Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Analyzing Strain Localization, Kinematic Partitioning And Fluid Flow In The Pulo Do Lobo Metasedimentary Rocks Along The Southern Iberian Shear Zone, Andalucia, Spain, Nancy Alejandra Carman

Theses and Dissertations

The Southern Iberian Shear Zone is a regional scale ductile shear zone that placed Beja-Acebuches metabasites over metapelite and quartzite rocks of the Pulo do Lobo Formation in a transpressional deformation with components of thrust and left-lateral movement. This project evaluates factors that contributed to strain localization at a variety of scales within the Pulo do Lobo formation, including lithologic variations, microstructures, and fluid flow. Additionally, microstructural data are used to test whether kinematic partitioning accompanied strain localization. Grain scale asymmetric indicators of sigma-type clasts, S-C fabrics, and asymmetric folds indicate dominant thrust motion. Strain intensity and metamorphic grade increase …

Surface Alteration In The Ölkelduháls, Nesjavellir, And Geysir Hydrothermal Systems, Iceland: Implications For Mars, Jordan Ludyan

Theses and Dissertations

Silica- and sulfate-rich deposits observed by Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Spirit near Home Plate, Gusev crater, Mars, indicate alteration of Mars basalt by a diverse array of hydrothermal fluids and processes. Constraining the precise fluid conditions present at the time of deposition for these deposits on Mars relies on investigations of terrestrial hydrothermal systems that produce similar mineral assemblages. Alteration products and fluids collected from the Ölkelduháls, Nesjavellir, and Geysir hydrothermal areas in southern Iceland cover a wide range of end-member and intermediate fluid and alteration environments, and provide a means to compare the secondary minerals produced from different hydrothermal …

Evaluating Hydration And Artificial Aging Effects On The Paleointensity In Natural Glass, Sebastian Fearn

Theses and Dissertations

Young natural volcanic glasses have been successfully used to recover Earth’s geomagnetic field intensity (paleointensity). However, the magnetic stability and reliability of volcanic glass as a paleomagnetic recorder over geologic time is unclear. Paleointensity estimates may be influenced by natural processes that alter magnetic mineralogy. Previous results from paleointensity and rock magnetic experiments suggest that post-emplacement hydrothermal alteration can alter the magnetic remanence and can possibly cause paleointensity experiments to fail. Low-temperature hydration and natural relaxation of the glass structure over time may also adversely impact paleointensity results. In this study, rhyolitic and basaltic glass specimens underwent artificial aging and …

Sedimentology, Sequence Stratigraphy, And High-Precision U-Pb Age Constraints On The Late Paleozoic Ansilta Formation, Calingasta-Uspallata Basin, Nw Argentina, John Ethan Malone

Theses and Dissertations

The Ansilta Formation, located several kilometers east of the Astronomical Observatory El Leoncito near Barreal, San Juan Province, Argentina was deposited during the late Mississippian to early Pennsylvanian. This succession includes glacimarine, nearshore, and fluvial systems deposited at the mid-Carboniferous portion of the late Paleozoic ice age within the Calingasta—Uspallata Basin on the western margin of the Protoprecordillera. The lower member of the Ansilta Formation is equivalent to the nearby Leoncito, Majaditas, and Hoyada Verde formations, and is composed of diamictite, conglomerates, sandstones, pebbly mudstones, and laminated mudstone. Glacial environments are unique in that facies changes occur as a result …

Impacts Of Land-Use Change On The Menominee River In Jo Daviess County, Illinois, Preston J. Konop

Theses and Dissertations

This study addresses land-use changes in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, and their effects on the Menominee River. The Menominee River flows north to south through Jo Daviess County, and southern Grant County, Wisconsin. Many of the surrounding properties are agricultural and have undergone developmental and land-use changes that may affect the flood flashiness of the Menominee River. The concern with increasing flood flashiness of the Menominee River include more frequent flooding events, undercutting of riverbanks, and increased amounts of sediment transport from upstream locations into the Mississippi River. Increases in impermeable surfaces have led to greater amounts of runoff during …

Snow-Albedo Feedback In Northern Alaska: How Vegetation Influences Snowmelt, Lucas C. Reckhaus

Theses and Dissertations

This paper investigates how the snow-albedo feedback mechanism of the arctic is changing in response to rising climate temperatures. Specifically, the interplay of vegetation and snowmelt, and how these two variables can be correlated. This has the potential to refine climate modelling of the spring transition season. Research was conducted at the ecoregion scale in northern Alaska from 2000 to 2020. Each ecoregion is defined by distinct topographic and ecological conditions, allowing for meaningful contrast between the patterns of spring albedo transition across surface conditions and vegetation types. The five most northerly ecoregions of Alaska are chosen as they encompass …

Late Paleozoic Climatic Reconstruction Of Western Argentina: Glacial Extent And Deglaciation Of Southwestern Gondwana, Kathryn N. Pauls

Theses and Dissertations

Throughout its history Earth has experienced both icehouse and greenhouse conditions. Shifts and transitions from one end member to the other are driven by numerous driving mechanisms on global, orbital and more local scales. In particular, the late Paleozoic ice age (LPIA) is thought to have been driven by global drivers such as the drift of the Gondwanan continent across the South Pole, fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and Milankovitch cycles. It was also affected by more local and regional drivers such as active tectonism along accretionary margins and changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. South American Gondwana provides …

Water Chemistry And Lake Dynamics Of Laguna Bacalar, Quintana Roo, Mexico, Ryan Matzuk

Theses and Dissertations

Laguna Bacalar in the Quintana Roo region is the second largest lake in Mexico and contains freshwater derived solely from groundwater. Local geology on the Yucatan Peninsula is karstic and the southern shoreline of Laguna Bacalar is spotted with a handful of cenotes that contribute substantial amounts of inflowing groundwater to the lake. This is shown by sonde profile data taken in one of the largest cenotes in the area. Outflow is dominated by a surface water outlet in the southern portion of the lake and an unknown amount of outflowing groundwater. During January of 2017 through 2019, UWM researchers …

Predicting Patterns Of Heavy Metal Contamination In Rio Grande Valley Agricultural Soils, Joy Z. Youwakim

Theses and Dissertations

The Rio Grande Valley of Texas is the statewide leader in the production of produce and grains and is irrigated by the Rio Grande River, in which heavy metal contaminants have been documented by both the International Boundary Water Commission and the United States Geological Survey. This work attempts to observe and document patterns of heavy metal pooling in order to mitigate the increased risk of contamination due to urbanization. We hypothesize that relationships exist between heavy metal content and proximity to roads, land use, and soil type. This research tests these relationships through soil sampling and atomic absorption spectrometry …

Influence Of Landscape Factors On Wildlife Presence And Road Mitigation Structure Performance, Taylor M. Hopkins

Theses and Dissertations

There are roughly 80 ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) remaining in the United States, with the entire population constrained to south Texas, with roadkill being a predominant source of mortality. To prevent additional roadkill and maintain wildlife movement, Texas Department of Transportation constructed 11.9 kilometers of wildlife exclusion fencing, 5 wildlife crossing structures (WCS), and 18 wildlife guards on State Highway 100. This thesis focused on determining the effort required for a control-impact monitoring study, the influence of biotic and abiotic factors around the roadway on wildlife presence, and the performance of mitigation structures and the road mitigation corridor. This …

The Application Of Advanced Technologies For Agriculture And Rangeland Management, Matthew D. Kutugata

Theses and Dissertations

This project demonstrates two applications of remote sensing in agricultural and rangeland environments. In the first, an unmanned aerial system (UAS) equipped with a multi-spectral sensor was used to estimate canopy cover across four different cover crop trials at four time periods. In the second, a local database of stationary camera trap images of wildlife was used to train a convolutional neural network to automatically catalogue images by identifying the animal in those images. Both projects aimed to provide an example of how remote sensing platforms and machine learning techniques can facilitate the rapid collection and processing of large-scale field …

Perceptions Of A Small Midwestern Food Cooperative: A Case Study, Rebecca Forsythe

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to illuminate how individuals form perceptions of cooperatives, specifically of Green Top Grocery, a cooperative located in Bloomington Illinois, using the Bourdieu-sian habitus and notions of capital as a frame. Green Top Grocery suffers from fiscal instability since they opened in 2017. They also struggle to gain support of lower income individuals, a key demographic they sought to help since their inception based on their stated values. By conducting qualitative interviews of three sample groups: Green Top Grocery board members and leadership, local food access experts, and West Bloomington residents, and non-participant observations, this …

The Influence Of Human Disturbance On Wildlife Use Of A Highway In South Texas, Thomas J. Yamashita

Theses and Dissertations

Roads can greatly impact wildlife. Wildlife vehicle collisions contribute to population declines while disturbance from human activity may prevent wildlife from using areas around roads. The construction of mitigation structures may lessen these effects through fine scale modification of animal use of roadside areas. In this thesis, how the construction of wildlife mitigation structures impacted the fine scale distribution of wildlife on State Highway 100 in Cameron County, Texas was examined. Spatial and temporal scale may also influence these relationships. The relationship between human activity and wildlife activity around the highway was explored and how the distribution of wildlife road …

Analysis Of The Facilitative Interaction Between Batis Maritima And Avicennia Germinans As A Mangrove Restoration Strategy, Javier R. Navarro

Theses and Dissertations

The multiple experiments conducted in an Avicennia germinans forest in Laguna Vista, TX was focused on determining if facilitation theory could explain the behavior observed between the herbaceous halophyte Batis maritima and A. germinans. I hypnotized that a positive interaction exists but through which mechanisms of facilitation I did not know. The overarching theme of the study is the presence or absence of B. maritima. Facilitation theory tells us that positive interactions are most often found under stressful conditions such as those on the coastal tidal flat of the Laguna Madre. Locally B. maritima has been found to …

Neural Network Models For Nuclear Treaty Monitoring: Enhancing The Seismic Signal Pipeline With Deep Temporal Convolution, Joshua T. Dickey

Theses and Dissertations

Seismic signal processing at the IDC is critical to global security, facilitating the detection and identification of covert nuclear tests in near-real time. This dissertation details three research studies providing substantial enhancements to this pipeline. Study 1 focuses on signal detection, employing a TCN architecture directly against raw real-time data streams and effecting a 4 dB increase in detector sensitivity over the latest operational methods. Study 2 focuses on both event association and source discrimination, utilizing a TCN-based triplet network to extract source-specific features from three-component seismograms, and providing both a complimentary validation measure for event association and a one-shot …

Nitrate Transport In The Unsaturated Zone, Patience Bosompemaa

Theses and Dissertations

Abundance of nitrate in the soil is a basic issue in agricultural land-use regions, causing eutrophication and pollution of water bodies. The study focuses on the role of a saturated buffer zone (SBZ) to remove nitrate from the groundwater resulting from agricultural activities. The study area is herbaceous SBZ located in central Illinois (40.614382ºN, -89.023542ºW), which lies between a stream and a farm located upgradient. The SBZ has been outfitted with an agricultural runoff treatment system that diverts tile drainage into the subsurface of the SBZ rather than discharging into the stream. Within the SBZ three experimental areas composed of …

Characterization Of Water Pathways And Hydrolytic Weakening Within Naturally Deformed Quartz Grains Along The Willard Thrust Fault, Utah, Charles Alexander Martin

Theses and Dissertations

Evidence of water infiltration was examined in naturally deformed quartzite clasts from diamictite of the Mineral Fork Formation sampled from Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, Utah. The diamictite deformed via subsimple shear in the footwall of the Willard thrust fault and displays spatial variations in strain intensity. Evidence of water infiltration was investigated utilizing three complimentary techniques: standard petrographic microscopy to identify microstructures and interpret deformation mechanisms; scanning electron microscopy cathodoluminescence (SEM-CL) to create maps of healed microfractures and subgrain boundaries related to pathways of fluid infiltration; and synchrotron-source Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to create micron-scale water absorbance …

Simulating The Effects Of Urbanization And Climate Change On Ground Water Recharging Using The Usgs Precipitation And Runoff Modelling System (Prms), Kenneth Oanes

Theses and Dissertations

The Root River watershed, located in southeastern Wisconsin, was selected to be the subject of a study modeling the impacts of urbanization and climate change on groundwater recharge. Historical and projected (2035) land use data for the study area was sourced from the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Committee (SEWRPC). The USGS Precipitation and Runoff Modelling System (PRMS) was selected to estimate recharge from a 35-year period of historical climate data (1980-2014). PRMS was run for the full 35-year time period under each land-use scenario and model outputs for evapotranspiration (ET), runoff, and recharge were calculated on a daily time-step.

Model …

A Feasibility Study Of Microbialites As Paleomagnetic Recorders, Ji-In Jung

Theses and Dissertations

Microbialites are carbonate organosedimentary deposits formed by benthic microbial communities that trap and bind detrital sediments, and/or inorganic and biologically influenced calcification. Any ferromagnetic particles incorporated into the microbialite structure have the potential to preserve variations in Earth’s magnetic field. A paleomagnetic record in microbialites would be useful for reconstructing the geomagnetic field because it may record at a high temporal resolution based on estimated growth rates, thus preserving relatively short-period variations of the Earth’s magnetic field. In addition, microbialites can be found in the geologic record going back ~3.5 Ga, hence potentially providing information on very ancient variations in …

Development Of A Hydrodynamic And Sediment Transport Model For Green Bay, Lake Michigan, Bahram Khazaei

Theses and Dissertations

Sediment dynamics are strongly linked with biogeochemical and physical changes in estuarine systems. Understanding the links between sediment processes and ecosystem responses is necessary for the restoration of degraded systems. Located in Northern US, and one of the largest freshwater estuaries on earth, Green Bay is a distinct example of these degraded systems. Rapid development and anthropogenic activities increased nutrient loading rates into the bay and led to a major disruption of the pre-existing biogeochemical regimes in the ecosystem. Contaminated and nutrient-rich sediments were discharged to the bay by the Fox River for almost half a century. Green Bay’s seasonal-, …

Wildlife Use Of Road Mitigation Structures In Relation To Their Construction, Structural Characteristics, And Environmental Factors Along A South Texas Highway, Anna D. Rivera Roy

Theses and Dissertations

Roads are known to negatively impact wildlife by fragmenting habitat and mortality caused by wildlife-vehicle collisions. Road mitigation structures, such as wildlife crossing structures (WCS), wildlife guards (WG), and fencing are commonly used to address the issue of roads. In South Texas, such structures were built or modified along State Highway (SH) 100 in Cameron County as an effort to conserve the endangered ocelot (Leopardus pardalis). Camera traps were deployed to monitor these structures as a way to assess their effectiveness in restricting wildlife entry into the roadway with fencing and WG and conveying wildlife movement across roads …

Pesticides In Urban/Suburban Water Wells In Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, And Waukesha Counties In Wisconsin, Leslie Bychinski

Theses and Dissertations

The professional lawn care business has developed into a multibillion-dollar industry over the last few decades with a rise in home and garden market sector for urban/suburban use. Some homeowners purchase and apply the pesticides themselves while others hire professional lawn care companies. The US EPA states that “all pesticides are toxic to some degree” and the prevalent, widespread use of pesticides is both a major environmental problem and a public health issue. There have been many studies tracing agricultural pesticides application and contamination of public drinking water, and less on (sub)urban, residential pesticide application. This study targets active, private …

Detection And Enumeration Of Bacterial Pathogens In The American Oyster (Crassostrea Virginica), Mohammad Maruf Billah

Theses and Dissertations

American oyster (Crassostrea virginica) is a popular seafood for its delicacy and high nutritional value. Based on increasing concern about contamination of bacterial pathogens in raw oyster, my research objectives have been focused on detection and enumeration of two important bacterial pathogens, Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. in the American oyster in south Texas waters, local markets and controlled laboratory studies. Immunohistochemical and RT-PCR analyses showed substantial bacterial pathogen’s presence in gills and digestive glands of oysters collected from San Martin Lake and South Padre Island as well as local markets. Laboratory studies showed increasing trend of both …

Survival Of Off-Host Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) Annulatus (Acari: Ixodidae) Larvae In Study Arenas In Relation To Climatic Factors And Habitats In South Texas, Usa, Emily Jesselle Zamora

Theses and Dissertations

The cattle fever tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) annulatus (Say), is an economically destructive arthropod because of its ability to vector bovine babesiosis. Cattle fever ticks can spend more than 90% of their life cycle as questing larvae, but the effect of climatic factors on their off-host behavior and survival is unclear. The goal of this study was to measure the effects of specific ecological factors on off-host larvae in nature. The study was conducted in a south Texas pasture over a 20-mo period, during which time larval populations were surveyed and ambient weather variables - relative humidity and temperatures – were …

The Role Of Floating Gardens To Alter The Water Quality Of The Chicago River: Chicago, Il, Emmett Andrew Spooner

Theses and Dissertations

The pollution of heavy metals within surface water is a rising global concern. As heavy metals are transported through rivers, they can bioaccumulate through the food web, leading to harmful concentrations within waterways. In urban areas such as the city of Chicago, Illinois, the use of road salts is a concern as elevated concentrations of chloride (Cl–) can reduce surface water quality. Since surface waters can carry heavy metals and Cl– salts over a large distance, methods of in-situ phytoremediation are of growing importance. Through a pilot project, a floating garden system has been installed along a portion of the …