Earth Sciences Commons^™

Primary Report Of First Documentation Of Mammal Footprints From The Late Oligocene Inthe Sivas Basin, Turkey, Beki̇r Levent Mesci̇, Ahmet Cem Erkman, Şaki̇r Önder Özkurt

Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences

The footprints in this study, which were considered to have been made by ungulates, were discovered on mudstone that was approximately 5 cm thick, near an abundant mud-cracked plane located on the stratigraphic subsurface of the late Oligocene Karayün Formation, which crops out over wide areas in southern Sivas (Turkey) and has terrestrial, fluvial sediment characteristics. These ungulate footprints documented from the late Oligocene of the Karayün Formation in southern Sivas represent the first reported vertebrates in Anatolia. The footprints of three different species of ungulates were identified. The shapes, depth, and widths of the footprints provided some basic ichnotaxonomic …

Florida Science: The Science That Makes Florida Different, Terence W. Cavanaugh

Secondary Level Resources

This book was created to assist students with their understanding of how science occurs in Florida. When teaching science or any subject it’s important to remember to begin with the concrete and then move to the abstract. I have found that it has helped my students when I begin by teaching science concepts in a concrete manner and expand from there. For example, when I taught about topographic maps, the students were much more successful in their learning when I started with local topographic maps that included the school and the surrounding area than with places that had mountains or …

Glacial Deposits, Vol. 44, 2019, Department Of Geography, Geology, And The Environment

Glacial Deposits

Newsletter of the Department of Geography, Geology, and the Environment

Effects Of Thinning And Prescribed Burning On Tree Resistance To Extreme Drought In A Sierra Nevada Mixed-Conifer Forest, California Usa, Chance C. Callahan

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Drought-induced tree mortality can drastically alter forest composition, structure, carbon dynamics, and ecosystem function. Increasingly, forest policy and management focuses on how to improve forest resistance and resilience to drought stress. This study used tree ring data at Teakettle Experimental Forest (TEF), a historically frequent fire mixed-conifer forest in the California Sierra Nevada, to quantify how prescribed fire and mechanical thinning conducted in 2001-2002 influenced stand and tree-level growth responses to the extreme California drought of 2012-2016. Overstory thinning and understory thinning significantly enhanced growth responses to treatments alone and treatments during the drought at the stand-level. In each year …

Floodplains Provide Important Amphibian Habitat Despite Multiple Ecological Threats, Meredith Holgerson, Adam Duarte, Marc P. Hayes, Michael J. Adams, Julie A. Tyson, Keith A. Douville, Angela L. Strecker

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Floodplain ponds and wetlands are productive and biodiverse ecosystems, yet they face multiple threats including altered hydrology, land use change, and non-native species. Protecting and restoring important floodplain ecosystems requires understanding how organisms use these habitats and respond to altered environmental conditions. We developed Bayesian models to evaluate occupancy of six amphibian species across 103 off-channel aquatic habitats in the Chehalis River floodplain, Washington State, USA. The basin has been altered by changes in land use, reduced river–wetland connections, and the establishment of non-native American bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana = Lithobates catesbeianus) and centrarchid fishes, all of which we hypothesized could …

Improved Drought Resilience Through Continuous Water Service Monitoring And Specialized Institutions—A Longitudinal Analysis Of Water Service Delivery Across Motorized Boreholes In Northern Kenya, Nick Turman-Bryant, Corey L. Nagel, Lauren Stover, Christian Muragijimana, Evan A. Thomas

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Increasing frequency and severity of drought is driving increased use of groundwater resources in arid regions of Northern Kenya, where approximately 2.5 million people depend on groundwater for personal use, livestock, and limited irrigation. As part of a broader effort to provide more sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene services in the region, we have collected data related to site functionality and use for approximately 120 motorized boreholes across five counties. Using a multilevel model to account for geospatial and temporal clustering, we found that borehole sites, which counties had identified as strategic assets during drought, ran on average about 1.31 …

Mechanics And Historical Evolution Of Sea Level Blowouts In New York Harbor, Praneeth Gurumurthy, Philip Orton, Stefan A. Talke, Nickitas Georgas, James F. Booth

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Wind-induced sea level blowouts, measured as negative storm surge or extreme low water (ELW), produce public safety hazards and impose economic costs (e.g., to shipping). In this paper, we use a regional hydrodynamic numerical model to test the effect of historical environmental change and the time scale, direction, and magnitude of wind forcing on negative and positive surge events in the New York Harbor (NYH). Environmental sensitivity experiments show that dredging of shipping channels is an important factor affecting blowouts while changing ice cover and removal of other roughness elements are unimportant in NYH. Continuously measured water level records since …

Bigger Tides, Less Flooding: Effects Of Dredging On Barotropic Dynamics In A Highly Modified Estuary, David K. Ralston, Stefan Talke, W. Rockwell Geyer, Hussein A. M. Al-Zubaidi, Christopher K. Sommerfield

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Since the late nineteenth century, channel depths have more than doubled in parts of New York Harbor and the tidal Hudson River, wetlands have been reclaimed and navigational channels widened, and river flow has been regulated. To quantify the effects of these modifications, observations and numerical simulations using historical and modern bathymetry are used to analyze changes in the barotropic dynamics. Model results and water level records for Albany (1868 to present) and New York Harbor (1844 to present) recovered from archives show that the tidal amplitude has more than doubled near the head of tides, whereas increases in the …

X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis Of Tuscaloosa Marine Shale Cuttings From Horizontally Drilled Wells, Xiaotian Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Upper Cretaceous Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) is a gray to black fissile marine shale deposited at depth of between 10,000 and 20,000 ft near the ancient Gulf of Mexico. The TMS has been gradually developed as a hydrocarbon reservoir in the past several decades. But there are rare researches evaluating geochemical properties based on chemostratigraphy of the TMS. The objective of this research is to spatially evaluate geophysical properties and chemostratigraphy of the TMS, to characterize elemental changes along well paths and to evaluate the effect of basic sample clean on XRF results. The data available for this study …

Historic Log Buildings As Archives Of Past Forest Ecology, Kristen K. De Graauw

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation is composed of three separate but related manuscripts with the common theme of using historic log buildings from the central Appalachian Mountain region of eastern North America as ecological archives. In Chapter 1, I explore the biases, limitations, and ecological applications of tree-ring data from historic log buildings. European immigrants selected trees from a forested stand based on species, log sizes, and construction locations. Despite this selection bias, ecological information can be gleaned from historic log buildings, which offer a complementary record of past forest ecology and represent a site type that is not often associated with old-growth …

X-Ray Fluorescence Applications In Mudrock Characterization: Investigations Into Middle Devonian Stratigraphy, Appalachian Basin, Usa, Keithan Garrett Martin

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Mudrocks are characterized by nanometer-scale pore sizes and nano-darcy permeability, which plays a significant role in hydrocarbon flow during production. Resulting from these characteristics, mudrocks were exclusively considered a source rock, which charged overlying, more porous mediums. Hydraulic fracturing, a technology used to create artificial fractures to liberate hydrocarbons from the reservoir, enabled natural gas to be produced from mudrock reservoirs economically. Over the last fifteen years, this technology motivated research efforts to understand reservoir characteristics of mudrock. These investigations significantly improved our knowledge of mudrock systems, but have also highlighted key areas that are undeveloped and/or where conflicting hypotheses …

Peatlands And Histosols In Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, West Virginia, Mitzy Leigh Schaney

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Canaan Valley in West Virginia contains a greater area of peatlands than any other locality in the mid-Atlantic Highlands. Extensive fieldwork focused on peat stratigraphy and pedology, combined with high-resolution radiocarbon dating, was used to evaluate five peatlands within Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge (CVNWR) in the central Appalachian Mountains. One hundred soil cores were profiled and described, 30 with laboratory data, including 52 radiocarbon dates. Calibrated basal peat dates among the five mapped peatlands indicate a late Pleistocene timeframe for the onset of peat genesis, ranging from ~18,600 to ~15,200 cal yr BP. The dates for peat initiation are …

Discerning The Diets Of Sweep-Feeding Eurypterids Through Analyses Of Mesh-Modified Appendage Armature, Emily Samantha Hughes

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Eurypterids were a group of aquatic chelicerates that lived throughout most of the Paleozoic. While swimming eurypterids are generally considered to be active predators, the benthic stylonurine eurypterids appear to have had a mode of life similar to modern horseshoe crabs with the exception of two clades, the Stylonuroidea and the Mycteropoidea, both of which independently evolved modifications for sweep-feeding on their anterior appendages. Among extant suspension feeders, it has been shown that there is a linear correlation between the average spacing of feeding structures and prey sizes. This relationship was extrapolated to the sweep-feeding stylonuroid and mycteropoid eurypterids in …

Structural Style And Stratigraphic Architecture Of The Northeastern Brooks Range, Alaska, Benjamin G. Johnson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Arctic Alaska–Chukotka microplate is a large Mesozoic–Cenozoic composite terrane that resides at the northern limit of the North American Cordillera. Although its Mesozoic origins are assuredly linked to the opening of the Amerasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean, its Paleozoic origins can be linked to at least three separate paleocontinents, including northern Laurentia, Baltica, and Siberia. Across the Arctic Alaska portion of the microplate, an internal, mid-Paleozoic suture zone presumably separates rocks of the North Slope subterrane (Laurentian affinity) from a collection of smaller subterranes in the southern Brooks Range and Seward Peninsula (Baltic affinity).

The mountains of the …

Beneath The Gypsum Dunes: Cenozoic History Of Wind And Water From A Core Drilled At White Sands, New Mexico, Jackson Bentley Jakeway

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

White Sands, New Mexico is the largest gypsum dune field on planet Earth, the result of reworking of gypsum deposits. The dunes have been well studied, but the Cenozoic history preceding the formation of the dune field has been poorly studied. A core drilled to a depth of 192 ft (58.5 m) beneath the modern dune field contains deposits from saline lakes, sandflats, perennial freshwater lakes, perennial brackish to saline lakes, and saline mudflats.

The core is composed of bottom-growth bedded gypsum, gypsum sandstone and siltstone, mixed siliciclastic-gypsum sandstones and siltstones, laminated siliciclastic mudstones, gypsum mudstones, and carbonate mudstones. Bottom-growth …

Internet Of Things In Smart Agriculture: Enabling Technologies, Abdul Salam, Syed Shah

Computer Information Technology Faculty Publications

In this paper, an IoT technology research and innovation roadmap for the field of precision agriculture (PA) is presented. Many recent practical trends and the challenges have been highlighted. Some important objectives for integrated technology research and education in precision agriculture are described. Effective IoT based communications and sensing approaches to mitigate challenges in the area of precision agriculture are presented.

Submarine Groundwater Discharge Data At Meter Scale (223ra, 224ra, 226ra, 228ra And 222rn) In Indian River Bay (Delaware, Us), Carlos Duque, Karen L. Knee, Christopher J. Russoniello, Mahmound Sherif, Usama A. Abu Risha, Neil C. Sturchio, Holly A. Michael

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Abstract

Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) was sampled at high-spatial resolution in Indian River Bay, DE, USA, in July 2016 to characterize the spatial variability of the activity of the radium and radon isotopes commonly used to estimate SGD. These data were part of an investigation into the methods and challenges of characterizing SGD rates and variability, especially in the coastal aquifer transition from freshwater to saltwater (Hydrogeological processes and near shore spatial variability of radium and radon isotopes for the characterization of submarine groundwater discharge (Duque et al., 2019)). Samples were collected with seepage meters and minipiezometers to obtain sufficient …

Geochronology And Depositional History Of The Sandy Springs Aeolian Landscape In The Unglaciated Upper Ohio River Valley, United States, Mathew P. Purtill, J. Steven Kite, Steven L. Forman

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The study of active and stabilized late Quaternary aeolian landforms provides important proxies for past climate events and environmental transitions. Despite an overall increase in the study of aeolian landforms in previously glaciated and coastal settings in eastern North America, the history of aeolian sedimentation in many unglaciated inland alluvial settings remain poorly understood. This study reports on the geochronology and depositional history of aeolian landforms and sediments in the unglaciated upper Ohio Valley at the Sandy Springs site. Aeolian landforms and sediments include complex, linear, barchan-like, and climbing dunes; an interdune sand sheet; and sandy loess that blankets high …

Large-Area, High Spatial Resolution Land Cover Mapping Using Random Forests, Geobia, And Naip Orthophotography: Findings And Recommendations, Aaron E. Maxwell, Michael P. Strager, Timothy A. Warner, Christopher A. Ramezan, Alice N. Morgan, Cameron E. Pauley

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Despite the need for quality land cover information, large-area, high spatial resolution land cover mapping has proven to be a difficult task for a variety of reasons including large data volumes, complexity of developing training and validation datasets, data availability, and heterogeneity in data and landscape conditions. We investigate the use of geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA), random forest (RF) machine learning, and National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) orthophotography for mapping general land cover across the entire state of West Virginia, USA, an area of roughly 62,000 km2. We obtained an overall accuracy of 96.7% and a Kappa statistic of …

Protoconch Enlargement In Western Atlantic Turritelline Gastropod Species Following The Closure Of The Central American Seaway, Stephanie Sang, Dana Suzanne Friend, Warren Douglas Allmon, Brendan Matthew Anderson

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Abstract The closure of the late Neogene interoceanic seaways between the Western Atlantic (WA) and Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP)—commonly referred to as the Central American Seaway—significantly decreased nutrient supply in the WA compared to the TEP. In marine invertebrates, an increase in parental investment is expected to be selectively favored in nutrient‐poor marine environments as prolonged feeding in the plankton becomes less reliable. Here, we examine turritelline gastropods, which were abundant and diverse across this region during the Neogene and serve as important paleoenvironmental proxies, and test whether species exhibit decreased planktotro‐ phy in the WA postclosure as compared to …

Efficient Intensity Measures Of Slide-Rocking Structures For Precariously Balanced Rocks, Taylor J. Knickerbocker, Christine E. Wittich

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Precariously balanced rocks (PBRs) and other fragile geologic features are important in both the engineering and seismological communities since they are indicative of the maximum ground motion at a site over the rock’s lifetime. Precariously balanced rocks are individual or stacks of freestanding rocks that tend to respond in rigid body modes when subject to seismic excitation – namely, rocking, sliding, slide-rocking, and free-flight, which can lead to overturning. The seismic response of freestanding structures, such as PBRs, is known to be extremely sensitive to small changes in geometry, position, and earthquake excitation. As such, deterministic methods are limited in …

Structural Controls And Depositional Environments Of The Glen Rose Subgroup In Pelahatchie Field In Rankin County, Mississippi, Chesney Petkovsek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Following Lion Oil’s drilling of the Sowell #1, Lower Cretaceous step-out drilling in Pelahatchie Field has led to the establishment of Mooringsport, Paluxy, Rodessa, Sligo, and Hosston oil and gas condensate production along the flanks and crest of a salt feature within Rankin County, Mississippi. Exploration of salt features has been intermittent throughout Mississippi, but has shifted from targeting pay zones along the crests of domal and piercement salt features in the 1940s, to targeting reserves along the flanks of these features in the 1970s. The dominant structural feature in Pelahatchie Field is an elongate north-south-trending salt ridge. Results of …

Rapidly Expanding Nuclear Arsenals In Pakistan And India Portend Regional And Global Catastrophe, Owen B. Toon, Charles G. Bardeen, Alan Robock, Lili Xia, Hans Kristensen, Matthew Mckinzie, R. J. Peterson, Cheryl S. Harrison, Nicole S. Lovenduski, Richard P. Turco

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Pakistan and India may have 400 to 500 nuclear weapons by 2025 with yields from tested 12- to 45-kt values to a few hundred kilotons. If India uses 100 strategic weapons to attack urban centers and Pakistan uses 150, fatalities could reach 50 to 125 million people, and nuclear-ignited fires could release 16 to 36 Tg of black carbon in smoke, depending on yield. The smoke will rise into the upper troposphere, be self-lofted into the stratosphere, and spread globally within weeks. Surface sunlight will decline by 20 to 35%, cooling the global surface by 2° to 5°C and reducing …

The Isotopic Composition Of Meteoric Water Along Altitudinal Transects In The Tian Shan Of Central Asia, John Bershaw, Alex R. Lechler

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Tian Shan in Central Asia are a unique mountain range in that they are in the world's most continental location. Seasonal precipitation in the northern Tian Shan is segregated into distinct elevation bands where high elevations receive precipitation primarily during summer and low elevations to the north receive precipitation primarily during the late winter and spring. In this study, we sampled stream water along multiple altitudinal transects to determine the effect unique seasonal patterns of precipitation have on the isotopic composition of surface water. Our results suggest that the northern Tian Shan exhibits an isotopic lapse rate for waters …

Reanalysis Of The Us Geological Survey Benchmark Glaciers: Long-Term Insight Into Climate Forcing Of Glacier Mass Balance, Shad O’Neel, Christopher Mcneil, Louis Sass, Caitlyn Florentine, Emily Baker, Andrew G. Fountain, Multiple Additional Authors

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mountain glaciers integrate climate processes to provide an unmatched signal of regional climate forcing. However, extracting the climate signal via intercomparison of regional glacier mass-balance records can be problematic when methods for extrapolating and calibrating direct glaciological measurements are mixed or inconsistent. To address this problem, we reanalyzed and compared long-term mass-balance records from the US Geological Survey Benchmark Glaciers. These five glaciers span maritime and continental climate regimes of the western United States and Alaska. Each glacier exhibits cumulative mass loss since the mid-20th century, with average rates ranging from −0.58 to −0.30 m w.e. a−1. We produced a …

Experimental Investigation Of The Dynamics Of Trapped Non-Wetting Droplets Subjected To The Seismic Stimulation In Constricted Tubes: Supporting Information, Yandong Zhang, Chao Zeng, Baojun Bai, Wen Deng

Research Data

• Aspect Ratio of 4.5
• Aspect Ratio of 9.0
• Video Demos

A Critical Review Of Using High Viscosity Friction Reducers As Fracturing Fluids For Hydraulic Fracturing Applications, Mohammed Ba Geri, Abdulmohsin Imqam, Ralph E. Flori

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The primary purpose of using traditional friction reducers in stimulation treatments is to overcome the tubular drag while pumping at high flow rates. Hydraulic fracturing is the main technology used to produce hydrocarbon from extremely low permeability rock. Even though slickwater (water fracturing with few chemical additives) used to be one of the most common fracturing fluids, several concerns are still associated with its use, including usage of freshwater, high-cost operation, and environmental issues. Therefore, current practice in hydraulic fracturing is to use alternative fluid systems that are cost effective and have less environmental impact, such as fluids which utilize …

Provenance, Redox Conditions, And Diagenesis Of Shales In Chang 7 Member Of Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation, Ordos Basin, China, Bin Sun

Doctoral Dissertations

“This study aims to decipher provenance, redox conditions, and burial history of shales in Chang 7 Member of Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation, Ordos Basin, China. The first paper discusses the origins of single-channeled, vertical, sinuous, and calcite-bitumen-filled cracks in the shales. Results show that in early diagenesis, unconsolidated mud was expanded open by escaping gases produced during organic matter maturation under hydrothermal influences. Calcite initially filled the cracks; bitumen and pyrite came in later and occupied the cracks in various ways. Compaction occurred next and folded the calcite- and bitumen-filled cracks into sinuous shapes. The second paper uses geochemical and …

Receiver Function Investigations Of Mantle Transition Zone And Crustal Structure In East Africa And Northeast Asia, Muchen Sun

Doctoral Dissertations

"In spite of numerous geophysical studies have been conducted in East Africa and Northeast Asia, the structure and evolution of the crust, upper mantle, and the mantle transition zone (MTZ) are still controversial. The MTZ discontinuities beneath the study area are imaged by stacking an unprecedented volume of receiver functions (RFs). The normal MTZ thickness beneath the Western Branch of the EARS and Tanzania Craton indicates the absence of present-day thermal upwelling from the lower mantle. In contrast, beneath the Eastern Branch, a significant MTZ thinning reveals the existence of thermal upwelling from either the upper MTZ or the lower …

Seismic Attribute Assisted Depositional Facies Identification And Stratigraphic Correlation In The Central Gulf Coast Region Of Texas, Yani Lin

Doctoral Dissertations

"The sandstone deposits in the fluvial-dominated delta systems in the Lower Wilcox Group above the Cretaceous carbonate shelf edges of the Texas Gulf Coast Region are considered as high exploration potential reservoir bodies. However, the multi-phase regression and transgression during the late Paleocene to the early Eocene complicate the local depositional structure. The depositional facies is hard to be identified in details using the traditional seismic stratigraphic interpretation method. Seismic attributes are effective in detecting depositional facies, especially in mapping channels and investigating reservoir characteristics. In this study, we utilize seismic attributes to identify the principal depositional facies in the …