Kevin D. Petersen

Faculty Publications

We exploit the Accumulator Array of the Hough Transform by finding collections of (2 or more) peaks through which a given sinusoid will pass. Such sinusoids identify points in the original image where lines intersect. Peak collection (or line aggregation) is performed by making a second pass through the edge map, but instead of laying points down in the accumulator array (as with the original Hough Transform), we compute the line integral over each sinusoid that corresponds to the current edge point. If a sinusoid passes through greater than or equal to 2 peaks, we deposit that sum/integral into a …

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Exotic Plants In Early And Late Seral Vegetation Of Fifteen Northern Rocky Mountain Environments (Hts), T. Weaver, D. Gusafson, J. Lichthardt Nov 2001

Exotic Plants In Early And Late Seral Vegetation Of Fifteen Northern Rocky Mountain Environments (Hts), T. Weaver, D. Gusafson, J. Lichthardt

Western North American Naturalist

We determined the capacity of exotic plants to invade major environmental types of the northern Rocky Mountains. We did this by observing their presence on disturbed and undisturbed sites in relatively well inoculated locations—corridors adjacent to highways—on transects across the mountains in Glacier National Park and Grand Teton National Park and on low-altitude sites between them. We draw 3 primary conclusions. First, of 29 exotics commonly found, the most dominant are intentionally introduced grasses (Agrostis, Bromus, Dactylis, and especially Phleum pratense and Poa pratensis) and legumes (Melilotus, Medicago, and Trifolium) rather than the forbs …

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Using Ssm Proxies To Provide Efficient Multiple-Source Multicast Delivery, Daniel Zappala, Aaron Fabbri Nov 2001

Using Ssm Proxies To Provide Efficient Multiple-Source Multicast Delivery, Daniel Zappala, Aaron Fabbri

Faculty Publications

We consider the possibility that single-source multicast (SSM) will become a universal multicast service, enabling large-scale distribution of content from a few well-known sources to a general audience. Operating under this assumption, we explore the problem of building the traditional IP model of any-source multicast on top of SSM. Toward this end, we design an SSM proxy service that allows any sender to efficiently deliver content to a multicast group. We demonstrate the performance improvements this service offers over standard SSM and describe extensions for access control, dynamic proxy discovery, and multicast proxy distribution.

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Ortho-Planar Linear-Motion Springs, John J. Parise, Larry L. Howell, Spencer P. Magleby Nov 2001

Ortho-Planar Linear-Motion Springs, John J. Parise, Larry L. Howell, Spencer P. Magleby

Faculty Publications

This paper presents an ortho-planar spring design that operates by raising or lowering its platform relative to the base with no rotation. The compact nature of the design, and its non-rotating motion, eliminates the problem of rotation against adjoining surfaces and is less sensitive to variation in assemblies than many current compact springs. Nomenclature is presented to identify different configurations, mathematical equations are provided that accurately model the force-defection relationships, and a pneumatic valve positioner application is demonstrated.

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Modeling The Effects Of Transforming Growth Factor-Beta On Extracellular Matrix Alignment In Dermal Wound Repair, J. C. Dallon, J. A. Sherratt, P. K. Maini Oct 2001

Modeling The Effects Of Transforming Growth Factor-Beta On Extracellular Matrix Alignment In Dermal Wound Repair, J. C. Dallon, J. A. Sherratt, P. K. Maini

Faculty Publications

We present a novel mathematical model for collagen deposition and alignment during dermal wound healing, focusing on the regulatory effects of TGF. Our work extends a previously developed model which considers the interactions between fibroblasts and extracellular matrix, composed of collagen and a fibrin based blood clot, by allowing fibroblasts to orient the collagen matrix, and produce and degrade the extracellular matrix, while the matrix can direct the fibroblasts and control their speed. Here we extend the model by allowing a time varying concentration of TGF to alter the properties of the fibroblasts. Thus we are able to simulate experiments …

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Statistics And Supermetallicity: The Metallicity Of Mu Leonis, B. J. Taylor Oct 2001

Statistics And Supermetallicity: The Metallicity Of Mu Leonis, B. J. Taylor

Faculty Publications

For the often-studied "SMR" giant µ Leo, Smith & Ruck (2000) have recently found that [Fe/H] approximately + 0.3 dex. Their conclusion is tested here in a "statistical" paradigm, in which statistical principles are used to select published high-dispersion µ Leo data and assign error bars to them. When data from Smith & Ruck and from Takeda et al. (1998) are added to a data base compiled in 1999, it is found that conclusions from an earlier analysis (Taylor 1999c) are essentially unchanged: the mean value of [Fe/H] approximately + 0.23 ± 0.025 dex, and values ≤ + 0.2 dex …

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Islam: An Introduction And Bibliography, James A. Toronto, Cynthia Finlayson Oct 2001

Islam: An Introduction And Bibliography, James A. Toronto, Cynthia Finlayson

BYU Studies

Long before the events of September 11, 2001, BYU Studies began working on this special issue focusing on Islam. The authors and editors who worked on this issue have tried to capture the spirit of a religion that provides guidance to the lives of millions of people worldwide. The ever expanding influence of Islam extends to the prominent and often controversial role that Islam plays in contemporary politics. In addition, Muslim theology, scripture, art, science, and communal values have made significant contributions to world civilization. And in quiet yet significant ways, dialogue and contact between Latter-day Saints and Muslims have …

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The Incoherence Of The Philosophers: A Parallel English-Arabic Text Translated, Introduced, And Annotated By Michael E. Marmura Al-Ghazali, David Paulsen, Eric Madsen Oct 2001

The Incoherence Of The Philosophers: A Parallel English-Arabic Text Translated, Introduced, And Annotated By Michael E. Marmura Al-Ghazali, David Paulsen, Eric Madsen

BYU Studies

Al-Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers: A Parallel English-Arabic Text Translated, Introduced, and Annotated by Michael E. Marmura. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2000. xxxi, 258 pp. Notes, index. $29.95.

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Reorienting The Cultural World Order: Letter 7 From Letters From The Silk Roads, Elji Hattori Oct 2001

Reorienting The Cultural World Order: Letter 7 From Letters From The Silk Roads, Elji Hattori

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

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Al-Ghazali, A Muslim Seeker Of Truth, Brian M. Hauglid Oct 2001

Al-Ghazali, A Muslim Seeker Of Truth, Brian M. Hauglid

BYU Studies

In conjunction with some noted Islamicists and under the leadership of Daniel C. Peterson, associate professor of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at BYU, several significant Islamic texts are being or will be translated into English and published in order to make these texts available to the West. The first published volume of the Islamic Translation Series: Philosophy, Theology, and Mysticism is The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-Falasifa), written by al-Ghazali (d. 1111). It seems fitting to begin such a series with a work by al-Ghazali, as he holds an esteemed place in the Islamic world. However, Latter-day …

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Modeling Irda Performance: The Effect Of Irlap Negotiation Parameters On Throughput, Scott V. Hansen, Charles D. Knutson, Michael G. Robertson, Franklin E. Sorenson Oct 2001

Modeling Irda Performance: The Effect Of Irlap Negotiation Parameters On Throughput, Scott V. Hansen, Charles D. Knutson, Michael G. Robertson, Franklin E. Sorenson

Faculty Publications

The Infrared Data Association's (IrDA) infrared data transmission protocol is a widely used mechanism for short-range wireless data communications. In order to provide flexibility for connections between devices of potentially disparate capabilities, IrDA devices negotiate the values of several transmission parameters based on the capabilities of the devices establishing the connection. This paper describes the design and implementation of a software tool, Irdaperf, to model IrDA performance based on negotiated transmission parameters. Using Irdaperf, we demonstrate that for fast data rates, maximizing window size and data size are key factors for overcoming the negative effects of a relatively long link …

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Chemical Bonding, Elasticity, And Valence Force Field Models: A Case Study For Α-Pt2si And Ptsi, Gus L. W. Hart, J. E. Klepeis, O. Beckstein, O. Pankratov Sep 2001

Chemical Bonding, Elasticity, And Valence Force Field Models: A Case Study For Α-Pt2si And Ptsi, Gus L. W. Hart, J. E. Klepeis, O. Beckstein, O. Pankratov

Faculty Publications

We have carried out a detailed study of the chemical bonding for two room-temperature stable platinum silicide phases, tetragonal α-Pt2Si. These elements of the bonding are further analyzed by constructing valence force field models using the results from recent first principles calculations of the six (nine) independent, nonzero elastic constants of α-Pt2Si (PtSi). The resulting volume-, radial-, and angular-dependent force constants provide insight into the relative strength of various bonding elements as well as the trends observed in the elastic constants themselves. The valence force field analysis yields quantitative information about the nature of the chemical bonding that is not …

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Poynting's Theorem And Luminal Total Energy Transport In Passive Dielectric Media, Scott Glasgow, Michael Ware, Justin Peatross Sep 2001

Poynting's Theorem And Luminal Total Energy Transport In Passive Dielectric Media, Scott Glasgow, Michael Ware, Justin Peatross

Faculty Publications

Without approximation the energy density in Poynting's theorem for the generally dispersive and passive dielectric medium is demonstrated to be a system total dynamical energy density. Thus the density in Poynting's theorem is a conserved form that by virtue of its positive definiteness prescribes important qualitative and quantitative features of the medium-field dynamics by rendering the system dynamically closed. This fully three-dimensional result, applicable to anisotropic and inhomogeneous media, is model independent, relying solely on the complex-analytic consequences of causality and passivity. As direct applications of this result, we show 1 that a causal medium responds to a virtual, instantaneous …

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Characterization Of Two-Dimensional Finite-Aperture Wire Grid Polarizers By A Spectral-Domain Technique, Michael A. Jensen, Gregory P. Nordin Sep 2001

Characterization Of Two-Dimensional Finite-Aperture Wire Grid Polarizers By A Spectral-Domain Technique, Michael A. Jensen, Gregory P. Nordin

Faculty Publications

We investigate the transmission characteristics of perfectly conducting two-dimensional wire grid polarizers fabricated in finite and infinite apertures using a rigorous spectral-domain mode-matching method. Specifically, the transmission coefficient for both transverse-electric and transverse-magnetic polarizations, extinction ratio, and diffraction pattern are characterized for a wide variety of geometric and material parameters including aperture dimension, conducting wire fill factor, wire spacing, polarizer thickness, material dielectric constants, and incident wave arrival angle. The results indicate that the transmission behavior is largely insensitive to aperture dimension.

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Who Are The Non-Respondents?: A Deterministic Approach To Modeling Non-Response In Exit Polls, Collaborative Project Sep 2001

Who Are The Non-Respondents?: A Deterministic Approach To Modeling Non-Response In Exit Polls, Collaborative Project

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

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Improving Cluster Utilization Through Set Based Allocation Policies, Quinn O. Snell, Julio C. Facelli, Brian D. Haymore, David B. Jackson Sep 2001

Improving Cluster Utilization Through Set Based Allocation Policies, Quinn O. Snell, Julio C. Facelli, Brian D. Haymore, David B. Jackson

Faculty Publications

While clusters have already proven themselves in the world of high performance computing, some clusters are beginning to exhibit resource inefficiencies due to increasing hardware diversity. Much of the success of clusters lies in the use of commodity components built to meet various hardware standards. These standards have allowed a great level of hardware backwards compatibility that is now resulting in a condition referred to as hardware 'drift' or heterogeneity. The hardware heterogeneity introduces problems when diverse compute nodes are allocated to a parallel job, as most parallel jobs are not self-balancing. This paper presents a new method that allows …

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Statistics And Supermetallicity: The Metallicity Of Ngc 6791, B. J. Taylor Aug 2001

Statistics And Supermetallicity: The Metallicity Of Ngc 6791, B. J. Taylor

Faculty Publications

For the old galactic cluster NGC 6791, Peterson & Green (1998a) and Chaboyer et al. (1999) have found that [Fe/H] approximately + 0.4 dex. A second look at that conclusion is taken in this paper. Zero-point problems are reviewed for a high-dispersion analysis done by Peterson & Green, and it is found that accidental errors have not been determined rigorously for the results of that analysis. It is also noted that in a color-magnitude analysis performed by Chaboyer et al., the important metallicity range between 0.0 and + 0.3 dex is not explored and hence is not ruled out. Moreover, …

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Livelock Avoidance For Meta-Schedulers, Mark J. Clement, John Jardine, Quinn O. Snell Aug 2001

Livelock Avoidance For Meta-Schedulers, Mark J. Clement, John Jardine, Quinn O. Snell

Faculty Publications

Meta-scheduling, a process which allows a user to schedule a job across multiple sites, has a potential for livelock. Current systems avoid livelock by locking down resources at multiple sites and allowing a metascheduler to control the resources during the lock down period or by limiting job size to that which will fit on one site. The former approach leads to poor utilization; the later poses limitations on job size. This research uses BYU's Meta-scheduler (YMS) which allows jobs to be scheduled across multiple sites without the need for locking down the nodes. YMS avoids livelock through exponential back-off This …

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Electromagnetics, David V. Arnold, Richard H. Selfridge, Karl F. Warnick Jul 2001

Electromagnetics, David V. Arnold, Richard H. Selfridge, Karl F. Warnick

Faculty Publications

Many applications of electrical engineering require a knowledge of the behavior of voltages and currents in electronic devices and within conductors. In many other situations it is not enough to understand the behavior the voltages and currents in just the conductors and other components, but also the influence of the voltage and current on surrounding materials.

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New Approaches For Sampling And Modeling Native And Exotic Plant Species Richness, Geneva W. Chong, Robin M. Reich, Mohammed A. Kalkhan, Thomas J. Stohlgren Jul 2001

New Approaches For Sampling And Modeling Native And Exotic Plant Species Richness, Geneva W. Chong, Robin M. Reich, Mohammed A. Kalkhan, Thomas J. Stohlgren

Western North American Naturalist

We demonstrate new multi-phase, multi-scale approaches for sampling and modeling native and exotic plant species to predict the spread of invasive species and aid in control efforts. Our test site is a 54,000-ha portion of Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA. This work is based on previous research wherein we developed vegetation sampling techniques to identify hot spots of diversity, important rare habitats, and locations of invasive plant species. Here we demonstrate statistical modeling tools to rapidly assess current patterns of native and exotic plant species to determine which habitats are most vulnerable to invasion by exotic species. We use …

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Status And Conservation Of Salmonids In Relation To Hydrologic Integrity In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Robert W. Van Kirk, Lyn Benjamin Jul 2001

Status And Conservation Of Salmonids In Relation To Hydrologic Integrity In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Robert W. Van Kirk, Lyn Benjamin

Western North American Naturalist

Native salmonid status was evaluated with an index quantifying distribution and abundance of cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki) and grayling (Thymallus arcticus) in 41 watersheds comprising the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. We assessed hydrologic integrity with a percentile-based index measuring cumulative effects of reservoirs, surface water withdrawals, and consumptive water use. Status of native salmonids was poor in 70% of the watersheds; exceptions occurred in a north-south core extending from the Upper Yellowstone southward through the national parks to Bear Lake. Hydrologic integrity was highest in headwater areas and lowest in lower-elevation watersheds. Status of native and nonnative …

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Predicting The Effects Of Dimensional And Material Property Variations In Micro Compliant Mechanisms, Jonathan W. Wittwer Jul 2001

Predicting The Effects Of Dimensional And Material Property Variations In Micro Compliant Mechanisms, Jonathan W. Wittwer

Theses and Dissertations

Surface micromachining of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), like all other fabrication processes, has inherent variation that leads to uncertain material and dimensional parameters. To obtain accurate and reliable predictions of mechanism behavior, the effects of these variations need to be analyzed. This thesis expands already existing tolerance and uncertainty analysis methods to apply to micro compliant mechanisms. For simple compliant members, explicit equations can be used in uncertainty analysis. However, for a nonlinear implicit system of equations, the direct linearization method may be used to obtain sensitivities of output parameters to small changes in known variables. This is done by including …

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The Need For Small Learning Rates On Large Problems, Tony R. Martinez, D. Randall Wilson Jul 2001

The Need For Small Learning Rates On Large Problems, Tony R. Martinez, D. Randall Wilson

Faculty Publications

In gradient descent learning algorithms such as error backpropagation, the learning rate parameter can have a significant effect on generalization accuracy. In particular, decreasing the learning rate below that which yields the fastest convergence can significantly improve generalization accuracy, especially on large, complex problems. The learning rate also directly affects training speed, but not necessarily in the way that many people expect. Many neural network practitioners currently attempt to use the largest learning rate that still allows for convergence, in order to improve training speed. However, a learning rate that is too large can be as slow as a learning …

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Improving The Hopfield Network Through Beam Search, Tony R. Martinez, Xinchuan Zeng Jul 2001

Improving The Hopfield Network Through Beam Search, Tony R. Martinez, Xinchuan Zeng

Faculty Publications

In this paper we propose a beam search mechanism to improve the performance of the Hopfield network for solving optimization problems. The beam search readjusts the top M (M > 1) activated neurons to more similar activation levels in the early phase of relaxation, so that the network has the opportunity to explore more alternative, potentially better solutions. We evaluated this approach using a large number of simulations (20,000 for each parameter setting), based on 200 randomly generated city distributions of the 10-city traveling salesman problem. The results show that the beam search has the capability of significantly improving the network …

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Optimal Artificial Neural Network Architecture Selection For Bagging, Timothy L. Andersen, Tony R. Martinez, Michael E. Rimer Jul 2001

Optimal Artificial Neural Network Architecture Selection For Bagging, Timothy L. Andersen, Tony R. Martinez, Michael E. Rimer

Faculty Publications

This paper studies the performance of standard architecture selection strategies, such as cost/performance and CV based strategies, for voting methods such as bagging. It is shown that standard architecture selection strategies are not optimal for voting methods and tend to underestimate the complexity of the optimal network architecture, since they only examine the performance of the network on an individual basis and do not consider the correlation between responses from multiple networks.

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Improved Hopfield Networks By Training With Noisy Data, Fred Clift, Tony R. Martinez Jul 2001

Improved Hopfield Networks By Training With Noisy Data, Fred Clift, Tony R. Martinez

Faculty Publications

A new approach to training a generalized Hopfield network is developed and evaluated in this work. Both the weight symmetricity constraint and the zero self-connection constraint are removed from standard Hopfield networks. Training is accomplished with Back-Propagation Through Time, using noisy versions of the memorized patterns. Training in this way is referred to as Noisy Associative Training (NAT). Performance of NAT is evaluated on both random and correlated data. NAT has been tested on several data sets, with a large number of training runs for each experiment. The data sets used include uniformly distributed random data and several data sets …

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Speed Training: Improving The Rate Of Backpropagation Learning Through Stochastic Sample Presentation, Timothy L. Andersen, Tony R. Martinez, Michael E. Rimer Jul 2001

Speed Training: Improving The Rate Of Backpropagation Learning Through Stochastic Sample Presentation, Timothy L. Andersen, Tony R. Martinez, Michael E. Rimer

Faculty Publications

Artificial neural networks provide an effective empirical predictive model for pattern classification. However, using complex neural networks to learn very large training sets is often problematic, imposing prohibitive time constraints on the training process. We present four practical methods for dramatically decreasing training time through dynamic stochastic sample presentation, a technique we call speed training. These methods are shown to be robust to retaining generalization accuracy over a diverse collection of real world data sets. In particular, the SET technique achieves a training speedup of 4278% on a large OCR database with no detectable loss in generalization.

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Lazy Training: Improving Backpropagation Learning Through Network Interaction, Timothy L. Andersen, Tony R. Martinez, Michael E. Rimer Jul 2001

Lazy Training: Improving Backpropagation Learning Through Network Interaction, Timothy L. Andersen, Tony R. Martinez, Michael E. Rimer

Faculty Publications

Backpropagation, similar to most high-order learning algorithms, is prone to overfitting. We address this issue by introducing interactive training (IT), a logical extension to backpropagation training that employs interaction among multiple networks. This method is based on the theory that centralized control is more effective for learning in deep problem spaces in a multi-agent paradigm. IT methods allow networks to work together to form more complex systems while not restraining their individual ability to specialize. Lazy training, an implementation of IT that minimizes misclassification error, is presented. Lazy training discourages overfitting and is conducive to higher accuracy in multiclass problems …

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Contributions From Mafic Alkaline Magmas To The Bingham Porphyry Cu-Au-Mo Deposit, Utah, U.S.A., Daniel T. Maughan Jul 2001

Contributions From Mafic Alkaline Magmas To The Bingham Porphyry Cu-Au-Mo Deposit, Utah, U.S.A., Daniel T. Maughan

Theses and Dissertations

The Bingham porphyry Cu-Au-Mo deposit, Utah, may only be world-class because of substantial contributions of sulfur and metals from mafic alkaline magma to an otherwise unremarkable calc-alkaline system. Volcanic mafic alkaline rocks in the district are enriched in Cr, Ni, and Ba as well as ore-related constituents of Cu, Au, platinum group elements (PGE) and S. The bulk of the volcanic section that is comagmatic with ore-related porphyries is dacitic to trachytic in composition, but has inherited the geochemical signature of high Cr, Ni, and Ba from magma mixing with the mafic alkaline rocks. The volcanic section that most closely …

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