Earth Sciences Commons^™

Randy Martin Joins Utah Air Quality Board, Utah Water Research Laboratory

News

UWRL researcher and professor, Randy Martin, has been named to a four year term to the Utah Air Quality Board. Martin was chosen by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert to provide scientific insight and opinion on air quality and legislative policy.

The Effect Of Watershed Runoff And Sediment Resuspension On Turbidity And Sediment Deposition In St. John, Us Virgin Islands: Implications For Watershed And Marine Development And Restoration In Bays With Coral Reefs, Stephen E. Campbell

Theses

In the US Virgin Islands (USVI), land-based (terrigenous) sedimentation has been identified as a major cause of coral stress. Development, such as the building of unpaved roads in steep coastal watersheds, has increased sediment yields and marine terrigenous sedimentation by up to an order of magnitude above background levels. When activated during storm events, ephemeral streams transport sediment from the watershed to coastal waters. Once deposited on the seafloor, resuspension of benthic sediments can further increase turbidity and deposition. However, isolating the relative contributions of runoff and resuspension to turbidity and deposition using conventional sediment trap monitoring has been challenging. …

Nutrient Addition Shifts Plant Community Composition Towards Earlier Flowering Species In Some Prairie Ecoregions In The U.S. Central Plains, Lori Biederman, Brent Mortensen, Philip Fay, Nicole Hagenah, Johannes Knops, Kimberly La Pierre, Ramesh Laungani, Eric Lind, Rebecca L. Mcculley, Sally Power, Eric Seabloom, Pedro Tognetti

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

The distribution of flowering across the growing season is governed by each species’ evolutionary history and climatic variability. However, global change factors, such as eutrophication and invasion, can alter plant community composition and thus change the distribution of flowering across the growing season. We examined three ecoregions (tall-, mixed, and short-grass prairie) across the U.S. Central Plains to determine how nutrient (nitrogen (N), phosphorus, and potassium (+micronutrient)) addition alters the temporal patterns of plant flowering traits. We calculated total community flowering potential (FP) by distributing peak-season plant cover values across the growing season, allocating each species’ cover to only those …

Evaluating Relationships Between Rock Strength And Longitudinal Stream Profile Morphometry In The Southern Guadalupe Mountains, Texas, Samuel T. Schoenmann

Theses and Dissertations

Landscapes record information about the tectonic, climatic, and lithologic environments in which they form (Yang et al., 2015). When one or more of these environmental conditions change spatially or temporally, the landscape responds through erosion and thus, develops representative geomorphic features (Ritter et al., 2011). Since the nineteenth century, it has been clear that bedrock strength and erodibility play an important role in landscape evolution and geomorphology (Lifton et al., 2009). However, the nuances of variable erodibility remain poorly understood. The implications of this limited understanding lies within landscape evolution models. While these models show strong qualitative relationships between longitudinal …

Utilization Of Remote Sensing In Drought Monitoring Over Iraq, Yousif Almamalachy

Dissertations and Theses

Agricultural drought is a creeping disaster that overshadows the vegetative cover in general and cropland specifically in Iraq, a country that was well known for its agricultural production and fertile soil. In the recent years, the arable lands in Iraq experienced increasing land degradation that led to desertification, economic losses, food insecurity, and deteriorating environment. Remote sensing is employed in this study and four different indices are utilized, each of which is derived from MODIS satellite mission products. Agricultural drought maps are produced from 2003 to 2015 after masking the vegetation cover. Year 2008 was found the most severe drought …

Development Of Geospatial And Temporal Characteristics For Hispaniola’S Lake Azuei And Enriquillo Using Landsat Imagery, Mahrokh Moknatian, Michael Piasecki, Jorge Gonzalez

Publications and Research

In this paper, we used Landsat imagery for water body identification to create a novel 36-year surface area extent time series for lakes Azuei (Haiti) and Enriquillo (Dominican Republic) aimed at illuminating the dramatic temporal changes of these two lakes not just at yearly but at monthly or even sub-monthly scales. We used the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) to extract water features and we also used spatial differentiation and thresholding techniques to remove clouds and associated shadows from the scene that were then passed through gap filling algorithms to complete and extract the lake extent polygons. We also explored …

A Decade Of Induced Slip On The Causative Fault Of The 2015 Mw 4.0 Venus Earthquake, Northeast Johnson County, Texas, Monique Maria Scales

Earth Sciences Theses and Dissertations

On 7 May 2015, a M_W 4.0 earthquake occurred near Venus, northeast Johnson County, Texas, in an area of the Bend Arch-Fort Worth Basin that reports long-term, high-volume wastewater disposal and has hosted felt earthquakes since 2009. Scientists at SMU deployed a local seismic network and purchased nearby seismic reflection data to capture additional events, identify and image the causative fault, and explore potential links between ongoing industry activity and seismicity. Double-difference derived hypocenter relocations of the local earthquake catalog indicate a fault striking ~230^oN, dipping to the west, consistent with a nodal plane of the M …

Overwash Controls On Barrier Island Morphodynamics During Storms, Joshua H. Alarcon

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Overwash, shoreface retreat, and barrier migration are common processes occurring in transgressive barrier island systems, the scale of which is exacerbated by sea level rise, subsidence and the frequency and magnitude of tropical and extratropical storms. Barrier morphology also clearly plays a key role in determining a morphological response to these processes. Using a hydrodynamic and sediment transport model (MIKE21) and selected barrier island and shoreface templates, informed by deltaic and coastal plain systems in the northern Gulf of Mexico, I performed simulations to determine barrier morphology in response to storms. A low dune with a gentle shoreface slope, characteristic …

Growth Laws For Sub-Delta Crevasses In The Mississippi River Delta: Observations And Modeling, Tara A. Yocum

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this study we assessed growth laws of sub-delta crevasses in the Mississippi River delta plain, experimental laboratory deltas, and compared them to previously studied river dominated large deltas worldwide. Metrics for channel and delta geometry for each system were obtained using a combination of geospatial tools, bathymetric datasets, sediment size, and hydrodynamic observations. Most crevasses and experimental deltas appear to obey delta growth laws suggesting that they exhibit planform metrics similar to larger deltas. However, some channels within each system, exhibit outlier behavior (e.g. asymmetric growth) where channel length is much larger than channel width. Hydrodynamic observations and morphodynamic …

Evidence Of Fault Movement During The Holocene In Southern Louisiana: Integrating 3-D Seismic Data With Shallow High Resolution Seismic Data, Joseph P. Frank

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Baton Rouge fault system of Louisiana is a well-known recently active system consisting of en echelon, east trending, down-to-the-south normal faults across the northeast periphery of the Mississippi River delta plain. Two, industry-donated, 3-D seismic surveys across 860 km² image deep-seated faults below Lake Borgne, along an east strike that parallels previously well mapped segments of the Baton Rouge system. Four major faults (> 6 km fault trace) are imaged within the seismic surveys across the Lake. The industry seismic data were not processed for reliable imaging at depths (m). To bridge the depth gap in seismic, high …

Paleohydrology And Paleoecology Of The Neogene Siwalik Rocks, Nepalese Himalaya Using Multi-Proxy Lipid Biomarker Isotopic Study, Prabhat Chandra Neupane

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study deploys compound-specific multi-proxy isotopic study of lipid biomarkers to understand Neogene climatic and ecological variabilities in the Himalayan foreland. The investigation of compound-specific carbon and hydrogen isotopes along with glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (GDGT) is the first of its kind for the Nepalese Siwalik. A total of 49 mudstone (and some paleosol) samples were collected from the paleomagnetically age-constrained Siwalik strata in the Surai Khola and Karnali River sections.

δ¹³C results suggest a domination of C₃ trees between 12 and 8.5 Ma, and a stepwise expansion of C₄ grasses starting gradually at 8.5 Ma …

Groundwater Vulnerability Assessment For Nitrate Pollution In The Salinas Valley Using A Modified Drastic Model, Bernadette Boyle

Master's Projects and Capstones

Groundwater is an integral piece of California’s groundwater resources. One of the most common contaminants present in groundwater is nitrate. Nitrate contamination is often a result of agricultural land use activities on the ground surface. The study area for this analysis is the Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin, an agriculturally dominated basin in coastal California. The Salinas Valley Basin is both one of the most agriculturally productive areas of the state, as well as one of the most nitrate-contaminated basins in the state. The purpose of this research was to develop a groundwater vulnerability map for nitrate pollution in the Salinas …

Evaluating The Impacts Of Farmers’ Behaviors On A Hypothetical Agricultural Water Market Based On Double Auction, Erhu Du, Ximing Cai, Barbara Minsker

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Agricultural water markets are considered effective instruments to mitigate the impacts of water scarcity and to increase crop production. However, previous studies have limited understanding of how farmers’ behaviors affect the performance of water markets. This study develops an agent-based model to explicitly incorporate farmers’ behaviors, namely irrigation behavior (represented by farmers’ sensitivity to soil water deficit k) and bidding behavior (represented by farmers’ rent seeking l and learning rate b), in a hypothetical water market based on a double auction. The model is applied to the Guadalupe River Basin in Texas to simulate a hypothetical agricultural water market under …

The Evolution Of Igneous Rocks On The Moon: Insights From Lunar Meteorites And Apollo 12, Sarah Valencia

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Lunar samples are the “ground truth” that anchor our knowledge of lunar geology. Lunar rocks present many challenges in that they are often brecciated (composed of multiple rock types), and their location of formation on the Moon is not always known. The brecciated nature of lunar samples also has advantages – multiple lithologies that have a related petrogenetic history can occur in the same sample, allowing us to trace the petrogenetic history of evolving magmatic systems. In this dissertation, I examine two evolved magmatic systems, using samples from the Northwest Africa (NWA) 773 clan of lunar meteorites and Apollo 12 …

Modeled Co2 Emissions From Coastal Wetland Transitions To Other Land Uses: Tidal Marshes, Mangrove Forests, And Seagrass Beds, Catherine E. Lovelock, James W. Fourqurean, James T. Morris

Faculty Publications

The sediments of coastal wetlands contain large stores of carbon which are vulnerable to oxidation once disturbed, resulting in high levels of CO2 emissions that may be avoided if coastal ecosystems are conserved or restored. We used a simple model to estimate CO2 emissions from mangrove forests, seagrass beds, and tidal marshes based on known decomposition rates for organic matter in these ecosystems under either oxic or anoxic conditions combined with assumptions of the proportion of sediment carbon being deposited in either oxic or anoxic environments following a disturbance of the habitat. Our model found that over 40 years after …

The Effect Of Diffusive Transport On Mineral Carbonation In Geologic Carbon Sequestration, Wei Xiong

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Geologic carbon sequestration (GCS) is an effective method to mitigate environmental problems due to excessive anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It involves injecting supercritical CO2 into deep geologic formations in which CO2 will ultimately be converted to solid carbonate minerals. Basalt is a promising host rock that is rich in the divalent cations Ca, Mg and Fe that are important for mineral trapping of CO2. Fractures and pores in basalt reservoirs provide substantial surface area for geochemical reactions during carbon sequestration. The transport in fractures and pores is controlled by diffusion. The coupling of diffusive transport and geochemical reactions leads to carbonate …

Evolution Of Olivine Crystallographic Preferred Orientation In The Upper Mantle -- Implications For The Interpretation Of Seismic Anisotropy, Yuval Boneh

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Earth’s plate tectonics is the outermost manifestation of mantle convection. Understanding plate tectonics at the global scale requires understanding of regional processes near plate boundaries. Flow patterns in the upper mantle are generally inferred from observations of anisotropy of seismic wave speed. In plate interiors, where flow patterns are assumed to be simple, interpretation of seismic anisotropy is straightforward. However, near plate boundaries, where flow patterns are complex, different strategies for interpreting seismic anisotropy may be required. This dissertation examines, using experimental and numerical tools, the effects of complex flow patterns on the evolution of olivine crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO). …

Structural And Stratigraphic Reconstruction Of The Whiting Dome Salt Structure In Viosca Knoll-Mississippi Canyon, Gom, Using 3d Seismic Data, Matthew R. Worrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the complexities of salt tectonics is one of the most important factors regarding seismic interpretation of stratigraphy, structure, and geomorphology in the Gulf of Mexico. Evaluating the processes affecting recent mobilization of salt in the shallow, well-imaged section can help provide analogues for older, similar occurrences in the deeper section, thereby providing structural models for the autochthonous salt and its effect on stratigraphy and even potential timing and migration issues of hydrocarbons.

Progradation of delta front and shelf to slope transitional sediments has expulsed and emplaced an allochthonous salt structure (Whiting Dome) in the Viosca Knoll and Mississippi Canyon …

Gravitational Study Of The Hastings Salt Dome And Associated Faults In Brazoria And Galveston Counties,Texas, Francis C. Okocha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Salt domes are important geological structures because they are potential major hydrocarbon traps and have a profound effect on overlying strata in the subsurface. Over five hundred salt domes have been located on the United States Gulf Coast region, including the Hastings Salt Dome. Hastings Oil Field is located about 40.2 km (25 miles) southeast of Houston, Texas. The Hasting oil field was discovered in 1934 and it was considered the largest oil reserve on the Gulf Coast. Its peak production of 75,000 BOPD (barrels of oil per day) was recorded in 1977 and it had a cumulative production of …

Modeling Atmosphere-Mountain Interactions: Implications For Stable Isotope-Based Paleoaltimetry, Lauren B. Wheeler

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

The measure of surface uplift can provide an important constraint on the behavior of continental lithosphere and the underlying upper mantle. Isotope-based paleoaltimetry aims to quantitatively estimate the magnitude and timing of surface uplift from records of the isotopic composition of precipitation in order to provide constraints on the tectonic processes driving mountain building. As the surface of a topographic barrier increases in height, along the windward side, δ-values of precipitation should get progressively more negative, and on the leeside, δ-values of precipitation should also get progressively more negative based on the presence and development of a topographically-induced rain shadow. …

Impact Of Heatwave On A Megacity: An Observational Analysis Of New York City During July 2016, Prathap Ramamurthy, Jorge Gonzalez, Luis E. Ortiz, Mark Arend, Fred Moshary

Publications and Research

More than half of the world's current population resides in urban areas, and cities account for roughly three-quarters of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Current and future trends in urbanization will have significant impacts on global climate. However, our collective understanding of the climate of urban areas remains deficient, which is mainly related to significant knowledge gaps in observations. The New York City Summer Heat Campaign was initiated to address some of these critical knowledge gaps. As part of the campaign the urban boundary layer over New York City was continuously monitored during July 2016, a period that witnessed three …

An Operational Drought Prediction Framework With Application Of Vine Copula Functions, Mahkameh Zarekarizi

Student Research Symposium

Early and accurate drought predictions can benefit water resources and emergency managers by enhancing drought preparedness. Soil moisture memory is shown to contain helpful information for prediction of future values. This study uses the soil moisture memory to predict their future states via multivariate statistical modeling. We present a drought forecasting framework which issues monthly and seasonal drought forecasts. This framework estimates droughts with different lead times and updates the forecasts when more data become available. Forecasts are generated by conditioning future soil moisture values on antecedent drought status. The statistical model is initialized by soil moisture simulations retrieved from …

Insights On Magmatic Addition Beneath The Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain From Crustal Seismic Refraction Data, Thomas W. Luckie

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

Magmatic addition can lead to intraplate crustal growth through plume-generated voluminous underplating of mafic material, particularly during early syn-rift processes. In addition, magmatism facilitates crustal growth and rift development by assisting extensional tectonic forces. Therefore, understanding the relationship between magmatism and rifting may help explain both these processes. In the summer of 2015 the GeoPRISMS Eastern North American Margin (ENAM) Community Seismic Experiment collected two margin-dip active source seismic refraction profiles in eastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia using five onshore explosive shots on a northern profile and six on a southern profile (see figure). Analysis of these data resulted …

Mac Mckee Named Engineering Faculty Researcher Of 2017, Utah Water Research Laboratory

News

UWRL Director, Mac McKee, was nominated as a Faculty Researcher of 2017 for the College of Engineering. McKee's research has taken him all over the world and has included work on flood control and planning in the Philippeans to water quality management in India. Currently Dr. McKee's research focuses on small unmanned aerial systems solve natural resource problems using remote sensing and data analysis.

Geochemical And Petrographic Analysis Of Basaltic Rocks Of The Hawaiian Island: Implications For Their Evolutionary Stage Of Development, Autumn A. Burrell

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Geochemical and petrographic analyses of basaltic rocks were performed from five volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii. From north to south these volcanoes include: Kohala; Hualalai; Mauna Kea; Mauna Loa; and Kilauea. These volcanoes have formed through several distinct stages of volcanic growth and development. During each of these stages, the lavas extruded will be composed of a distinctive geochemical signature which corresponds to each of the 4 main phases of development. These include a 1) pre-shield building; 2) main shield building; 3) post-shield building; and 4) a rejuvenated stage.

The geochemical results are used to establish the evolutionary …

Integration Of Multi-Criteria And Nearest Neighbour Analysis With Kernel Density Functions For Improving Sinkhole Susceptibility Models: The Case Study Of Enemonzo (Ne Italy), Chiara Calligaris, Stefano Devoto, Jorge P. Galve, Luca Zini, José V. Pérez-Peña

International Journal of Speleology

The significance of intra-mountain valleys to infrastructure and human settlements and the need to mitigate the geo-hazard affecting these assets are fundamental to the economy of Italian alpine regions. Therefore, there is a real need to recognize and assess possible geo-hazards affecting them. This study proposes the use of GIS-based analyses to construct a sinkhole susceptibility model based on conditioning factors such as land use, geomorphology, thickness of shallow deposits, distance to drainage network and distance to faults. Thirty-two models, applied to a test site (Enemonzo municipality, NE Italy), were produced using a method based on the Likelihood Ratio (λ) …

Use Of Annual Phosphorus Loss Estimator (Aple) Model To Evaluate A Phosphorus Index, Nicole M. Fiorellino, Joshua M. Mcgrath, Peter A. Vadas, Carl H. Bolster, Frank J. Coale

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

The Phosphorus (P) Index was developed to provide a relative ranking of agricultural fields according to their potential for P loss to surface water. Recent efforts have focused on updating and evaluating P Indices against measured or modeled P loss data to ensure agreement in magnitude and direction. Following a recently published method, we modified the Maryland P Site Index (MD-PSI) from a multiplicative to a component index structure and evaluated the MD-PSI outputs against P loss data estimated by the Annual P Loss Estimator (APLE) model, a validated, field-scale, annual P loss model. We created a theoretical dataset of …

Validating A Universal Model Of Particle Transport Lengths With Laboratory Measurements Of Suspended Grain Motions, Robert C. Mahon, Brandon Mcelroy, Suleyman Naqshband

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

t The mechanics of sediment transport are of fundamental importance for fluvio-deltaic morphodynamics. The present study focuses on quantifying particle motions and trajectories across a wide range of flow conditions. In particular, a continuous model is presented that predicts particle travel distances for saltation and suspension based on Rouse number and relative grain roughness. By utilizing a series of eight video cameras in a plexiglass flume direct measurements of the distributions of particle travel distances (excursion lengths) were obtained. To this end, experiments were carried out in dark under black lights with fluorescent painted plastic and quartz sand particles. For …

Locomotion And Skeletal Morphology Of Late Cretaceous Mosasaur, Tylosaurus Proriger, Jesse A. Carpenter

Honors College Theses

Mosasaurs (Reptilia: Squamata) are apex marine predators from the Late Cretaceous (Turonian to Maastrichtian) epicontinental seas of North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. From previous studies, it has been suggested that this group trends towards increased rib compactness, lengthening and increased posterior inclination of neural spines of intermediate and terminal caudal vertebrae to support a caudal fluke, and a transition from anguilliform to carangiform locomotion, closer to thunniform in pelagic adapted species. This study examined multiple Tylosaurus specimens using centrum length/width (CL/CW) and width/height (CW/CH) ratios along with neural spine height and angle of posterior inclination to (1) describe the …

Congratulations To 2017 Usu Engineering Graduates, Utah Water Research Laboratory

News

Congratuations to all 2017 Engineering graduates! The UWRL is proud of our talented and diverse students and wish them all the best in their futures.