Earth Sciences Commons^™

Proximity Of Cancer Cases To Airports Within The State Of Texas, Sala Nanyanzi Senkayi

Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations - Archive

Determining whether the incidence of cancer may be associated with pollutants emitted from airports is important in order to better plan cities to reduce such incidences. This research aims to answer the following questions: 1) Is there a trend between the incidence of various kinds of cancer and proximity to air emission sources, including airports, in Texas? and 2) Specifically, is there a relationship between childhood leukemia and airport benzene emissions? Texas has two airports ranked among the top 10 U.S. airports in terms of enplanements for Jan.-March 2010: Houston ranked 7th, while Dallas was 3rd . State-wide cancer incidence …

The Impact Of Sprawl On Transportation Energy Copnsumption And Transportation Carbon Footprint In Large U.S. Cities, Leila Ahmadi

Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations - Archive

Today, climate change and energy shortage are major concerns among scientists, politicians, and economists. For decades in the U.S., emphasis has been placed on improving energy efficiency through technological advances. However, most of these technologies are in the initial phases of development, while energy consumption continues to increase at a rapid pace. In order to solve this dilemma, there is a need to develop a faster and more effective approach for controlling the rates of energy consumption and demand. Transportation consumes more energy than other energy-dependent activities, such as those in the industrial, residential, and commercial sectors of the economy. …

Biomarkers: Review And Application To The Eagle Ford Shale Formation, Ugochukwu Ononogbu

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

Biomarkers have become an integral part of oil exploration. Gas Chromatography (-Mass Spectrometry) was performed to an oil sample to acquire biomarkers from the sample.The presence, lack of, or abundance of a given compound (or biomarker) in the geochemicalresults of an oil sample depict(s) a property or properties of the source rock and the oil. Forexample, the abundance of pristane and lack of phytane in an oil sample are characteristic ofshale source rock, and the results from the Eagle Ford shale formation show a high pristane tophytane ratio.The Eagle Ford shale formation is cretaceous in age; the presence and absence …

A Late Holocene Meander-Braid Transition Of The Lower Missouri River Valley, Michele Viola Kashouh

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

Historically, the Lower Missouri River is known for being a temperate river that constantly and quickly reworks its floodplain with a braided network of channels; however, the river only recently became braided. Ox-bow lakes and landscape features resembling highly sinuous meandering loops mark the floodplain of the lower Missouri River Valley as scars of what was once a fully meandering Missouri River. The unanswered question then is, when did the lower Missouri River system change from meandering to braided? To answer this question we compared a series of newly created allostratigraphic maps of the lower Missouri River valley floor to …

Microfaunal Assemblages Of The Placid Shale (Missourian, Upper Pennsylvanian), Brazos River Valley, North-Central Texas, Brittany E. Meagher

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

The Pennsylvanian and lowermost part of the Permian strata in North-Central Texas is assigned to the Strawn, Canyon, and Cisco Groups. The Canyon Group is approximately equivalent to the middle-upper part of the Missourian (Upper Pennsylvanian) and crops out in the Brazos River valley in a generally northeast-southwest strip across Palo Pinto and Jack counties. The Canyon Group is subdivided into seven formations that contain several cycles of well-known clastic and carbonate units. The Placid Shale, one of the clastic units within the Canyon Group, consists of two cycles of gray, brown, olive sandstone/siltstone/mudstone with few thin limestone beds. It …

High Resolution Geochemistry Of The Cretaceous Eagle Ford Shale, Bee County, Texas, Lisa Michelle Moran

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

The Eagle Ford Formation of Bee County, Texas is a sporadically laminated carbonaceous dark mudrock. The depositional area of the Eagle Ford Formation stretches across the state of Texas in a northeast-southwest trend. Early studies of the Eagle Ford found the deposits to be rich in organic material but could not fully describe the formation due to the lack of outcrop exposure. Recent studies of the Eagle Ford Formation have begun to explore the sub-surface nature of the formation. Geochemical analyses of the J.A. Leppard #1 core from the southwestern portion of the formation was conducted to further constrain the …

Growth Rates Of The Harmful Alga Prymnesium Parvum: An Attempt To Identify The Salinity Threshold For Algal Blooms, James William Cody Black

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

Harmful algal blooms due to Prymnesium parvum have occurred in Texas for nearly three decades in waters of moderate salinity. More recently, blooms have occurred in locations such as West Virginia, in waters of very low salinity where pollution discharges are suspected to have increased salinity to levels that support growth of P. parvum. These observations raise the question, what is the lowest salinity at which this species of algae can cause toxic fish kills? Previous research based on field observations has suggested a salinity threshold of about 1.5 PSU for occurrence of blooms in Texas reservoirs in winter. Other …

Chemostratigraphy, Paleoceanography, And Sequence Stratigraphy Of The Pennsylvanian-Permian Section In The Midland Basin Of West Texas With Focus On The Wolfcamp Formation, Milton Cortez

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

The late Pennsylvanian to early Permian rocks (Wolfcampian and Leonardian) of the Midland Basin represent a single lithologic unit composed primarily of calcareous mudrocks, siliceous mudrocks, muddy carbonate-clast conglomerates, and skeletal packstones/grainstones at the approximate depositional center located in Reagan County, Texas. Pure versions of these lithologic end-members are discretely distributed among a multitude of transitional lithofacies. The Midland Basin evolved in the foreland of the Ouachita Fold-belt from Mississippian to early Permian time along-side several sub-basins of the Permian Basin. These basins were formed by disseverance and uplift associated with the continental collision of Laurasia and Gondwana to form …

Chemostratigraphy And Paleoenvironmental Significance Of The Pennsylvanian Smithwick Formation, Northern Llano Uplift Region, Texas, Rene Bernabe Ovalle-Rauch

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

The Early Pennsylvanian (Bashkirian-Moscovian) Smithwick Formation of Central Texas has been previously described as a marine transgressive, fairly homogeneous and fine-grained dark shale sequence with varying local depositional lithofacies. The deposition of the Smithwick shale through the southern margin of the Fort Worth Basin (FWB) has shown large variability in thickness and deposition style. Lithological heterogeneity of the bounding units throughout the basin is inferred to be the result of a combination of depositional, tectonic and eustatic variations. Regional structural instability from Late Mississippian to Early Pennsylvanian is linked to the reactivation of the Ouachita geosyncline and thrust front, causing …

An Atlas Of Cenozoic Climate Zones, Clinton Whitaker Crowley

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

This atlas illustrates global climatic zones in five major turning points of Cenozoic climate history: the K/T, the Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), the Eocene/Oligocene Transition (EOT), the Late Miocene (Messinian), and the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The mapswere produced from a combination of climate simulations (FOAM, CCSM, ECHAM, BESTGUESS, GENESIS and others) and climatic zone reconstructions based on lithologic data. Paleogeographic base maps of the time intervals from the PALEOMAP Project were then illustrated with an artist's rendition of the Earth's appearance. The color scheme was based onNASA's Blue Marble images. An overview of the conditions that shaped global climate …

Exploring The Role Of Organic Matter Accumulation On Delta Evolution, Jorge Lorenzo Trueba, Vaughan Voller, Chris Paola, Robert Twilley, Azure Bevington

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We explore the role of plant matter accumulation in the sediment column in determining the response of fluvial-deltas to base-level rise and simple subsidence profiles. Making the assumption that delta building processes operate to preserve the geometry of the delta plain, we model organic sedimentation in terms of the plant matter accumulation and accommodation (space made for sediment deposition) rates. A spatial integration of the organic sedimentation, added to the known river sediment input, leads to a model of delta evolution that estimates the fraction of organic sediments preserved in the delta. The model predicts that the maximum organic fraction …

Gordon Natural Area, West Chester University, 1937 Aerial Photograph, West Chester University Of Pennsylvania

Gordon Natural Area Soils Studies Documents

No abstract provided.

Gordon Natural Area, West Chester University, 1 Meter Contour Map, West Chester University Of Pennsylvania

Gordon Natural Area Soils Studies Documents

No abstract provided.

Bacterial Diversity In Biological Soil Crusts From Extrazonal Mountain Dry Steppes In Northern Mongolia, Anne Kemmling, Birgit Pfeiffer, Rolf Daniel, Michael Hoppert

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Biological Soil Crusts (BSCs), consisting of prokaryotes, microalgae, lichens, mosses and eventually small vascular plants, cover wide areas in arid and semi-arid environments. In the present study, the microbial diversity of these crusts was explored at extrazonal mountain steppe sites in the western Khentej (Northern Mongolia). At the study site the Siberian taiga borders on the Mongolian-Daurian forest steppe, resulting in a unique intermixture of the dark taiga, the light taiga, and forest steppe (DULAMSUREN 2004). Due to the presence of boreal, temperate and dauric elements the forest steppe is eminently rich in species (MÜHLENBERG et al. 2004).

BSCs in …

Tillage And Subsoiling Effects On Soil Compaction And Yield Of Burley Tobacco, Edwin L. Ritchey, Robert C. Pearce, John H. Grove

Plant and Soil Sciences Research Report

Historically, tobacco producers have relied heavily on surface tillage to prepare fields for transplanting. This typically involved moldboard plowing, followed by several secondary tillage operations, such as discing then leveling with a soil finisher. Transplanter developments and modifications in the late 1990’s, coupled with new chemicals for weed control, made no-till (NT) tobacco a viable option for tobacco producers in Kentucky (KY).

Co-Grazing Beef Cattle And Goats In Kentucky, David C. Ditsch, Patty Scharko

Plant and Soil Sciences Research Report

A two season grazing study of mixed (goats and beef cattle) species was conducted in 2006 and 2008 at Sebastian Farms in Breathitt County KY. The objective of this study was to determine if the order of mixed species grazing affected beef cattle and goat weight gain and goat exposure to the barber pole worm (Haemonchus contortus) in a rotational grazing system. In this study, two co-grazing management strategies were tested. In treatment 1, goats and cattle were rotationally grazed together. In treatment 2, goats rotated through pastures as first grazers followed by cattle. Each co-grazing treatment was …

Numerical Simulation Of The Base-Level Buffers And Buttresses Conceptual Model Of Fluvial Systems, Ronnie Tooyak Tingook

Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations - Archive

A Buffer in fluvial stratigraphy is a potentiometric surface which defines either: a) the lowest possible depth to which streams will incise; or b) the maximum elevation to which aggradation will occur; together, these surfaces define a buffer zone. The buffer zone is tied down profile to a Buttress which defines base level for the system. A buttress shift, i.e., change in sea-level or shoreline-trajectory sensu (Catuneanu et al., 2009), will effect a change as to where the buffer zone exists for a fluvial system at a particular point in time. These terms were all introduced in (Holbrook et al., …

On-Road Measurement Of Nox And Co₂ Emissions From Biodiesel Produced From Different Feedstocks, Natchanok Pala-En

Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations - Archive

Biodiesel has generated increased interest in the US and elsewhere recently as an alternative to petroleum-derived diesel. Because it can be produced from domestic feedstocks such as soybeans, canola oil, and even recycled cooking oil, biodiesel can help reduce dependence on foreign petroleum. Due to its high oxygen content, biodiesel typically burns more completely than petroleum diesel, and thus has lower emissions of hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulate matter (PM). However, biodiesel may increase or decrease nitrogen oxide (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, depending on engine type, test cycle, and biodiesel feedstock. Therefore, the purpose of this …

Predicting The Ancient Occurrence Of Coal Deposits Using Paleoclimate Modelling, Mandi Beck

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

Coals are accumulated and consolidated remains of plant material, which means that in order to form coals, a certain amount of annual precipitation is required. This study uses paleo-precipitation data obtained from Fast Ocean Atmosphere Model (FOAM) and predicts where paleo-coal deposits might occur. All predicted coal localities were plotted on paleogeographic reconstructions (obtained from the PALEOMAP Project) for thirteen time intervals from the Early Carboniferous to present. Once these predicted coal deposits were plotted, observed coals from the Boucot et al., 2012 database were then plotted on the same reconstructed basemaps. The predicted coal deposits were then compared with …

Chemostratigraphy And Geochemical Constraints On The Deposition Of The Bakken Formation, Williston Basin, Eastern Montana And Western North Dakota, David Nyrup Maldonado

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

The late Devonian-early Mississippian Bakken Formation was deposited in a structural-sedimentary intracratonic basin that extends across a large part of modern day North Dakota, eastern Montana, and the southern portion of Canada's Saskatchewan Province. The deposition of the Bakken Formation occurred during a fascinating period of geologic time that is linked to one of the five major mass extinctions. The occurrences of these mass extinctions are recorded worldwide as organic rich mud rocks similar to the ones found in the Bakken Formation. Collectively, the Bakken Formation consists of a middle dolomitic siltstone that is representative of a transgressive deposit and …

Heavy Metal Contamination Of Road Dust In Lanzhou, China, Michael Hiett

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

Road dusts were collected from the streets of the city of Lanzhou, the capital and largest city of Gansu Province in Northwest China. The potential health hazard posed by contaminated road dusts may be considerable for certain sensitive populations. Specifically young children who, while exploring their environment by mouthing and touching, may inadvertently ingest polluted soils and dusts through hand-to-mouth-activity, and through mouthing contaminated objects. Lanzhou, once ranked as one of the 10 most polluted cities in the world, clearly has, in all likelihood many locales with elevated levels of pollutants in various environmental media (e.g., air, water, soil and …

Where Is The Rain-On-Snow Zone In The West-Central Washington Cascades?: Monte Carlo Simulation Of Large Storms In The Northwest, Matthew John Brunengo

Dissertations and Theses

Rain-on-snow (ROS) occurs when warm, wet air moves into latitudes and/or elevations having vulnerable snowpacks, where it can alter water inputs to infiltration, runoff and erosion. The Pacific Northwest is particularly susceptible: winter storms off the Pacific cause locally heavy rain plus snowmelt almost annually, and disastrous flooding and landsliding intermittently. In maritime mountainous terrain, the effects seem more likely and hydrologically important where warm rains and seasonal snowpacks are liable to coincide, in middle elevations. Several questions arise: (1) In the PNW, does ROS affect the long-term frequency and magnitude of water delivery to the ground, versus total precipitation …

Evolution With Depth From Detrital To Authigenic Smectites In Sediments From And-2a Drill Core (Mcmurdo Sound, Antarctica), Francesco Iacoviello, Giovanna Giorgetti, Fernando Nieto, Isabella Turbanti Memmi

ANDRILL Research and Publications

We have examined the nature and origin of smectites in glaciomarine sediments of the AND-2A drill core (McMurdo Sound, Antarctica) by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses on the clay fraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations and SEM-EDS microanalyses on smectite particles. Relying on the smectite variation throughout the drill core it was possible to split the sequence into three units. Smectites throughout the core are either detrital or authigenic. Detrital smectites are close to montmorillonite-beidellite in composition while newly-formed smectites frequently have higher Fe-Mg contents and intermediate compositions between the saponite and nontronite …

Diatom Evidence For The Onset Of Pliocene Cooling From And-1b, Mcmurdo Sound, Antarctica, Christina R. Riesselman, Robert B. Dunbar

ANDRILL Research and Publications

The late Pliocene, ~3.3–3.0 Ma, is the most recent interval of sustained global warmth in the geologic past. This window is the focus of climate reconstruction efforts by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Pliocene Research, Interpretation, and Synoptic Mapping (PRISM) Data/Model Cooperative, and may provide a useful climate analog for the coming century. Reconstructions of past surface ocean conditions proximal to the Antarctic continent are essential to understanding the sensitivity of the cryosphere to this key interval in Earth’s climate evolution. An exceptional marine sediment core collected from the southwestern Ross Sea (78° S), Antarctica, during ANDRILL’s McMurdo Ice Shelf Project …

A Diatom Record Of Late Pliocene Cooling From The Ross Sea Continental Shelf, And-1b, Antarctica, Charlotte Sjunneskog, Diane Winter

ANDRILL Research and Publications

A late Pliocene – early Pleistocene, 2.9–2.0Ma, diatom record from the Antarctic Geological Drilling Program (ANDRILL) MIS drillcore AND-1B is presented. This core, recovered from beneath the Ross Ice Shelf south of Ross Island, comprises multiple diatomaceous-sediment units deposited during interglacial periods with open water over the core site. These represent interglacial phases of orbitally paced climate cycles and are punctuated by glacial advances. Extant diatom assemblages have limited presence in the late Pliocene record, which makes environmental interpretation less straight forward. We employ modern ecological data in combination with late Pliocene to present variation in diatom assemblages across the …

Fragilariopsis Tigris Sp. Nov., A New Late Pliocene Antarctic Continental Shelf Diatom With Biostratigraphic Promise, Christina R. Riesselman

ANDRILL Research and Publications

Anew species within the genus Fragilariopsis, F. tigris, is described and illustrated using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. This species is restricted to a single 8-meter-thick diatom unit within the 585-meter-long section of alternating diatomites and diamictites recovered in the upper portion of the ANtarctic geological DRILLing (ANDRILL) McMurdo Ice Shelf Project (MIS) AND-1B marine sediment core. This new taxon from a diverse, well-preserved diatom assemblage is inferred to be the youngest member of the well-documented, biostratigraphically useful F. praeinterfrigidaria – F. interfrigidaria – F. weaveri lineage and may represent a near-shore corollary to the open-ocean species …

Droughtscape, Winter 2012, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Drought Planning for Kansas Ranchers Jan. 21

South Hoping La Niña Dryness Stays Away

2011 Brought Record-Breaking Extent of D4

Reported Impacts Ease as Growing Season Ends

Disaster Planning in Nanjing at Hohai U

Ag, Fire and Water Supply Topped 2011 Impacts

Gordon Natural Area, West Chester University, 2012 Aerial Photograph, West Chester University Of Pennsylvania

Gordon Natural Area Soils Studies Documents

No abstract provided.

Gordon Natural Area, West Chester University, Lidar Image, West Chester University Of Pennsylvania

Gordon Natural Area Soils Studies Documents

No abstract provided.

Sequence Stratigraphy And Onlap History Of The Donets Basin, Ukraine: Insight Into Carboniferous Icehouse Dynamics, J. M. Eros, I. P. Montañez, D. A. Osleger, Vladimir Davydov, T. I. Nemyrovska, V. I. Poletaev, M. V. Zhykalyak

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The degree to which Permo-Carboniferous cyclothemic successions archive evidence for long-term variations in ice volume during the Late Paleozoic Ice Age is insufficiently resolved. Here we develop the sequence stratigraphy and onlap-offlap history for a 33-my interval of the Carboniferous using the U-Pb calibrated succession of the Donets Basin, Ukraine, in order to assess the relationship between sea-level, high-latitude changes in glacial extent, and climate. Integrated subsurface and outcrop data permit meter-scale correlation of 242 biostratigraphically constrained limestones and coals, and in turn individual cyclothems, across ~250 km of the Donets Basin. Rapid uniform subsidence and basinwide continuity of marker …