Earth Sciences Commons^™

Integrating Lidar, Aeromagnetic, And Geological Field Data To Identify Structural-Lithologic Elements Within The Archean Carney Lake Gneiss Complex, Ian M. Gannon

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Archean Carney Lake Gneiss Complex (CLGC) is a suite of rocks on the southern margin of the Superior Province and within the Minnesota River Valley subprovince. It is one of many gneissic domes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota whose complex geology is poorly understood due to a previous lack of economic interest in gneissic terranes and significant challenges to their investigation. As a consequence, the CLGC and other gneissic domes in the region are represented on geologic maps as undifferentiated masses surrounded by better defined and understood Paleoproterozoic supracrustal rocks and igneous intrusions. Within the last ten years, however, …

Opportunities And Challenges In Augmenting Honey Bee Forage Resources With Pasture Legumes In Southern Australia, M. Kratz, M. Brown, M. T. Newell, R. C. Hayes

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

More than 80% of Australian honey is produced from native tree and shrub species. However, with increasing demands on public lands along with production risks posed by drought, floods and wildfires, there is a need to identify alternative forage resources to augment Australian honey production. With over 30 pasture legumes now available for agriculture in southern Australia, opportunity exists to increase the utilisation of some species with co-benefits to multiple production industries. However, there is little understanding of the potential value of most pasture legumes for honey production, and side by side comparisons are complicated by factors such as differences …

Data Curation For Modeling Tall Fescue Biomass Dynamics With Dssat-Csm, M. B. Hanson, P. D. Alderman, T. J. Butler, A. Caldeira Rocateli

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

While models for predicting forage production are available to aid management decisions for some forage crops, there is limited research for a yield model designed specifically for tall fescue (Schedonorus arundinaceus). Therefore, our objective was to adapt an existing perennial forage model, the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer Cropping Systems Model (DSSAT-CSM) for predicting forage biomass of tall fescue in the southern Great Plains. To evaluate model performance, there must first be a high level of data manipulation and cleaning. In this project, a cohesive dataset combining biomass, weather, soil, and management data were structured into DSSAT …

Can Changing Breeding Structure Serve As A Climate Adaptation Strategy? Evidence From A Comparative Study Of China And Mongolia, Y. Zhang, Z. Huang, J. Wang, Y. Huang, T. Hao, G. Xu

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Under the influence of climate change, the vulnerability of grassland ecosystems in the Mongolian Plateau has increased. Correspondingly, herdsmen need to adopt more livelihood adaptation strategies to cope with changes in climate and grassland environment. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of breeding structure on grassland quality in Mongolian plateau. We select 20 border provinces/banners of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region for research, and combined statistical data with remote sensing data of 2007-2016. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is used to quantify the grassland vegetation quality. Results show that there are differences in livestock …

Land Systems, Soils And Vegetation Of The Southern Goldfields And Great Western Woodlands Of Western Australia - Volume 1, Peter-Jon A. Waddell, Paul Galloway

Technical Bulletins

This technical bulletin defines and maps the land resources of the southern Goldfields region of Western Australia (WA). The southern Goldfields region, as featured in this bulletin, covers 151,753 km². The western and eastern borders are variable because they align with various cadastral boundaries. The western survey border, which in part follows the WA State Barrier Fence, demarcates cleared agricultural land from the intact, western extent of the Great Western Woodlands. The eastern border abuts the westernmost Nullarbor pastoral lease boundaries, except for the north-easternmost and south-easternmost edges which continue into Crown land. Major towns are Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie …

Land Systems, Soils And Vegetation Of The Southern Goldfields And Great Western Woodlands Of Western Australia - Volume 2, Peter-Jon A. Waddell, Paul Galloway

Technical Bulletins

This technical bulletin defines and maps the land resources of the southern Goldfields region of Western Australia (WA). The southern Goldfields region, as featured in this bulletin, covers 151,753 km². The western and eastern borders are variable because they align with various cadastral boundaries. The western survey border, which in part follows the WA State Barrier Fence, demarcates cleared agricultural land from the intact, western extent of the Great Western Woodlands. The eastern border abuts the westernmost Nullarbor pastoral lease boundaries, except for the north-easternmost and south-easternmost edges which continue into Crown land. Major towns are Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie …

Nitrogen Behavior In A No-Tillage Agroecosystem Located In The Inner Bluegrass Of Kentucky, Alec William Besinger Mr.

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Nitrogen (N) is a crucial element, often limiting productivity in ecosystems. This limitation is relieved N fertilizer additions. No-tillage (NT) agroecosystems are prone to lower N availability translating to lower crop yields. The default explanation for lower N availability in NT is microbial immobilization of added N fertilizer. Historically, N availability is often assessed using chemical extractions such as KCl to evaluate levels of inorganic N in the soil. The possibility of this abiotic clay mineral fixation as mechanism in well-drained NT soils has been overlooked. The objectives of this study are to quantify N availability using KCl, NaCl, and …

Hydrogeologic Field Trip Of Northeast Nebraska, Sue Olafsen Lackey, Kathleen Cameron, Matt Marxsen

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

2023 Nebraska Water Leaders Academy, Mark E. Burbach, Robert Matthew Joeckel

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

Eighteen participants completed the 2023 Water Leaders Academy bringing the total number of graduates to 186 since the inception of the program in 2011. Assessments of participants’ transformational leadership skills, champion of innovation skills, water knowledge, engagement with water issues, civic capacity, entrepreneurial leadership behaviors, boundary spanning skills, and curiosity increased significantly over the course of the year, according to both the participants and their raters. Feedback from the participants was highly positive and constructive. Academy planners are addressing participant concerns. Results of the program assessment indicate that the curriculum is meeting the Academy’s objectives. Therefore, only minor changes are …

Telescopic Megafans On The High Plains, Usa Were Signal Buffers In A Major Source-To-Sink System, Jesse T. Korus Dr., Robert Matthew Joeckel

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

3d Hydrostratigraphic And Hydraulic Conductivity Modeling Using Supervised Machine Learning, T. A. Tilahun, Jesse T. Korus Dr.

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Nebraska's Water, Nawaraj Shrestha, Ann Briggs, Aaron R. Young, Robert Matthew Joeckel

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Conservation And Survey Division 2023 Annual Report, R. M. Joeckel, M. M. Waszgis

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Holocene Variations In Lake Titicaca Water Level And Their Implications For Sociopolitical Developments In The Central Andes, Stéphane Guédron, Christophe Delaere, Sherilyn C. Fritz, Julie Tolu, Pierre Sabatier, Anne-Lise Devel, Carlos Heredia, Claire Vérin, Eduardo Q. Alves, Paul A. Baker

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Holocene climate in the high tropical Andes was characterized by both gradual and abrupt changes, which disrupted the hydrological cycle and impacted landscapes and societies. High-resolution paleoenvironmental records are essential to contextualize archaeological data and to evaluate the sociopolitical response of ancient societies to environmental variability. Middle-to-Late Holocene water levels in Lake Titicaca were reevaluated through a transfer function model based on measurements of organic carbon stable isotopes, combined with high-resolution profiles of other geochemical variables and paleoshoreline indicators. Our reconstruction indicates that following a prolonged low stand during the Middle Holocene (4000 to 2400 BCE), lake level rose rapidly …

Spatial And Temporal Characteristics Of Historical Surface Climate Over The Northwest Territories, Canada, Bhaleka D. Persaud

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Climate change is putting many of the Northwest Territories (NWT) ecosystems, its people and animal populations at risk due to accelerated warming, permafrost thaw, and changing precipitation regimes. As the NWT continues to warm, at disproportionately higher rates when compared to the rest of Canada, threats to the stability of NWT’s ecosystems are expected to increase. Consequently, understanding how climate warming has changed historically and its implications on natural ecosystems requires point-to-region-specific, long-term climatic data to elucidate important drivers of observed changes relevant to decision makers at community, Indigenous, Territorial and Federal government levels. However, in situ climate data are …

The Dynamic Relationship Between Permafrost And Landcover In Northwestern Canada’S Discontinuous Permafrost Zone, Olivia Carpino

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Northwestern Canada’s subarctic is among the most impacted regions in the world as it is experiencing rapid climatic and environmental change. As a result, northwestern Canada has been experiencing region-wide permafrost thaw and disappearance, both of which are also occurring at unprecedented rates. Permafrost temperatures in the Taiga Plains have been warming steadily over the last several decades, which has been particularly detrimental across its lower latitudes of the discontinuous permafrost zone where the permafrost is already relatively thin and warm. These factors indicate that permafrost in the southern Taiga Plains may be in a state of disequilibrium with the …

Phosphorus Release And Recovery From Simulated Ferric Wastewater Sludge, Aseel Alnimer

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Phosphorus (P) is a fundamental element necessary for all life forms and a key component in the fertilizer industry. Meanwhile, the excessive load of P to water bodies due to human activities has the potential to promote eutrophication. Wastewater treatment plants remove P either biologically or chemically and produce P rich sludge which could be a potential renewable source for P. At present, commercial technologies exist for P recovery from biological wastewater sludge. However, P recovery from chemical sludge particularly iron(III)-phosphate (Fe-P) sludge generated in chemical P removal plants that use iron(III) salts remains a challenge.

This study explored, in …

Lateral Spacing Of Subsurface Poultry Litter Bands: Effect On Gaseous Nitrogen Emissions, Nutrient Uptake, And Maize Yield, Jason R. Simmons

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Poultry litter (PL) is traditionally applied to no-till maize (Zea mays L.) cropping systems by surface broadcast. Poultry litter is nutrient dense, and it has been repeatedly shown that surface applied PL nitrogen (N) is vulnerable to losses to the atmosphere and nearby water systems. An application method was developed by USDA-Agricultural Research Service scientists for banding poultry litter (PL) below the soil surface with minimal soil disturbance to reduce ammonia (NH₃) volatilization and surface run-off. It is well documented that subsurface applied poultry litter (PL) reduces N losses by ammonia (NH₃) volatilization; however, the …

Understanding The Impacts Of Freshwater Fluxes On The Biogeochemistry Of The Coastal Arctic: A Case Study Of Prudhoe Bay, Francesca Lingo

Dissertations and Theses

The Arctic region, undergoing significant environmental changes due to rapid warming, faces alterations in air temperatures, melting permafrost, declining sea ice, and changes in riverine inputs. These shifts have profound implications for Arctic coastal ecology and biogeochemical cycles. This study, focusing on Alaska's North Slope, explores the influence of freshwater fluxes on water optical properties, vital for accurate satellite remote sensing interpretations. Our approach combined field measurements, existing data, and satellite remote sensing retrievals to identify biogeochemical gradients and their seasonal and interannual variations. A novel finding was the unique CDOM composition in Prudhoe Bay, characterized by a lower molecular …

Fine Characterization Of Leafing Phenology In The Brazilian Atlantic Forest By Optical And Microwave Remote Sensing, James B. Bell

Dissertations and Theses

Tropical forests provide important ecosystem functions in the global biosphere, but they remain among the most poorly understood elements of land surface models, especially with regard to their seasonal dynamics. For instance, in seasonally dry forests, the pattern of the annual green-up in their canopies closely follows annual patterns of rainfall. The same, however, does not occur in wet forest canopies which are dominated by evergreen trees. In the latter, water is not scarce enough to limit leaf photosynthetic function. Canopy leafing phenology in these forests is therefore poorly characterized by optical remote sensing methods which are not sensitive to …

Analysis Of Chemical Elements In Basalts Using Mislabeled Data, A Machine Learning Approach, Jenifer Vivar

Dissertations and Theses

Scientists use basalt chemistry to discriminate among different tectonic settings. There are well-known chemical elements used to classify tectonic settings. An exploration of new features is done using Logistic Regression and Random Forest to discover any new elements of interest. The models were used with other tools, such as recursive feature elimination and permutations, to increase reliability. Among the scarcely explored chemical elements are Terbium (Tb), Holmium (Ho), Samarium (Sm), and Erbium (Er). The data used for the exploration contained many outliers. Therefore, an ensemble model was created to explore the location and composition of such outliers. The ensemble was …

Shallow Water Coral Distribution And Its Response To Climate Change, Amaury De Jesus

Dissertations and Theses

Shallow water corals are one of the main reef-building organisms that secrete carbonates as their skeletons, and therefore, are one of the major sinks of CO2 in the ocean. These reef builders are also very crucial to marine environments and human society. As the global energy demand continues rising, fossil fuel burning increases at a faster pace despite the increase in energy supply using clean and renewable energy. The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere has been shown to exacerbate global warming and may cause ocean acidification, threatening the habitat of shallow-water corals. Many recent observations show alarming signs of …

A Novel Technique For The Quantitative Determination Of Wettability Of A Severely Heterogeneous Tight Carbonate Reservoir, Saleh Al-Sayegh, Ralph E. Flori, Waleed Al-Bazzaz, Abdulaziz Abbas, Ali Qubian, Hasan Al-Saedi

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The objective of this study is to accurately measure the wettability contact angle of a cretaceous carbonate reservoir in a vertical well set-up known for as an unconventional tight carbonate oil reservoir. Also, to investigate the relative heterogeneity of these samples using digitally captured images; these images accurately capture natural pore-system in this carbonate rock samples and their wettability performance attributed towards building a vertical depth wettability/heterogeneity model. To capture, measure and model natural tight matrix static contact angle wettability in order to understand their new physics that will advance unconventional tight oil reservoir characterization. Entire vertical well depth reservoir …

Practical Imaging Applications Of Wettability Contact Angles On Kuwaiti Tight Carbonate Reservoir With Different Rock Types, Saleh Al-Sayegh, Ralph E. Flori, Waleed Al-Bazzaz, Sohaib Kholosy, Hasan Al-Saedi, Abdulaziz Abbas, Ali Qubian

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This study focuses on a tight carbonate reservoir which is located in Northern Kuwait and is classified as an unconventional reservoir. A practical imaging technique of wettability contact angle (θ°) presents "big data" as well as relative-permeability (Krw and Kro) measurements. Also, modeling, through rock image technology, the vast well-documented grain/pore boundary morphology available inside fresh rock fragments have achieved good results. Conventional laboratory relative-permeability experiments are expensive and time-consuming. This study introduces a novel method to measure/calculate relative permeability through fast, less expensive, non-destructive, and environmentally friendly techniques of imaging technology. One tight carbonate reservoir is selected, imaged, processed, …

Ongoing Fragmentation Of The Subducting Cocos Slab, Central America, Tu Xue, Diandian Peng, Kelly H. Liu, Jonathan Obrist-Farner, Marek Locmelis, Stephen S. Gao, Lijun Liu

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Fundamental to plate tectonics is the subduction of cold and mechanically strong oceanic plates. While the subducted plates are conventionally regarded to be impermeable to mantle flow and separate the mantle wedge and the sub slab region, isolated openings have been proposed. by combining new shear wave splitting measurements with results from geodynamic modeling and recent seismic tomography and geochemical observations, we show that the upper ~200 km of the Cocos slab in northern Central America is intensively fractured. the slab there is strong enough to produce typical arc volcanoes and Benioff Zone earthquakes but allows mantle flow to traverse …

Exploring Beaver-Facilitated Restoration In Grassland Channelized Streams, Jessica L. Sikora

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Freshwater streams provide vital ecosystem services, but their ecological function is gravely impacted by agricultural practices especially in grassland ecosystems. Though there is evidence that the re-introduction of beavers can help restore the ecological function of streams, little is known about their restorative impacts in grasslands. At Nachusa Grasslands Preserve in Franklin Grove, IL, we investigated the presence and impact of beaver dams on their waterways. With increasing beaver dam volume, we found an increase in sediment retention and less sediment retention with increasing beaver dams upstream from a dam. Though we did not find evidence that beaver dam volume …

Late Holocene Terrestrial Hydroclimate Reconstructions From Central And South American Sites, Brittany N. Price

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Terrestrial records of hydroclimate variability from Central and South America were developed to better constrain previously unknown regional responses to a range of hydroclimate drivers in the recent past. Developing these late Holocene terrestrial hydroclimate records improves our understanding of past hydroclimate variability by increasing temporal resolution and allows us to further understand complexities in spatial dynamics of the climate system. From South-Central Chile, a geomorphic analysis of landforms emplaced in a glacial valley indicated a positive glacial mass balance in the recent past. A high-precision chlorine-36 chronology was developed from basaltic boulders, with additional minimum constraining ages from Araucaria …

Bibliography, Leslie North

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Bibliography of publications by Leslie North.

Addressing Soil Carbon Sequestration Response From Multispecies Dairy Forage Systems And Modeling Rangeland Beef Cow Dry Matter Intake Using Precision Enteric Emissions Measurements, Lillian J. Mcfadden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Regenerative agriculture is a pressing matter for the dairy industry to address cropland sustainability and carbon sequestration. One regenerative management practice that has been identified to help with row crop sustainability for key metrics like soil organic carbon (SOC) is complex covers. When producers use complex covers one of the main challenges is that it takes time to detect a change in SOC. However, simulation models are a tool that can be used to help determine if a regenerative practice is a strategy that gives the best results (i.e., increased SOC) while aligning with long-term production goals. Therefore, our objectives …

Assessing How Long-Term Conservation Agricultural Practices Impact Soil Properties And Soil, Water, And Nutrient Dynamics Through Soil Profile, Ajoy Kumar Saha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.