Earth Sciences Commons^™

Agua Para El Futuro: Estrategia De Seguridad Hídrica Para América Latina Y El Caribe, Fernando Bretas, Guillermo Casanova, Thomas L. Crisman, Antonio Embid, Liber Martin, Fernando Miralles

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Measuring Functional Urban Shrinkage With Multi-Source Geospatial Big Data: A Case Study Of The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Megaregion, Qiwei Ma, Zhaoya Gong, Jing Kang, Ran Tao, Anrong Dang

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Most of the shrinking cities experience an unbalanced deurbanization across different urban areas in cities. However, traditional ways of measuring urban shrinkage are focused on tracking population loss at the city level and are unable to capture the spatially heterogeneous shrinking patterns inside a city. Consequently, the spatial mechanism and patterns of urban shrinkage inside a city remain less understood, which is unhelpful for developing accommodation strategies for shrinkage. The smart city initiatives and practices have provided a rich pool of geospatial big data resources and technologies to tackle the complexity of urban systems. Given this context, we propose a …

Boosting Computational Effectiveness In Big Spatial Flow Data Analysis With Intelligent Data Reduction, Ran Tao, Zhaoya Gong, Qiwei Ma, Jean-Claude Thill

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

One of the enduring issues of spatial origin-destination (OD) flow data analysis is the computational inefficiency or even the impossibility to handle large datasets. Despite the recent advancements in high performance computing (HPC) and the ready availability of powerful computing infrastructure, we argue that the best solutions are based on a thorough understanding of the fundamental properties of the data. This paper focuses on overcoming the computational challenge through data reduction that intelligently takes advantage of the heavy-tailed distributional property of most flow datasets. We specifically propose the classification technique of head/tail breaks to this end. We test this approach …

Geoscience Videos And Animations: How To Make Them With Your Students, And How To Use Them In The Classroom, Robert J. Stern, Jeff Ryan, Ning Wang, Victor J. Ricchezza, Siloa Willis

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

We are in the midst of a “tectonic shift” in the way that undergraduate students want to learn. They will attend lectures and read assignments if they must, but they are especially interested in information that they can receive as videos on their cell phones and other mobile devices (Prensky, 2001; Thomas, 2011). The geosciences are uniquely well-suited to presentation via well-crafted, scientifically robust videos and animations. Geologic processes often take place over thousands to hundreds of millions of years and occur deep under water or within the Earth, where direct observation is not possible. Geology is synonymous with travel: …

Mapping Long-Term Spatiotemporal Dynamics Of Pen Aquaculture In A Shallow Lake: Less Aquaculture Coming Along Better Water Quality, Juhua Luo, Ruiliang Pu, Ronghua Ma, Xiaolong Wang, Xijun Lai, Zhigang Mao, Li Zhang, Zhaoliang Peng, Zhe Sun

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Pen aquaculture is the main form of aquaculture in some shallow lakes in eastern China. It is valuable to map the spatiotemporal changes of pen aquaculture in eutrophic lakes to assess its effect on water quality, thereby helping the relevant decision-making agencies to manage the water quality (WQ) of lakes. In this study, an automatic approach for extracting the pen aquaculture area was developed based on Landsat data. The approach integrates five algorithms, including grey transformation, discrete wavelet transform, fast Fourier transform, singular value decomposition and k-nearest neighbor classification. It was successfully applied in the automatic mapping of the pen …

New Insights Into The 2070calyrbp Pyroclastic Currents At El Misti Volcano (Peru) From Field Investigations, Satellite Imagery And Probabilistic Modeling, Sylvain J. Charbonnier, J.-C. Thouret, Valentin Gueugneau, Robert Constantinescu

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Pyroclastic currents (PCs) are the most challenging volcanic hazards for disaster planners in populated areas around volcanoes. “El Misti” volcano (5,825 m above sea level), located only 17 km from the city center of Arequipa (>1.1 million inhabitants), South Peru, has produced small-to-moderate volume (<1 km³) PCs with a frequency of 2,000–4,000 years over the past 50 kyr. The most recent Plinian eruption dated at 2070 cal yr BP (VEI 4) has been selected as one of the reference events for the hazard assessment and risk mitigation plan of Arequipa. Associated pumice- and lithic-rich PC deposits were emplaced …

Estimating Dispersal And Evolutionary Dynamics In Diploporan Blastozoans (Echinodermata) Across The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, Adriane R. Lam, Sarah L. Sheffield, Nicholas J. Matzke

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Echinoderms make up a substantial component of Ordovician marine invertebrates, yet their speciation and dispersal history as inferred within a rigorous phylogenetic and statistical framework is lacking. We use biogeographic stochastic mapping (BSM; implemented in the R package BioGeoBEARS) to infer ancestral area relationships and the number and type of dispersal events through the Ordovician for diploporan blastozoans and related species. The BSM analysis was divided into three time slices to analyze how dispersal paths changed before and during the great Ordovician biodiversification event (GOBE) and within the Late Ordovician mass extinction intervals. The best-fit biogeographic model incorporated jump dispersal, …

Late Holocene Droughts And Cave Ice Harvesting By Ancestral Puebloans, Bogdan P. Onac, Steven M. Baumann, Dylan S. Parmenter, Eric Weaver, Tiberiu B. Sava

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Water availability for Native Americans in the southwestern United States during periods of prolonged droughts is poorly understood as regional hydroclimate records are scant or contradicting. Here, we show that radiocarbon-dated charcoal recovered from an ice deposit accumulated in Cave 29, western New Mexico, provide unambiguous evidence for five drought events that impacted the Ancestral Puebloan society between ~ AD 150 and 950. The presence of abundant charred material in this cave indicates that they periodically obtained drinking water by using fire to melt cave ice, and sheds light on one of many human–environment interactions in the Southwest in a …

Tf1.3 Permanent Marshes, R. T. Kingsford, J. A. Catford, Mark C. Rains, B. J. Robson, D. A. Keith

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Uncovering Host-Microbiome Interactions In Global Systems With Collaborative Programming: A Novel Approach Integrating Social And Data Sciences [Version 1; Peer Review: Awaiting Peer Review], Jenna Oberstaller, Swamy Rakesh Adapa, Guy Dayhoff Ii, Justin Gibbons, Gregory S. Herbert

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Microbiome data are undergoing exponential growth powered by rapid technological advancement. As the scope and depth of microbiome research increases, cross-disciplinary research is urgently needed for interpreting and harnessing the unprecedented data output. However, conventional research settings pose challenges to much-needed interdisciplinary research efforts due to barriers in scientific terminologies, methodology and research-culture. To breach these barriers, our University of South Florida OneHealth Codeathon was designed to be an interactive, hands-on event that solves real-world data problems. The format brought together students, postdocs, faculty, researchers, and clinicians in a uniquely cross-disciplinary, team-focused setting. Teams were formed to encourage equitable distribution …

F1.2 Permanent Lowland Rivers, R. T. Kingsford, R. Mac Nally, G. S. Giller, Mark C. Rains, A. H. Arthington, D. A. Keith

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

F2.3 Seasonal Freshwater Lakes, R. T. Kingsford, R. Mac Nally, Mark C. Rains, B. J. Robson, K. Irvine, D. A. Keith

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

F1.1 Permanent Upland Streams, R. T. Kingsford, R. Mac Nally, P. S. Giller, Mark C. Rains, M. Kelly-Quinn, A. H. Arthington, D. A. Keith

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Serpentinization As A Route To Liberating Phosphorus On Habitable Worlds, Matthew Pasek, Arthur Omran, Carolyn Lang, Maheen Gull, Josh Abbatiello, Tian Feng, Lyle Garong, Heather Abbott-Lyon

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Planetary habitability is in part governed by nutrient availability, including the availability of the element phosphorus. The nutrient phosphorus plays roles in various necessary biochemical functions, and its biogeochemical cycling has been proposed to be extremely slow due to a strong coupling to the rock cycle via mineral weathering. Here we show a route to P liberation from water-rock reactions that are thought to be common throughout the Solar System. We report the speciation of phosphorus in serpentinite rocks to include the ion phosphite (HPO32- with P3+) and show that reduction of phosphate to phosphite is predicted from thermodynamic models …

Factors Affecting The 2019 Atlantic Hurricane Season And The Role Of The Indian Ocean Dipole, Kimberly M. Wood, Philip J. Klotzbach, Jennifer M. Collins, Louis-Philippe Caron, Ryan E. Truchelut, Carl J. Schreck

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The 2019 Atlantic hurricane season exhibited above‐average Accumulated Cyclone Energy—60% of which was produced by Hurricanes Dorian and Lorenzo. Most tropical cyclone (TC) activity was concentrated in a ~6‐week period from late August to early October. During the early part of the season, relatively TC‐unfavorable conditions persisted in the main development region (MDR). The MDR environment became largely favorable in September, followed by an abrupt shift back to less conducive conditions in October coincident with a strongly positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). The IOD produced an El Niño‐like teleconnection pattern observed through 200‐hPa velocity potential anomalies. In the subtropical Atlantic, …

The Prebiotic Provenance Of Semi-Aqueous Solvents, Jennifer L. Lago, Bradley T. Burcar, Nicholas V. Hud, Rio Febrian, Christopher A. Mehta, Paul J. Bracher, Zachary D. Atlas, Matthew A. Pasek

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The numerous and varied roles of phosphorylated organic molecules in biochemistry suggest they may have been important to the origin of life. The prominence of phosphorylated molecules presents a conundrum given that phosphorylation is a thermodynamically unfavorable, endergonic process in water, and most natural sources of phosphate are poorly soluble. We recently demonstrated that a semi-aqueous solvent consisting of urea, ammonium formate, and water (UAFW) supports the dissolution of phosphate and the phosphorylation of nucleosides. However, the prebiotic feasibility and robustness of the UAFW system are unclear. Here, we study the UAFW system as a medium in which phosphate minerals …

Utilizing Ecological Niche Modelling To Predict Habitat Suitability Of Eastern Equine Encephalitis In Florida, Claire Burch, Rebecca Loraamm, Thomas R. Unnasch, Joni A. Downs

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus (EEEV) is a virus found predominantly east of the Mississippi River in the United States that can be fatal to both equines and humans. The disease has previously been most prolific in states like Florida, but there has been an increase in the prevalence in other states further up north on the east coast of the United States in recent years. The purpose of this research is to use the ecological niche modelling program Maxent to model EEEV habitat suitability probability. This research utilized data of fatality incidence in equine hosts, versus sentinel chicken infection data, …

Optimizing Arbovirus Surveillance Using Risk Mapping And Coverage Modelling, Joni A. Downs, Mehrdad Vaziri, George Deskins, William Kellner, Kristi M. Miley, Thomas R. Unnasch

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Diseases carried by mosquitoes and other arthropods endanger human health globally. Though costly, surveillance efforts are vital for disease control and prevention This paper describes an approach for strategically configuring targeted disease surveillance sites across a study area. The methodology combines risk index mapping and spatial optimization modelling. The risk index is used to identify demand for surveillance, and the maximum covering location problem is used to select a specified number of candidate surveillance sites that covers the maximum amount of risk. The approach is demonstrated using a case study where optimal locations for sentinel surveillance sites are selected for …

A Hydrologic Landscapes Perspective On Groundwater Connectivity Of Depressional Wetlands, Brian P. Neff, Donald O. Rosenberry, Scott G. Leibowitz, Dave M. Mushet, Heather E. Golden, Mark C. Rains, J. R. Brooks, Charles R. Lane

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Research into processes governing the hydrologic connectivity of depressional wetlands has advanced rapidly in recent years. Nevertheless, a need persists for broadly applicable, non-site-specific guidance to facilitate further research. Here, we explicitly use the hydrologic landscapes theoretical framework to develop broadly applicable conceptual knowledge of depressional-wetland hydrologic connectivity. We used a numerical model to simulate the groundwater flow through five generic hydrologic landscapes. Next, we inserted depressional wetlands into the generic landscapes and repeated the modeling exercise. The results strongly characterize groundwater connectivity from uplands to lowlands as being predominantly indirect. Groundwater flowed from uplands and most of it was …

Tf1.4 Seasonal Floodplain Marshes, D. A. Keith, R. T. Kingsford, R. Mac Nally, B. J. Robson, C. A. Catford, Mark C. Rains, K. Irvine, K. M. Rodriguez-Clark, A. Etter

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Seafloor Geodesy In Shallow Water With Gps On An Anchored Spar Buoy, Surui Xie, Jason Law, Randy Russell, Timothy H. Dixon, Chad Lembke, Rocco Malservisi, Melanie Rodgers, Giovanni Iannaccone, Sergio Guardato, D. F. Naar

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Measuring seafloor motion in shallow coastal water is challenging due to strong and highly variable oceanographic effects. Such measurements are potentially useful for monitoring near‐shore coastal subsidence, subsidence due to petroleum withdrawal, strain accumulation/release processes in subduction zones and submerged volcanoes, and certain freshwater applications, such as volcano deformation in caldera‐hosted lakes. We have developed a seafloor geodesy system for this environment based on an anchored spar buoy topped by high‐precision GPS. Orientation of the buoy is measured using a digital compass that provides heading, pitch, and roll information. The combined orientation and GPS tracking data are used to recover …

The Record‐Setting 2018 Eastern North Pacific Hurricane Season, Kimberly M. Wood, Philip J. Klotzbach, Jennifer M. Collins, Carl J. Schreck

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The extremely active 2018 eastern North Pacific (ENP) hurricane season set records for number of hurricane days, major hurricane days, and accumulated cyclone energy (ACE). The Western Development Region (116°W–180°) was especially active, shattering its prior record for ACE set in 2015. In addition, Hawaii was impacted by Hurricane Lane in August and Tropical Storm Olivia in September. Despite above‐normal sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and below‐normal vertical wind shear in 2018, large‐scale conditions were generally less conducive for tropical cyclone (TC) formation than in 2015. However, the strong subtropical ridge in August and September of 2018 enhanced westward steering flow, …

Morphodynamics Of Barrier-Inlet Systems In The Context Of Regional Sediment Management, With Case Studies From West-Central Florida, Usa, Tanya Beck, Ping Wang

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The temporal and spatial scales controlling the morphodynamics of barrier-inlet systems are critical components of regional sediment management practice. This paper discusses regional sediment management methods employed at multiple barrier-inlet systems, with case studies from West-Central Florida. A decision-support tool is proposed for regional sediment management with discussion of its application to barrier-inlet systems. Connecting multiple barrier islands and inlets at appropriate spatio-temporal scales is critical in developing an appropriately scoped sediment management plan for a barrier-inlet system. Evaluating sediment bypassing capacity and overall inlet morphodynamics can better inform regional sand sharing along barrier-inlet coastlines; particularly where sediment resources are …

Determining The Impacts Of The Anthropocene Through Time-Calibrated Taphonomic Grading, Nicole Seiden, Gregory S. Herbert

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Global biodiversity loss threatens ecosystem integrity and related services for humans, but most communities lack baseline data to assess the magnitude of change. In marine conservation, molluscan death assemblages are increasingly being used as a proxy for baseline communities, and divergence between the live and the dead is assumed to reflect human impact. A drawback to partitioning an assemblage into live and dead is that inclusion of recently dead specimens in the baseline assemblage artificially reduces differences between before and after. In this study, we address this problem by using a radiocarbon- and amino acid-calibrated taphonomic grading scale to partition …

Landscape Grain Effect In Yancheng Coastal Wetland And Its Response To Landscape Changes, Peng Tian, Luodan Cao, Jialin Li, Ruiliang Pu, Xiaoli Shi, Lijia Wang, Ruiqing Liu, Hao Xu, Chen Tong, Zijing Zhou, Shuyao Shao

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The landscape grain effect reflects the spatial heterogeneity of a landscape and it is used as a research core of landscape ecology. The landscape grain effect can be used to not only explore spatiotemporal variation characteristics of a landscape pattern, but also to disclose variation laws of ecological structures and functions of landscapes. In this study, the sensitivity of landscape pattern indexes to grain sizes 50–1000 m was studied based on landscape data in Yancheng Coastal Wetland acquired in 1991, 2000, 2008, and 2017. Response of the grain effect to landscape changes was analyzed and an optimal grain size for …

The Multifactorial Nature Of Beak And Skull Shape Evolution In Parrots And Cockatoos (Psittaciformes), Jen A. Bright, Jesús Marugán-Lobón, Emily J. Rayfield, Samuel N. Cobb

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Background: The Psittaciformes (parrots and cockatoos) are characterised by their large beaks, and are renowned for their ability to produce high bite forces. These birds also possess a suite of modifications to their cranial architecture interpreted to be adaptations for feeding on mechanically resistant foods, yet the relationship between cranial morphology and diet has never been explicitly tested. Here, we provide a three-dimensional geometric morphometric analysis of the developmental and biomechanical factors that may be influencing the evolution of psittaciformes’ distinctive cranial morphologies.

Results: Contrary to our own predictions, we find that dietary preferences for more- or less- mechanically resistant …

Population Fragmentation Leads To Morpho-Functional Variation In British Red Squirrels (Sciurus Vulgaris), Philip G. Cox, Philip J.R. Morris, Andrew C. Kitchener

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

It is well-known that population fragmentation and isolation can lead to rapid morphological and functional divergence, with the effect being particularly well-documented in rodents. Here, we investigated whether such a phenomenon could be identified in the Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris), which was once widespread across the majority of Great Britain, but suffered a severe population decline across the 20^th century, leaving a highly fragmented distribution. The aim was to test for morphological and biomechanical variation of the mandible between the remaining British red squirrel populations. Linear and geometric morphometric methods were used to analyse shape in …

Mechanical Significance Of Morphological Variation In Diprotodont Incisors, Philip J.R. Morris, Philip G. Cox, Samuel N. Cobb

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

All rodents possess a single pair of enlarged incisors that grow throughout life. This condition (diprotodonty) is characteristic of Rodentia, but is also found in other mammals such as lagomorphs, hyraxes, the aye-aye and common wombat. This study surveyed lower incisor morphology across extant diprotodonts to examine shape variation within and between rodents and other diprotodonts, and to determine if tooth shape varies in a manner predictable from mechanics. Six linear and area variables were recorded from microCT scans of the mandibles of 33 diprotodont mammals. The curvature of the rodent lower incisors, as measured by the proportion of a …

Ice-Cliff Failure Via Retrogressive Slumping, Byron R. Parizek, Knut Christianson, Richard B. Alley, Denis Voytenko, Irena Vaňková, Timothy H. Dixon, Ryan T. Walker, David M. Holland

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Retrogressive slumping could accelerate sea-level rise if ice-sheet retreat generates ice cliffs much taller than observed today. The tallest ice cliffs, which extend roughly 100 m above sea level, calve only after ice-flow processes thin the ice to near flotation. Above some ice-cliff height limit, the stress state in ice will satisfy the material-failure criterion, resulting in faster brittle failure. New terrestrial radar data from Helheim Glacier, Greenland, suggest that taller subaerial cliffs are prone to failure by slumping, unloading submarine ice to allow buoyancy-driven full-thickness calving. Full-Stokes diagnostic modeling shows that the threshold cliff height for slumping is likely …

Time Scavengers: An Educational Website To Communicate Climate Change And Evolutionary Theory To The Public Through Blogs, Web Pages, And Social Media Platforms, Adriane R. Lam, Jennifer E. Bauer, Susanna Fraass, Sarah L. Sheffield, Maggie R. Limbeck, Rose M. Borden, Megan E. Thompson-Munson, Andrew J. Fraass, J. M. Hills, Cameron E. Muskelly, Kyle R. Hartshorn, Raquel Bryant

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Climate change and evolution are topics at the forefront of political discussions, debates, and the public sphere. Regardless of evidence on both topics, the public as a whole still believes they are under debate. It is imperative that the public have access to correct and easy-to-digest information on these topics to make informed environmental and ecological decisions. To date, scientifically accurate digital platforms aimed at informing the public on these topics are overly complex and jargon-ridden. Time Scavengers (www.timescavengers.blog) was created to address these issues and is maintained by a group of academics, graduate students, avocational scientists, and educators. The …