Earth Sciences Commons^™

Modern Variation In Predation Intensity: Constraints On Assessing Predator-Prey Relationships In Paleoecologic Reconstructions, James Funderburk

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The complex interaction between predators and their prey is rarely preserved in the fossil record. However, predation of marine mollusks by drilling gastropods leaves a diagnostic hole in the shell of the prey, possibly allowing for quantitative analysis of this ecological interaction. Drilling frequency, as measured in marine mollusks both in the Modern and fossil record, has been heralded as a potential opportunity to quantify these ecological interactions and use these values in the testing of hypotheses.

This study employed the collection, tallying, and analysis of bulk samples derived from shelly deposits on 45 Modern beaches along the contiguous coast …

Carbon Isotope Compositions Of Terrestrial C3 Plants As Indicators Of (Paleo)Ecology And (Paleo)Climate, Matthew J. Kohn

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

A broad compilation of modern carbon isotope compositions in all C3 plant types shows a monotonic increase in δ¹³C with decreasing mean annual precipitation (MAP) that differs from previous models. Corrections for temperature, altitude, or latitude are smaller than previously estimated. As corrected for altitude, latitude, and the δ¹³C of atmospheric CO₂, these data permit refined interpretation of MAP, paleodiet, and paleoecology of ecosystems dominated by C3 plants, either prior to 7–8 million years ago (Ma), or more recently at mid- to high latitudes. Twenty-nine published paleontological studies suggest preservational or scientific bias toward …

Subsurface Images Shed Light On Past Tsunamis In India, Rajesh R. Nair, Ilya Buynevich, Ronald J. Goble, P. Srinivasan, S. G. N. Murthy, S. C. Kandpal, C. S. Vijaya Lakshmi, D. Trivedi

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caused massive devastation and left a lasting impact along many of the major coastal regions in South Asia, including the coast of Tamil Nadu, a state in the southeastern tip of India. Following the event, sand deposits draped the low-lying areas and buried the muddy sediments of the coastal plain [Babu et al., 2007; Srinivasalu et al., 2007]. In addition, erosional features related to the tsunami, such as channels and scarps, have been observed along many parts of the coast (Figure 1a). This tsunami, along with a recorded history of intense monsoons, …

Exhumation Mechanisms Of The Greater Himalayan Sequence, Garhwal Region, India, Christopher James Spencer

Theses and Dissertations

Geothermobarometric, micro- and macro-structural data indicate that peak metamorphic pressure and temperature of the Greater Himalayan Sequence (GHS) of the Garhwal Region of India increase dramatically across the Main Central Thrust (MCT). Metamorphic pressure and temperature increase from ~5 kbar and ~550 ºC in the Lesser Himalayan Crystalline Sequence (LHCS) in the footwall to ~14 kbar and ~850 ºC at ~3 km above the MCT in the hanging wall (GHS). Pressures decrease slightly upsection to ~8 kbar and temperatures remain nearly constant at ~850 ºC to the structurally overlying South Tibetan Detachment (STD). The LHCS exhibits a high temperature-depth gradient …

Algorithms For Remote Estimation Of Chlorophyll-[Alpha] In Coastal And Inland Waters Using Red And Near Infrared Bands, Alexander A. Gilerson, Anatoly Gitelson, Jing Zhou, Daniela Gurlin, Wesley Moses, Ioannis Ioannou, Samir A. Ahmed

Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies: Publications

Remote sensing algorithms that use red and NIR bands for the estimation of chlorophyll-a concentration [Chl] can be more effective in inland and coastal waters than algorithms that use blue and green bands. We tested such two-band and three-band red-NIR algorithms using comprehensive synthetic data sets of reflectance spectra and inherent optical properties related to various water parameters and a very consistent in situ data set from several lakes in Nebraska, USA. The two-band algorithms tested with MERIS bands were R_rs(708)/R_rs(665) and R_rs(753)/R_rs(665). The three-band algorithm with MERIS bands was in the …

Creation Of A Revised Site Specific Liquefaction Potential Map Utilizing Geographic Information Systems (Gis) Technology And Arcgis® Software, Michael S. Armstrong

Earth and Soil Sciences

No abstract provided.

Geosciences Newsletter - 2010, Department Of Geosciences

Geological and Environmental Sciences News

Vol. 4, No. 1

• Faculty Updates
• Publications
• MGRRE
• Grants
• Graduate News
• Awards
• Field Trips
• Alumni
• Advisory Board

Rare Earth And High Field Strength Element Partitioning Between Iron-Rich Clinopyroxenes And Felsic Liquids, Paul H. Olin, John A. Wolff

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Rare earth elements are commonly assumed to substitute only for Ca in clinopyroxene because of the similarity of ionic radii for REE³⁺ and Ca²⁺ in 8-fold coordination. The assumption is valid for Mg-rich clinopyroxenes for which observed mineral/melt partition coefficients are readily predicted by the lattice strain model for substitution onto a single site (e.g. Wood and Blundy, 1997). We show that natural Fe-rich pyroxenes in both silica-undersaturated and -oversaturated magmatic systems deviate from this behavior. Salites (Mg# 48 to 59) in phonolites from Tenerife, ferrohedenbergites (Mg# 14.2 to 16.2) from the rhyolitic Bandelier Tuff, and ferroaugites (Mg# …

Book Review: Stars Above, Earth Below: A Guide To Astronomy In The National Parks, T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of Stars Above, Earth Below : a Guide to Astronomy in the National Parks by Tyler Nordgren. Springer/Praxis, 2010 444p, 9781441916488 $29.95.

Loring-Greenough House, North Yard Archaeogeophysics, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, John M. Steinberg, Christa M. Beranek, John Schoenfelder, Kathryn A. Catlin

Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Publications

An archaeogeophysical survey was carried out in May 2010 using Geonics EM-38 RT and a Malå Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) system with a 500 MHz antenna over an 28x26 m grid immediately northeast of the Loring-Greenough house in Jamaica Plain, MA. Three major anomalies were identified. These anomalies have not been ground truthed, but they appear to be archaeological features. First, we suggest that there is builders trench just north of the house. Second, we suggest that there could be three east-west garden paths or other landscape features about 30 cm below the surface crossing the entire length of the …

A New Carnosaur (Dinosauria: Theropoda) From The Upper Morrison Formation (Late Jurassic, Tithonian) Of Colorado, Sebastian Dalman

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

A disarticulated skeleton of a theropod from the Late Jurassic (Tithonian) strata of McElmo Canyon in Montezuma County, Colorado was discovered in 1953 by the late J. T. Gregory and D. Techter. For nearly 55 years the specimen remained unnoticed in the collection of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Connecticut. Several cranial and postcranial elements are relatively well preserved and include the premaxilla, maxilla, dentary, teeth, quadratojugal, braincase, metacarpals, partial pubis and ischium, astragalus, partial tibia and fibula, metatarsals, pedal phalanges, and several partially preserved ribs. The specimen represents a new genus and species of …

Spatial Similarities And Differences Of Attributes Of Three Subwatersheds Within The Middle Smoky Hill River Watershed And Their Relationship To Instream Total Suspended Solids, Dustin Fross

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

The objective of this study was to spatially analyze the attributes of three subwatersheds, Hydrological Unit Code 12 (HUC 12), of the Middle Smoky Hill River Watershed in west-central Kansas and relate the variances of the attributes to the concentrations of total suspended solids (TSS) entering the Smoky Hill River during storm events. This was accomplished by comparing land cover, including cropland, grassland, and urban factors; agricultural practices, such as tillage methods, condition of terraces, and the presence of grass waterways; geomorphology, including soil types, topography, and visible erosion; and lastly, precipitation variance. The three HUC 12s that were studied …

Heavy Metal Concentrations In Water And Surface Sediments Of Wilgreen Lake, Madison County, Kentucky, Chad Von Gruenigen, Walter S. Borowski

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Heavy metal pollution remains a problem in natural waters, particularly for localities near plausible anthropogenic sources. We assayed the level of heavy metals in surface waters and within surface sediments of Wilgreen Lake, whose watershed drains industrial, urban, and residential areas near Richmond, Kentucky.

Water samples were treated according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protocols and digested with trace-metal-grade nitric and hydrochloric acids. Sediment samples were collected with a grab sampler and digested using established EPA procedures with hydrogen peroxide and trace-metal-grade nitric acid. Both water samples and sediment samples were sent to Activation Laboratories for analysis, and were measured …

Patterns Of Heavy Metal Concentration In Core Sediments, Wilgreen Lake, Madison County, Kentucky, Clint Mcmaine, Walter S. Borowski

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Elevated levels of cadmium, copper, lead, and nickel were found within the waters of Wilgreen Lake during a preliminary survey in 2007. Accumulation of heavy metals in freshwater systems is a known problem. Heavy metals enter the lake in the dissolved phase or adsorbed onto sediment particles and may be linked to industries within the lake’s watershed. Under certain geochemical conditions such as anoxia, heavy metals may detach from sediment particles and diffuse into overlying lake waters, causing a renewed influx of heavy metals into the ecosystem. We hypothesize that heavy metals should decrease in concentration upcore as a result …

Applied Technologies And Prospects Of Conformance Control Treatments In China, Yuzhang Liu, Baojun Bai, Yefei Wang

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

China is the largest user of chemical-based conformance control treatments and a series of technologies have been successfully developed and deployed in recent years. This paper first shows the milestones of development and application of conformance control technologies in China. Then integrated conformance control technologies are reviewed followed by the lessons we have learned, and then a few major specific conformance control technologies are addressed, including tracer injection and channels explanation, potentiometric testing to identify areal sweep efficiency, Pressure Index (PI) decisionmaking technology to select well candidate, complementary decision-making technology to select well candidate and design application parameters, and major …

Upper Cretaceous Peay Bentonites (North-Central Wyoming): Provenance And Tectonics Interpretation From Ash Composition, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Carl F. Vondra, Karl E. Seifert, Malek Shami, Rochelle Cardinale, Thakur Chaturgan

Publications and Research

The Peay bentonites belong to the basal Frontier Formation (Bighorn Basin, north-central Wyoming), primarily outcrop in the Bighorn Basin, rest on an extensively bioturbated sandstone unit, the Peay Sandstone, and are generally the thinner bentonitic unit. Beds of very light gray to greenish gray bentonite are also abundant in the lower Frontier units between Kaycee and Mayoworth (Powder River Basin) and are very rarely as much as 3 m thick. Bentonite occurs within the interstratified shale, sandstone, and siltstone sequences of the lower Frontier unit throughout much of the southwestern Powder River Basin. The purpose of this study is to …

Changing Precipitation And Land Cover Increasing Sedimentation In The Panama Canal Watershed, Tiffany Keeton, Cory Manberg, Josh Myrick

Von Braun Symposium Student Posters

No abstract provided.

Bedrock Erosion By Root Fracture And Tree Throw: A Coupled Biogeomorphic Model To Explore The Humped Soil Production Function And The Persistence Of Hillslope Soils, Emmanuel Gabet, Simon Mudd

Faculty Publications

In 1877, G. K. Gilbert reasoned that bedrock erosion is maximized under an intermediate soil thickness and declines as soils become thinner or thicker. Subsequent analyses of this “humped” functional relationship proposed that thin soils are unstable and that perturbations in soil thickness would lead to runaway thinning or thickening of the soil. To explore this issue, we developed a numerical model that simulates the physical weathering of bedrock by root fracture and tree throw. The coupled biogeomorphic model combines data on conifer population dynamics, rootwad volumes, tree throw frequency, and soil creep from the Pacific Northwest (USA). Although not …

Simulation Of Groundwater Flow And Effects Of Groundwater Irrigation On Stream Base Flow In The Elkhorn And Loup River Basins, Nebraska, 1895-2055: Phase Two, Jennifer S. Stanton, Steven M. Peterson, Michael N. Fienen

United States Geological Survey: Water Reports and Publications

Regional groundwater-flow simulations for a 30,000-square-mile area of the High Plains aquifer, referred to collectively as the Elkhorn-Loup Model, were developed to predict the effects of groundwater irrigation on stream base flow in the Elkhorn and Loup River Basins, Nebraska. Simulations described the stream-aquifer system from predevelopment through 2005 [including predevelopment (pre-1895), early development (1895–1940), and historical development (1940 through 2005) conditions] and future hypothetical development conditions (2006 through 2033 or 2055). Predicted changes to stream base flow that resulted from simulated changes to groundwater irrigation will aid development of long-term strategies for management of hydrologically connected water supplies.

The …

Molecular Mechanisms Of Persistence Of Mutualistic Bacteria Photorhabdus In The Entomopathogenic Nematode Host, Ruisheng An, Parwinder Grewal

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Symbioses between microbes and animals are ubiquitous, yet little is known about the intricate mechanisms maintaining such associations. In an emerging mutualistic model system, insect-pathogenic bacteria Photorhabdus and their insect-parasitic nematode partner Heterorhabditis, we found that the bacteria undergo major transcriptional reshaping in the nematode intestine. Besides general starvation mechanisms, the bacteria induce cellular acidification to slow down growth, switch to pentose phosphate pathway to overcome oxidative stress and nutrition limitation, and shed motility but develop biofilm to persist in the nematode intestine until being released into the insect hemolymph. These findings demonstrate how the symbiotic bacteria reduce their …

Geogram 2010, David J. Keeling Editor, Wku Department Of Geography And Geology

Earth, Environmental, and Atmospheric Sciences Publications

No abstract provided.

Droughtscape, Fall 2010, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

CDC Issues Drought Guidance for Public Health

La Niña May Intensify Drought in South

Recent Workshops and Meetings

East Feels Impacts as Heat Intensifies Drought

New Products

Nicole Wall Co-Facilitates Republican River Basin Task Force

NDMC Climatologist on Ethiopia Team

Hrc Enews — 2010 Fall, Megan K. Svarz

Publications (HRC)

This issue contains staff accomplishments and announcements, event listings, and a "new faces" listing for new staff, affiliates, and researchers.

A Tremor And Slip Event On The Cocos‐Caribbean Subduction Zone As Measured By A Global Positioning System (Gps) And Seismic Network On The Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, Kimberly Outerbridge, Timothy H. Dixon, Susan Y. Schwartz, Jacob I. Walter, Marino Protti, Victor Gonzalez, J. Biggs, Martin Thorwart, Wolfgang Rabbel

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

In May 2007 a network of global positioning systems (GPS) and seismic stations on the Nicoya Peninsula, of northern Costa Rica, recorded a slow-slip event accompanied by seismic tremor. The close proximity of the Nicoya Peninsula to the seismogenic part of the Cocos-Caribbean subduction plate boundary makes it a good location to study such events. Several centimeters of southwest motion were recorded by the GPS stations over a period of several days to several weeks, and the seismic stations recorded three distinct episodes of tremor during the same time span. Inversion of the surface displacement data for the depth and …

Water Use In Carbon Capture And Storage Activities, University Of North Dakota. Energy And Environmental Research Center

EERC Brochures and Fact Sheets

Northern Great Plains Water Consortium fact sheet on water use in carbon capture and storage activities, including carbon dioxide injection and transportation and power plant-based carbon dioxide capture. [This item is an outdated or superseded version and retained for historical purposes only. It may no longer reflect current information, policies, or practices.]

Earth News, V34, Fall 2010, Department Of Earth Science, University Of Northern Iowa.

Earth News

Inside this issue:

--- Faculty & Staff News
--- Sunday at the Quarry
--- Studies in Air Quality for Science Educators
--- Geology for Iowa Teachers
--- IMSEP Workshop
--- Grant Activities in Hydrologic Sciences
--- IGEIN / GSI Field Trip
--- EDMAP
--- Student Research Presentations
--- Internships / Seminars
--- Graduates / SGE
--- Scholarships & Awards
--- Making a Difference / NAGT Award
--- UNI Alum: Brian Hynek
--- UNI Alum: Mary Lestina
--- Gifts
--- Alumni News

Comparison Of Ice Core Dissolved Organic Matter From A Greenland Ice Core By Nanospray Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry, Joshua Jeremiah Shiloh Marsh

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

Recent studies of ice cores have embarked on the task of determining the classes of dissolved organic matter (DOM) present in melt-water from the cores collected in numerous locations in the northern and southern hemispheres. This DOM originally derives from wet precipitation and is thought to reflect atmospheric organic matter derived from anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic sources. Because the amount of DOM is so low, previous studies have necessarily used large sample volumes (greater than 500 mL) to concentrate sufficient ice core DOM necessary for mass spectral analysis. Solid phase extraction (SPE) with C₁₈ resins was followed by evaporative concentration …

Geospatial Data Portals: Librarians Add Expertise In The Development Of Gis Metadata Catalogs, Adonna Fleming

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Searching a geospatial data catalog can be frustrating for many GIS data users. Geospatial data catalogs are built on records created to a specific metadata standard, such as ISO 19115. The search query is often limited to searching a few tags within the record, such as title, publisher, spatial extent, content theme, and content type. GIS personnel tend to create metadata records with little thought into how it will be discovered by others. On the other hand, library catalogs are developed for a broad spectrum of users with varying knowledge of the subject. Librarians can bring this expertise in creating …

The Waterfalls Of Kauai, Hawaii, Darryll T. Pederson

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Everyone enjoys the sounds and sights of a tropical waterfall. They are the setting for romantic and action packed movies. Fantasy Island used Wailua Falls on Kauai to open their weekly TV series. From a different viewpoint waterfall origin and evolution has been attributed to a wide range of geologic processes. The Hawaiian Island's waterfalls and amphitheater-headed valleys have been cited by many as equivalent to similar features seen on Mars. After a number of years of studying these features on Kauai, I offer the following thoughts and observations about Kauai's waterfalls and amphitheater-headed valleys.

Continental Warming Preceding The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, Ross Secord, Philip D. Gingerich, Kyger C. Lohmann, Kenneth G. Macleod

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Marine and continental records show an abrupt negative shift in carbon isotope values at ~55.8 Myr ago. This carbon isotope excursion (CIE) is consistent with the release of a massive amount of isotopically light carbon into the atmosphere and was associated with a dramatic rise in global temperatures termed the Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM). Greenhouse gases released during the CIE, probably including methane, have often been considered the main cause of PETM warming. However, some evidence from the marine record suggests that warming directly preceded the CIE, raising the possibility that the CIE and PETM may have been linked to …