Earth Sciences Commons^™

Geochemical Analysis And Heat-Treatment Of Natural Sapphires From Madagascar And Tanzania In Oxidizing And Reducing Conditions, Lukas Karuza, Dr. Michael B. Wolf, Brian Konecke Phd

Geology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Natural or synthetic sapphires can be heat-treated to improve the clarity by removing “silk” (inclusions) and to change color by introducing color-inducing elements (i.e., chromophores) into the lattice structure or changing their valency. Due to these reasons, sapphires can be heat-treated to increase their monetary value. Twenty natural blue (C1), 20 green (C2), and 20 clear (C3) sapphires from Madagascar and Tanzania were heat-treated in a muffle furnace in oxidizing and reducing conditions, from 1200 to 1600℃, for 10-hour soak time. In total, 5 experiments were conducted in which soak time remained constant: experiment 1 was performed at 1200℃, exp. …

Great South Bay, Long Island, New York Summer Phytoplankton Identification & Monitoring Program, Cercom, Molloy University, John Tanacredi Ph.D., Kyle F. Maurelli

CERCOM Reports

Phytoplankton Collection Methodologies: 80 micron Plankton Tow Net with sample bottle attachment

Phytoplankton Protocol: 1.Gather Samples 2.Make one slide per sample 3.View slides using microscope connected with computer 4. Record findings using “ Row # “ and “ Colum letter “ 5. Record using “ Tally’s “ per species found within sample 6. Capture anything interesting “ Take Picture “ 7.Duplicate pictures taken 8.Make sure measurement of species found is taken

Great South Bay, Long Island, New York Summer Water Quality Monitoring Program, Cercom, Molloy University, John Tanacredi Ph.D., Kyle F. Maurelli

CERCOM Reports

The Center for Environmental Research and Coastal Oceans Monitoring (CERCOM) visits 11 locations in the Great South Bay from Memorial Day – Labor Day to monitor for dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, salinity, clarity and temperature. Students are trained and assist in CERCOM’s water quality data collection by research assistant Mr. Kyle Maurelli. This monitoring program has been conducted for the past 16 years. These parameters are critical in determining long term water quality conditions in Long Island estuaries.

Long Island Horseshoe Crab Network Annual Inventory Report, Cercom, Molloy University, John Tanacredi Ph.D., Kyle F. Maurelli

CERCOM Reports

CERCOM monitors 115 beach locations from Brooklyn – Montauk during optimal Limulus Polyphemus breeding season. These beach surveys take place for approximately 15 weeks, ranging from May- August. These beach locations are marked specifically using GPS coordinates, to assure the same location is visited each year. Students and volunteers are required to attend a HSC Survey training orientation lead by CERCOM’s research assistant, Mr. Kyle Maurelli. Surveying is done around tide and moon cycles (New/Full Moon). Each site takes about 1-2 hours and data is recorded along an approximate 1 mile distance. Walking along the water’s edge the number of …

Advancement Of Predictive Modeling Of Zeta Potentials (Ζ) In Metal Oxide Nanoparticles With Correlation Intensity Index (Cii), Andrey A. Toropov, Natalia Sizochenko, Alla P. Toropova, Danuta Leszczynska, Jerzy Leszczynski

Articles

It was expected that index of the ideality of correlation (IIC) and correlation intensity index (CII) could be used as possible tools to improve the predictive power of the quantitative model for zeta potential of nanoparticles. In this paper, we test how the statistical quality of quantitative structure-activity models for zeta potentials (ζ, a common measurement that reflects surface charge and stability of nanomaterial) could be improved with the use of these two indexes. Our hypothesis was tested using the benchmark data set that consists of 87 measurements of zeta potentials in water. We used quasi-SMILES molecular representation to take …

The Ypresian To Lutetian Marine Record In Nw Turkey: A Revised Biostratigraphy Andchronostratigraphy And Implications For Eocene Paleogeography, Ercan Özcan, Zahi̇de Özcan, Aral I. Okay, Kenan Akbayram, Aynur Hakyemez

Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences

The Eocene sedimentary units in the Kocaeli and Armutlu peninsulas and İznik-Geyve region (northwest Turkey) consist of marine siliciclastic and carbonate deposits, locally intercalated with volcaniclastic rocks and tuffs (Middle Eocene Magmatic Rocks-MEMR). The record of larger benthic fauna (LBF) and pelagic microfossils, such as planktonic foraminifera and calcareous nannoplankton, combined with lithological description, indicate a wide spectrum of depositional environments ranging from shallowto deep-marine. These deposits contain in situ and/or allochthonous assemblages of orthophragminids, nummulitids, subordinate rotaliids, and sparse alveolinids. The in situ assemblages (mainly orthophragminids) point to several episodes of shallow marine depositional conditions during a) early Ypresian …

Competitiveness Of Rosa Multiflora In Varying Plant Communities And Light Regimes Compared With Co-Habiting Native Species, Nathan Wilkes, Andrew Vandertuig, David Dornbos

Summer Research

Multifora rose is an invasive shrub with small white flowers and many small thorns designed to keep out any predators. This invasive weed was introduced from Japan, Korea, and eastern China in the late 1800’s used as rootstock for ornamental roses (Ohio Invasive Plants Council, 2010). These hardy plants were widely promoted in the 1930’s as “living fences” throughout much of the Northeast and Midwestern U.S to confine livestock, to conserve soil and to provide wildlife with habitat (Steavenson, 1946). As of 1993, MR was declared a noxious weed in many Midwestern states (Rhoades and Block, 2011; Amrine, 2002). It …

Trees Vs. Reed Canary Grass, Josian Aardema, Moses Jangala, David E. Martinez Vasquez, David Warners

Summer Research

Reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea) is a prominent invasive species that threatens native Michigan biodiversity around the state. One of the affected areas includes a stretch of agricultural land along Schooley Drain in Caledonia, MI, located in the headwaters of the Plaster Creek watershed. Our study will pursue the following question: “Do native trees produce enough shade to reduce the growth of Reed canary grass?” To answer this question, we will evaluate seven different species of native Michigan trees to see which species most inhibits the growth of Reed canary grass.

Critical Analysis Of The Value Of Drought Information And Impacts On Land Management And Public Health, Tingting Liu, Kelly Helm Smith, Richard Krop, Tonya Haigh, Mark Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

This paper reviews previous efforts to assign monetary value to climatic or meteorological information, such as public information on drought, climate, early warning systems, and weather forecast information. Methods and tools that have been explored to examine the benefits of climatic and meteorological information include the avoided cost, contingent valuation, choice experiments, benefit transfer, and descriptive approaches using surveys. The second part of this paper discusses specific considerations related to valuing drought information for public health and the Bureau of Land Management. We found a multitude of connections between drought and the land management and health sectors in the literature. …

Using Climate To Explain And Predict West Nile Virus Risk In Nebraska, Kelly Smith, Andrew Tyre, Jeff Hamik, Michael Hayes, Yuzhen Zhou, Li Dai

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

We used monthly precipitation and temperature data to give early warning of years with higher West Nile Virus (WNV) risk in Nebraska. We used generalized additive models with a negative binomial distribution and smoothing curves to identify combinations of extremes and timing that had the most influence, experimenting with all combinations of temperature and drought data, lagged by 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months. We fit models on data from 2002 through 2011, used Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) to select the best‐fitting model, and used 2012 as out‐of‐sample data for prediction, and repeated this process for each successive year, …

Southern California Margin Benthic Foraminiferal Assemblages Record Recent Centennial-Scale Changes In Oxygen Minimum Zone, Hannah M. Palmer, Tessa M. Hill, Peter D. Roopnarine, Sarah E. Myhre, Kastherine R. Reyes, Jonas T. Donnenfield

Natural Sciences and Mathematics | Student Professional Publications

Microfossil assemblages provide valuable records to investigate variability in continental margin biogeochemical cycles, including dynamics of the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ). Analyses of modern assemblages across environmental gradients are necessary to understand relationships between assemblage characteristics and environmental factors. Five cores were analyzed from the San Diego margin (32∘42′00′′ N, 117∘30′00′′ W; 300–1175 m water depth) for core top benthic foraminiferal assemblages to understand relationships between community assemblages and spatial hydrographic gradients as well as for down-core benthic foraminiferal assemblages to identify changes in the OMZ through time. Comparisons of benthic foraminiferal assemblages from two size fractions (63–150 and >150 …

The Importance Of Understanding Trophic Transfer In Top Marine Predators Due To An Increase In Plastic Production, Annika M. Markovich

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Deep Sea Sediments Of The Arctic Central Basin: A Potential Sink For Microplastics, Colleen Mcmaken

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Will Shark Skin Dissolve Under High Co2?, Emily K. Witt

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

First Estimates Of Greenland Shark (Somniosus Microcephalus) Abundances In Arctic Waters, Taryn Szalay

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Thirty Years Of Data Sheds Light On Plastic Pollution In The Deep Sea, Adam Warren

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Dolphin Study Gives Insight Into Marine Mammal Threat Response, Marshall Hawkins

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Social Structure Of Killer Whales (Orcinus Orca) In The Galápagos Archipelago, Mary Gad

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Using Drones To Assess Great White Shark Behavior Along Coastal Beaches, Alydia Moorhead

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Rock Glacier Development In The San Juan Mountains, Brandon K. Bailey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rock glaciers are common landform features found in deglaciated alpine areas. They are commonly used in the study of climatic changes throughout the Holocene and the reconstruction of neoglacial chronologies. For this research, Schmidt hammer rebound values, weathering rind thicknesses, and the length of lichen thalli diameters found on rock glacier surfaces are used to investigate their effectiveness as field-based relative age determination techniques. Additionally, the ability to identify periods of neoglacial activity using these methods is assessed in two neighboring cirque basins in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. 41 field sites across three rock glaciers are established with …

Using Ground Penetrating Radar To Investigate A Sedimentary Archive At Pj Hoffmaster State Park, Peter Duimstra, Melinda C. Higley

Summer Research

Ground Penetrating Radar is a non-invasive method of observing the Earth’s subsurface using emitted radio waves. The coastal dune environment present at PJ Hoffmaster State Park represents an ideal environment to utilize this technology (1). The contrast of subsurface soils show up as reflective layers which can be interpreted as sedimentary layers using GPR data. Subsurface layers provide insight to the historic dune structure, revealing past erosional or depositional events and possibly paleo wind directions (2).

Revision Of The Genus Styxosaurus And Relationships Of The Late Cretaceous Elasmosaurids (Sauropterygia: Plesiosauria) Of The Western Interior Seaway, Elliott Armour Smith

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Growing evidence indicates that elasmosaurid plesiosaurs from the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway are members of a single clade, the Styxosaurinae. The styxosaurines are reported to be mostly Campanian in age, and taxa within the clade obtain the longest necks, by number of cervical vertebrae, of any known vertebrate. The styxosaurines are morphologically diverse and include taxa that exhibit a secondary reduction in neck length. Given the evolutionary plasticity of postcranial characters in plesiosaurs in general, and neck length in elasmosaurs, scrutiny of cranial osteology is pertinent to advancing understanding of Western Interior Seaway elasmosaurids. This study finds that an …

A Shallow Subsurface Investigation Of The Calvin University Campus, Neil Van Kanegan, Melinda C. Higley

Summer Research

The intent of this project is to use three main datasets (Ground Penetrating Radar lines, a single hand-auger boring carried out by the research team, and a series of hand auger borings done on the Commons Lawn area for the purposes of construction consulting) to investigate what sedimentary units could be identified on Calvin’s campus, and how the identified units fit into a broader picture of known sedimentary processes in West Michigan, with a particular emphasis placed on the glacial history of the area.

Lake Volume Data Analyses: A Deep Look Into The Shrinking And Expansion Patterns Of Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo, Hispaniola, Mahrokh Moknatian, Michael Piasecki

Publications and Research

This paper presents the development of an evenly spaced volume time series for Lakes Azuei and Enriquillo both located on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The time series is derived from an unevenly spaced Landsat imagery data set which is then exposed to several imputation methods to construct the gap filled uniformly‐spaced time series so it can be subjected to statistical analyses methods. The volume time series features both gradual and sudden changes the latter of which is attributed to North Atlantic cyclone activity. Relevant cyclone activity is defined as an event passing within 80 km and having regional monthly …

David Quentin Bowen: A Memorial, John T. Andrews, David R. Bridgland, Peter U. Clark, Thomas M. Cronin, Claude Hillaire-Marcel, Darrel Maddy, Gifford H. Miller, Daniel R. Muhs, Colin V. Murray-Wallace

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The Quaternary community lost a giant and a leader on October 5, 2020, when David Quentin Bowen, known to many as “DQ” and founding editor of Quaternary Science Reviews, passed away in Cardiff. Born on February 14, 1938 in Llanelli, SouthWales, he received his PhD at University College London. David’s 50 years of contributions to our science cannot be adequately summarized in a brief memorial but past, present, and future generations of Quaternary scientists will long remember his landmark achievements in publishing, his scientific contributions, and his personal and professional class in all his endeavors.

Testing Glacial Isostatic Adjustment Models Of Last-Interglacial Sea Level History In The Bahamas And Bermuda, Daniel R. Muhs, Kathleen R. Simmons, R. Randall Schumann, Eugene S. Schweig, Mark P. Rowe

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Part of the spatial variation in the apparent sea-level record of the last interglacial (LIG) period is due to the diverse response of coastlines to glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) processes, particularly where coastlines were close to the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the past two glacial periods. We tested modeled LIG paleo-sea levels on New Providence Island (NPI), Bahamas and Bermuda by investigating emergent coral patch reefs and oolitic/peloidal beach deposits. Corals with closed-system histories collected from patch reefs on NPI have ages of 128-118 ka and ooids/peloids from beach ridges have closed-system ages of 128-116 ka. Elevations of patch reefs …

Uptake, Metabolism, And Elimination Of Fungicides From Coated Wheat Seeds In Japanese Quail (Coturnix Japonica), Michael S. Gross, Thomas G. Bean, Michelle L. Hladik, Barnett A. Rattner, Kathryn M. Kuivila

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Pesticides coated to the seed surface potentially pose an ecological risk to granivorous birds that consume incompletely buried or spilled seeds. To assess the toxicokinetics of seeds treated with current-use fungicides, Japanese quail ( Coturnix japonica) were orally dosed with commercially coated wheat seeds. Quail were exposed to metalaxyl, tebuconazole, and fludioxonil at either a low dose (0.0655, 0.0308, and 0.0328 mg/kg of body weight, respectively) or a high dose (0.196, 0.0925, and 0.0985 mg/kg of body weight, respectively). Fungicides were rapidly absorbed and distributed to tissues. Tebuconazole was metabolized into tert-butylhydroxy-tebuconazole. All compounds were eliminated to below detection limits …

Adjusting The Lens Of Invasion Biology To Focus On The Impacts Of Climate-Driven Range Shifts, Piper D. Wallingford, Toni Lyn Morelli, Jenica M. Allen, Evelyn M. Beaury, Dana M. Blumenthal, Bethany A. Bradley, Jeffrey S. Dukes, Regan Early, Emily J. Fusco, Deborah E. Goldberg, Inés Ibáñez, Brittany B. Laginhas, Montserrat Vilà, Cascade J.B. Sorte

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

As Earth’s climate rapidly changes, species range shifts are considered key to species persistence. However, some range-shifting species will alter community structure and ecosystem processes. By adapting existing invasion risk assessment frameworks, we can identify characteristics shared with high-impact introductions and thus predict potential impacts. There are fundamen- tal differences between introduced and range-shifting species, primarily shared evolutionary histories between range shifters and their new community. Nevertheless, impacts can occur via analogous mechanisms, such as wide dispersal, community disturbance and low biotic resistance. As ranges shift in response to climate change, we have an opportunity to develop plans to facilitate …

Trends In Streamflow And Precipitation For Selected Sites In The Elkhorn River Basin And In Streamflow In The Salt Creek And Platte River Basins, Nebraska, 1961–2011, Benjamin J. Dietsch, Kellan R. Strauch

United States Geological Survey: Publications

To better understand the streamflow trends at the streamgages in the Elkhorn River Basin in Nebraska, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District further investigated streamflow trends at the eight streamgages on the Elkhorn River, Salt Creek, and the Lower Platte River that indicated a positive trend in streamflow characteristics and analyzed precipitation trends in the four basins upstream from the Elkhorn River Basin streamgages. An analysis of four streamgages in the Elkhorn River Basin, one streamgage in Salt Creek Basin, and three streamgages in the Lower Platte River Basin that had previously …

Modeling Escherichia Coli In The Missouri River Near Omaha, Nebraska, 2012–16, Brenda K. Densmore, Brent M. Hall, Matthew T. Moser

United States Geological Survey: Publications

The city of Omaha, Nebraska, has a combined sewer system in some areas of the city. In Omaha, Nebr., a moderate amount of rainfall will lead to the combination of stormwater and untreated sewage or wastewater being discharged directly into the Missouri River and Papillion Creek and is called a combined sewer overflow (CSO) event. In 2009, the city of Omaha began the implementation of their Long Term Control Plan (LTCP) to mitigate the effects of CSOs on the Missouri River and Papillion Creek. As part of the LTCP, the city partnered with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in 2012 …