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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

The Reduction And Reoxidation Of Ceria : A Natural Abundance Oxygen Isotope Approach, Justin Alan Hayles Jan 2013

The Reduction And Reoxidation Of Ceria : A Natural Abundance Oxygen Isotope Approach, Justin Alan Hayles

LSU Master's Theses

Ceria (CeO2) is a fluorite type oxide that has been used extensively as an oxygen storage media in three-way catalysts, as an oxygen partial pressure regulator, as a fuel additive for the reduction of soot and for the production of syn-gas from water and carbon dioxide. It is known that exposing ceria powders to low pO2 and/or high temperature conditions will cause ceria to partially reduce. This partial reduction leads to the formation of oxygen vacancies, which up to a limit, do not significantly influence the crystal structure. When partially reduced ceria is exposed to high pO2 environments, such as …


Spatial Variations In Salinity And Temperature Around The Bay Marchand Salt Dome, Offshore Louisiana, Laurie Richards Jan 2013

Spatial Variations In Salinity And Temperature Around The Bay Marchand Salt Dome, Offshore Louisiana, Laurie Richards

LSU Master's Theses

The Bay Marchand field is located about 60 miles south of New Orleans, Louisiana on the continental shelf. The structurally complex field has produced over 960 MMBOE as of 2012 (http://www.eplweb.com), with many of these hydrocarbons being trapped against the massive salt dome and associated faulting present in the area. A study by Bruno and Hanor (2003) documented the presence of a high salinity plume off the southeast flank of the dome that had less saline and less dense pore water below it. The purpose of this study was to investigate the spatial variations in pore water salinity and temperature …


Controls On The Composition Of Saline Formation Waters From Coastal And Offshore Louisiana, Marielle Elaine Ausburn Jan 2013

Controls On The Composition Of Saline Formation Waters From Coastal And Offshore Louisiana, Marielle Elaine Ausburn

LSU Master's Theses

Geothermal energy is a renewable energy source that can contribute to the U.S. energy mix. As such, new technologies are being explored for lower temperature systems which would open new areas for exploration in Louisiana. Unlike concepts proposed in the early 1980s, in which heat would have been extracted at the land surface from produced overpressured waters, methods currently being proposed would involve engineered down-hole heat exchangers with zero-mass-fluid withdrawal. A re-examination has been made of the controls on the composition of formation waters in south central and offshore Louisiana in the context of providing insight into water-rock reactions that …


High Resolution Tephra And U/Pb Chronology Of The 3.33 – 3.26 Ga Mendon Formation, Barberton, Greenstone Belt, South Africa, Nicholas Burns Decker Jan 2013

High Resolution Tephra And U/Pb Chronology Of The 3.33 – 3.26 Ga Mendon Formation, Barberton, Greenstone Belt, South Africa, Nicholas Burns Decker

LSU Master's Theses

The Mendon Formation in the Barberton Greenstone Belt of South Africa marks the boundary between the Onverwacht and Fig Tree Groups. These groups are characterized by mafic to ultramafic volcanism and felsic volcanism with related epiclastic sedimentation, respectively. This transition marks the end of komatiitic volcanism in the Barberton Greenstone Belt and is accompanied by numerous impact-related spherule layers. This study characterizes the upper Mendon Formation texturally and geochemically over a wide areal extent and across structure and facies change in an attempt to better understand the evolution of tectonic processes at this boundary. A suite of whole rock and …


Evaluating Quaternary Glacial Till Sheet Volume And Duration Of Grounding Events Using Sediment Flux Calculations In The Eastern Basin Paleotroughs, Ross Sea, Anarctica, Logan Gregory Kirst Jan 2013

Evaluating Quaternary Glacial Till Sheet Volume And Duration Of Grounding Events Using Sediment Flux Calculations In The Eastern Basin Paleotroughs, Ross Sea, Anarctica, Logan Gregory Kirst

LSU Master's Theses

A sequence of three seismically-resolvable, back-stepping grounding zone wedges (GZWs) within the Glomar-Challenger Basin paleo-ice-stream trough is conventionally interpreted to have been deposited by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) since the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). For this to be true, there would have to have been voluminous GZW deposition via fast moving ice streams with high sediment flux during the short timeframe since the WAIS retreat began at 11 Ka 14C BP and when the WAIS moved south of Roosevelt Island at 3.2 Ka BP. In contrast to this interpretation of how the near-surface stratigraphy relates …


Analysis Of The Cyclostratigraphy At The Devonian-Carboniferous Boundary In South-Central Oklahoma, Ryan Michael Todd Ellis Jan 2013

Analysis Of The Cyclostratigraphy At The Devonian-Carboniferous Boundary In South-Central Oklahoma, Ryan Michael Todd Ellis

LSU Master's Theses

An outcrop in La Serre, France, was officially ratified by the ICS in 1989, and the IUGS in 1990, as the location of the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the Famennian–Tournaisian, and subsequently the Devonian–Carboniferous (D–C) boundary. GSSPs, like this one, are official outcrops that provide physical representations of geologic time boundaries, essentially geological standards that define geologic time, providing a vital framework to model a variety of interpretations of geological phenomena from paleoclimate to paleontological. It has been acknowledged that the GSSP in La Serre, France is in need of revision due to fossil reworking and …


Temporal And Spatial Variations In The Subsurface Salinity Of Lake Charles, Louisiana : An Investigation Of Saline Sources, Alexandria Suding Jan 2013

Temporal And Spatial Variations In The Subsurface Salinity Of Lake Charles, Louisiana : An Investigation Of Saline Sources, Alexandria Suding

LSU Master's Theses

One of the most pressing issues facing groundwater managers is saltwater intrusion. In coastal Louisiana this issue is especially prevalent. One location that is currently threated by saltwater intrusion is the industrial area of Lake Charles, Louisiana, where three high chloride areas have been detected within the underlying Chicot aquifer. Three sand units of the Chicot aquifer are present in Lake Charles: the 200-foot (200’) sand, the 500’ sand, and the 700’ sand. Groundwater with elevated chloride concentrations was first noticed by industries in the early 1970s. An initial investigation determined that the northern and southern bodies had formed by …


A Clay Mineral Provenance Study Of The Northern Pandora Trough Continental Margin, Gulf Of Papua, Ashley Len Howell Jan 2013

A Clay Mineral Provenance Study Of The Northern Pandora Trough Continental Margin, Gulf Of Papua, Ashley Len Howell

LSU Master's Theses

X-ray diffraction mineralogy of western-, central-, and eastern-derived fluvial sediments within the Gulf of Papua exhibits distinct and mixed clay mineral assemblages. These mineral assemblages allow for a better understanding of how a thick muddy continental margin shelf-edge depocenter in the eastern Gulf of Papua of latest Pleistocene/early Holocene age formed, as well as connections between terrestrial sediment delivery and evolution of deep-sea deposits in this region. Modern clay mineralogy reveals a high to low gradation of illite/smectite values from the western to eastern Gulf of Papua (Slingerland et al., 2008a), which is applied to the recent past for provenance …


On The Long Duration Of Till Sheet Construction : A Reassessment Of How Quaternary Grounding Line Translations Relate To Near-Surface Seismic-Stratigraphy Of Eastern Ross Sea, Antarctica, Sydney Grace Bowles Jan 2013

On The Long Duration Of Till Sheet Construction : A Reassessment Of How Quaternary Grounding Line Translations Relate To Near-Surface Seismic-Stratigraphy Of Eastern Ross Sea, Antarctica, Sydney Grace Bowles

LSU Master's Theses

Previously acquired seismic surveys provide strong evidence that the post-Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) deposited a back-stepping succession of seismically-resolved grounding zone wedges (GZWs) in eastern Ross Sea. However, the chronology of WAIS retreat is debated. The conventional view is that three GZWs (Red, Brown, and Gray Units) were deposited since the LGM. An alternative view, based on recent radiocarbon dates, is that the youngest GZW (the Gray Unit) was deposited during the LGM. If correct, then the older GZWs (Red and Brown Units) were deposited prior to LGM. A recent study (Bart …


Subsurface Stratigraphic Architecture Of Pleistocene Sediments In The Greater New Orleans Area, James Ayrer Jan 2013

Subsurface Stratigraphic Architecture Of Pleistocene Sediments In The Greater New Orleans Area, James Ayrer

LSU Master's Theses

A major environmental and economic problem currently faces the New Orleans area, in southeastern Louisiana, stemming from salinization of freshwater aquifers that are important resources for the community. Major pumping of these aquifers has altered the potentiometric flow, allowing saltier bodies of water to flow into the region. The impact of pumping wells on encroachment of saltwater and the time as well as the route for saltwater to travel from the current saltwater-freshwater interface to pumping centers is not well constrained. Water planners need additional information to make decisions about future management of groundwater resources. The most effective way to …


Predicting Potential Unconventional Production In The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale Play Using Thermal Modeling And Log Overlay Analysis, Hunter Berch Jan 2013

Predicting Potential Unconventional Production In The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale Play Using Thermal Modeling And Log Overlay Analysis, Hunter Berch

LSU Master's Theses

The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale formation (TMS) of Central Louisiana and South Mississippi was suggested as a potential hydrocarbon play with up to seven billion barrels of reserves in a 1997 study by Louisiana State University’s Basin Research Institute. The TMS is considered an unconventional resource because it is a source, reservoir, and seal. Since 1997, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have enabled exploration and documentation of oil reserves in this play. Prior to this study, high resistivity log curves were used to predict areas of economic interest. While areas of high resistivity within the TMS are often indicative of high …


Metamorphic And Geochemical Signatures Of Calc-Silicate Gneisses From The Sawtooth Metamorphic Complex, Idaho, Usa : Implications For Crustal Evolution In Western North America, Isis Fukai Jan 2013

Metamorphic And Geochemical Signatures Of Calc-Silicate Gneisses From The Sawtooth Metamorphic Complex, Idaho, Usa : Implications For Crustal Evolution In Western North America, Isis Fukai

LSU Master's Theses

The Sawtooth Metamorphic Complex (SMC) of central Idaho contains exposures of metasupracrustal rocks that may provide constraints on Precambrian crustal evolution in northwestern United States. Petrographic textures, whole-rock geochemistry, and thermobarmetry of SMC calc-silicate gneisses, collected at high-resolution, record multiple stages of crustal development, including: contiguous deposition of a sandstone-to-shale sequence derived from post-Archean continental sediments, metamorphism during two medium-high-grade thermal events (M1, M2), and two distinct episodes of deformation (D1, D2). Whole-rock concentrations of Cr (23.97-76.43 ± 3.0 ppm), Ni (6.82-33.10 ± 3.5 ppm), Th (2.11-12.04 ± 1.6 ppm), Sc (3.81-11.53 ± 1.6 ppm), and Zr (322-658 ± 3.9 …


Temperature And Pressure Conditions Of Archean Amphibolite-Granulite Facies Metamorphic Xenoliths From The Eastern Beartooth Mountains, Montana And Wyoming, Usa, Celina N. Will Jan 2013

Temperature And Pressure Conditions Of Archean Amphibolite-Granulite Facies Metamorphic Xenoliths From The Eastern Beartooth Mountains, Montana And Wyoming, Usa, Celina N. Will

LSU Master's Theses

Compositionally-diverse Archean metamorphic rocks occur as xenoliths within the well-dated 2.8 Ga granitic gneisses that volumetrically-dominate the eastern Beartooth Mountains of the northern Wyoming Province. Common mafic lithologies in the Quad Creek-High Line Trails-Christmas Lake-Wyoming Creek-Line Creek Plateau area include granitic gneiss, amphibolites, mafic granulites and biotite and garnet-bearing peraluminous gneisses. The region also has sillimanite-biotite ± cordierite ± garnet gneisses and migmatites, as well as a single occurrence of a noteworthy orthopyroxene-cordierite gneiss with late-stage anthophyllite. A combination of detailed petrographic analysis and thermobarometric modeling were used to constrain the metamorphic conditions of the xenoliths prior to inclusion in …


Natural Fracture Characterization In The Haynesville Shale, East Texas: A Core Study, Frank Leslie Morgan Jan 2013

Natural Fracture Characterization In The Haynesville Shale, East Texas: A Core Study, Frank Leslie Morgan

LSU Master's Theses

The Haynesville Shale in East Texas and Northwest Louisiana is one of the most studied and explored shale-gas plays in the United States. With new horizontal drilling and completion strategies, energy companies can produce hydrocarbons directly from the source rock making the Haynesville Shale an attractive resource. A key component of enhanced hydrocarbon production is the presence of natural fractures. They may serve as permeable pathways for hydrocarbon flow, especially in tight shales such as in the Haynesville Shale, where the matrix permeability is very low. In the case of the Haynesville Shale, little is known about the occurrence of …


Evaluation Of Thermal Insulation By Coal Beds In The Western Arkoma Basin, Ok And Implications For Large Scale Geothermal Resources, Matthew Freeman Jan 2013

Evaluation Of Thermal Insulation By Coal Beds In The Western Arkoma Basin, Ok And Implications For Large Scale Geothermal Resources, Matthew Freeman

LSU Master's Theses

Weighted average geothermal gradients in the Western Arkoma Basin, Oklahoma are estimated from bottom hole temperatures (BHT) from 158 oil and gas wells. The regional geothermal gradient is 28.8 °C/km. The central and north central portions of the basin have higher gradients than southern and northern portions, especially in large areas of Pittsburg and Haskell counties where geothermal gradients in excess of 36 °C/km exist. These gradients suggest that temperatures suitable for low temperature geothermal power exist at depths of 2-3 km. Coals have very low thermal conductivity (0.15 – 0.5 W/m°K) acting as thermal insulators. This study examines the …