Geochemistry Commons^™

Enriched Continental Flood Basalts From Depleted Mantle Melts: Modeling The Lithospheric Contamination Of Karoo Lavas From Antarctica, Jussi S. Heinonen, Arto V. Luttinen, Wendy A. Bohrson

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Continental flood basalts (CFBs) represent large-scale melting events in the Earth’s upper mantle and show considerable geochemical heterogeneity that is typically linked to substantial contribution from underlying continental lithosphere. Large-scale partial melting of the cold subcontinental lithospheric mantle and the large amounts of crustal contamination suggested by traditional binary mixing or assimilation-fractional crystallization models are difficult to reconcile with the thermal and compositional characteristics of continental lithosphere, however. The well-exposed CFBs of Vestfjella, western Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, belong to the Jurassic Karoo large igneous province and provide a prime locality to quantify mass contributions of lithospheric and sublithospheric sources …

Mineralogy And Geochemistry Of Late Archean And Paleoproterozoic Granites And Pegmatites In The Northern Penokean Terrane Of Marquette And Dickinson Counties, Michigan, Christopher M. Johnson, Christopher M. Van Daalen

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on mineralogy, geochemistry, and origin of eight pegmatites and two spatially associated granites of Late Archean and Paleoproterozoic ages located in Marquette and Dickinson Counties, Michigan. Biotite geochemistry reveals that both granites and all pegmatites are peraluminous and have an orogenic signature. However, bulk composition reveals the Humboldt granite is a peraluminous A-type granite and the Bell Creek granite is a peraluminous mix between I-, S-, and A-type granites. The Republic Mine pegmatite appears to be geochemically similar to the Bell Creek granite and Grizzly pegmatite. The Crockley pegmatite is genetically related to the Humboldt granite. The …

An Investigation Of The Effects Of Chemical And Physical Weathering On Submerged Karst Surfaces, Bryan Charles Booth

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reports an investigation of the effects of chemical and physical weathering on submerged karst surfaces that pairs laboratory studies with computer modeling studies. The first study attempts to quantify the production of carbonate fines; soluble sediments produced by the incomplete dissolution of karst minerals during chemical weathering. Results show carbonate fine production in relation to dissolutional action; Chalk: 42.8%; Coquina: 2.6%; Dolomite: 3.1%; Gray Limestone: 4.8%; Ocala Limestone: 3.1%; Shell Limestone: 6.1%; Travertine: 8.6%. Due to the use of hydrochloric acid as opposed to carbonic acid these results may not be fully valid for application to natural speleogenic processes. The …

Petrological And Geochemical Evaluation Of The Sturgeon Falls Intrusive Body, Jonathan Michael Haynes

Masters Theses

The Sturgeon Falls Intrusive Body (SFIB) is a gabbroic intrusion located along the Michigan-Wisconsin border just south of the town of Norway, MI. The SFIB is bounded to the north by the Niagara Shear Zone and the Michigamme Formation (Schulz and Cannon, 2006) and to the south by an unnamed thrust fault zone and the Quinnesec Formation (Sims and Schulz, 1993). Field mapping has shown that the SFIB is composed almost entirely of metagabbro metamorphosed to greenschist facies, with isolated outcrops of clinopyroxenite, which are thought to be xenoliths.

The origin of the SFIB is controversial. Schulz and LeBerge (2003) …

Exploring, Exploiting And Evolving Diversity Of Aquatic Ecosystem Models: A Community Perspective, Annette B.G. Janssen, George B. Arhonditsis, Arthur Beusen, Karsten Bolding, Louise Bruce, Jorn Bruggeman, Raoul-Marie Couture, Andrea S. Downing, J. Alex Elliott, Marieke A. Frassl, Gideon Gal, Daan J. Gerla, Matthew R. Hipsey, Fenjuan Hu, Stephen C. Ives, Jan H. Janse, Erik Jeppesen, Klaus D. Jöhnk, David Kneis, Xiangzhen Kong, Jan J. Kuiper, Moritz K. Lehmann, Carsten Lemmen, Deniz Özkundakci, Thomas Petzoldt, Karsten Rinke, Barbara J. Robson, René Sachse, Sebastiaan A. Schep, Martin Schmid, Huub Scholten, Sven Teurlincx, Dennis Trolle, Tineke A. Troost, Anne A. Van Dam, Luuk P.A. Van Gerven, Mariska Weijerman, Scott A. Wells, Wolf M. Mooij

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Here, we present a community perspective on how to explore, exploit and evolve the diversity in aquatic ecosystem models. These models play an important role in understanding the functioning of aquatic ecosystems, filling in observation gaps and developing effective strategies for water quality management. In this spirit, numerous models have been developed since the 1970s. We set off to explore model diversity by making an inventory among 42 aquatic ecosystem modellers, by categorizing the resulting set of models and by analysing them for diversity. We then focus on how to exploit model diversity by comparing and combining different aspects of …

Characterization Of Gold And Related Mineralization At The North Bullion Carlin System, Railroad Project, A Nevada Carlin-~Type Gold Prospect, Melanie Nicole Newton

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A study of the North Bullion Carlin system, a Nevada Carlin-type gold prospect located on trend with the large Carlin-type gold deposits (CTGD) of the Carlin Trend, identified characteristics of ore and alteration mineralization, mineral paragenesis, and pyrite and whole rock geochemistry that are similar to characteristics that typify Carlin-type gold deposits. The North Bullion Carlin system is hosted in Devonian shelf carbonates and the Mississippian overlap assemblage, host rocks that are different from typical CTGD shelf-slope carbonate assemblage host rocks. The mineralogy and ore-stage gold-bearing pyrite rims at North Bullion are not as well developed as they are in …

Ediacaran Ocean Redox Evolution, Swapan Kumar Sahoo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The relative role that environmental versus intrinsic biological factors played in

shaping the history of life on Earth is a fundamental but unanswered question in the

natural sciences. Most famously, it has been heavily debated if the emergence and

diversification of early animals during the Ediacaran Period (ca. 635–541 Ma) was tied to

a rise in atmospheric-oceanic oxygen levels. Temporally discontinuous geochemical data and patchy fossil record in literature are inadequate to chart the Ediacaran redox history and its causal relationship with the biotic evolution. My PhD study aims for a multiproxy geochemical record within a well-established stratigraphic framework of …

Dissolution Of Nontronite In Low Water Activity Brines And Implications For The Aqueous History Of Mars, Michael Henry Steiner

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Water is essential to life on Earth and is likely to play a role in determining the habitability of other planets. Pure liquid water is not stable on the surface of Mars but brines can temporarily remain liquid, and increasing evidence suggests the presence of recent liquid water, including brines, on Mars. Brines can host life at temperatures as low as -30 ºC and some organisms can live at activities of water as low as 0.61. Therefore, if brines have been present on Mars, they may act as habitable environments.

The Fe-rich smectite nontronite, (CaO0.5,Na)0.3 Fe3+2(Si,Al)4O10(OH)2·nH2O, has been detected on …

Predictive Modeling Of Terrestrial Radiation Exposure From Geologic Materials, Daniel A. Haber

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Aerial gamma ray surveys are an important tool for national security, scientific, and industrial interests in determining locations of both anthropogenic and natural sources of radioactivity. There is a relationship between radioactivity and geology and in the past this relationship has been used to predict geology from an aerial survey. The purpose of this project

is to develop a method to predict the radiologic exposure rate of the geologic materials in an area by creating a model using geologic data, images from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), geochemical data, and pre-existing low spatial resolution aerial surveys …

Erratum To: Zn (Ii) And Cu (Ii) Adsorption And Retention Onto Iron Oxyhydroxide Nanoparticles: Effects Of Particle Aggregation And Salinity, Rebecca B. Chesne, Christopher S. Kim

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

In the original version of this article errors in Figs. 5 and 9 were identified by the authors. The corrected figures are given.

Investigation Of The Mechanisms For Mobilization Of Arsenic In Two Asr Systems In Southwest Central Florida, Gregg William Jones

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) is a strategy in which water is injected into an aquifer when it is plentiful and pumped from the aquifer when water is scarce. An impediment to ASR in Florida is leaching of naturally-occurring arsenic from limestone of the Upper Floridan Aquifer System (UFAS) into stored water. The concentration of arsenic in surface water, which serves as the recharge water for many ASR systems, and native groundwater is usually much less than 3.0 µ/L. However, data from ASR wells in Florida show that arsenic in recovered water frequently exceeded the 10 µg/L maximum contaminant level …

Phosphorus Sorption Dynamics In Shallow Groundwater, Coastal Everglades, Florida, Usa, Hilary Flower

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For this dissertation I studied phosphorus (P) sorption dynamics in the shallow groundwater of the southern Everglades. In particular, I examined how the ambient water type governs soluble reactive P (SRP) availability through adsorption/desorption reactions with the aquifer matrix. Chapter 2 investigated how P sorption dynamics of the mangrove root zone sediment are affected by high bicarbonate brackish groundwater compared to both fresh groundwater and saltwater. The results from chapter 2 show that the sediment exhibited exceptionally low sorption efficiency in the high bicarbonate brackish water, which would allow ambient water SRP concentration to be maintained at a higher level. …

40ar/39ar Ages Of Lunar Impact Glasses: Relationships Among Ar Diffusivity, Chemical Composition, Shape, And Size, John W. Delano Phd, Nicolle Zellner

Atmospheric and Environmental Science Faculty Scholarship

Lunar impact glasses, which are quenched melts produced during cratering events on the Moon, have the potential to providenot only compositional information about both the local and regional geology of the Moon but also information about the impact flux over time. We present in this paper the results of 73 new 40Ar/39Ar analyses of well-characterized, inclusion-free lunar impact glasses and demonstrate that size, shape, chemical composition, fraction of radiogenic 40Ar retained, and cosmic ray exposure (CRE) ages are important for 40Ar/39Ar investigations of these samples. Specifically, analyses of lunar impact glasses from the Apollo 14, 16, and 17 landing sites …

Ocean Forcing Of Quaternary East Antarctic Ice Sheet Evolution: An Ice-Proximal Sedimentary Perspective, Michelle E. Guitard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Antarctica and the Southern Ocean play a critical role in Earth’s climate system. Antarctica’s ice sheets contain enough ice to raise global sea level by ~58 m, and the Southern Ocean distributes climate signals and nutrients to the major ocean basins and the deep ocean. Antarctica’s largest ice sheet, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), was considered stable compared to those in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula because it was thought to be grounded above sea level. However, subglacial topography now reveals vast submarine basins and measurements of ice velocity in the Pacific sector indicate marine-terminating outlet glacier thinning …

Hydrochemical Characteristics And Formation Mechanism Of Groundwater In The Liulin Karst System, Min Yang, Feng'e Zhang, Sheng Zhang, Miying Yin, Guoqing Wu

Sinkhole Conference 2015

The Liulin karst system is typical of hydrogeological systems in northwestern China, with a group of springs as the dominant mechanism for regional groundwater discharge. To reveal the hydrochemical formation mechanism of the Liulin karst groundwater system, we studied the hydrogeochemical processes of karst groundwater in aquifers at the base of the hydrogeological investigation. Then starting from the chemical composition of karst groundwater together with the recharge-runoff - discharge process of groundwater systems, we analyzed the solutes origin and the dissolved mineral facies of the groundwater chemical composition. The results showed that the anionic and cationic compositions of karst water …

Determination Of The Relationship Of Nitrate To Discharge And Flow Systems In North Florida Springs, Sam B. Upchurch

Sinkhole Conference 2015

The Suwannee River Water Management District has collected quarterly discharge and water quality data from 30 1st and 2nd magnitude springs in the Suwannee River Basin since 1998. These data were collected quarterly well into the late 2000s and constitute a valuable database for characterizing spring discharge behavior. Trend and correlation analyses were used to compare the relationships of NO3- + NO2- (nitrate in this paper), specific conductance, and spring discharge. Trends were considered significant if alpha levels of the trend slopes were ≤ 0.05. Data from 50% of the springs show that nitrate concentrations increase as discharge from the …

Using Nitrate, Chloride, Sodium, And Sulfate To Calculate Groundwater Age, Kimm Crawford, Terry Lee

Sinkhole Conference 2015

Regression analysis is used to identify monotonic trends to assign water age using ion data from two large well water databases from southeast Minnesota (SE MN). Nitrate (NO3-N), chloride (Cl), sodium (Na), and sulfate (SO4) ions in the commonly used aquifers in SE MN can be used as groundwater tracers since they are either entirely or partly anthropogenic in their sources, their loading occurs on a regional scale, and they are almost entirely conserved. Ion concentrations over time are used to establish six trend patterns. Two patterns are unchanging (background and stable above background), and four are changing (linear up, …

Hydrologic And Geochemical Dynamics Of Vadose Zone Recharge In A Mantled Karst Aquifer: Results Of Monitoring Drip Waters In Mystery Cave, Minnesota, Daniel H. Doctor, E. Calvin Alexander Jr., Roy Jameson, Scott C. Alexander

Sinkhole Conference 2015

Caves provide direct access to flows through the vadose zone that recharge karst aquifers. Although many recent studies have documented the highly dynamic processes associated with vadose zone flows in karst settings, few have been conducted in mantled karst settings, such as that of southeastern Minnesota. Here we present some results of a long-term program of cave drip monitoring conducted within Mystery Cave, Minnesota. In this study, two perennial ceiling drip sites were monitored between 1997 and 2001. The sites were located about 90 m (300 ft) apart along the same cave passage approximately 18 m (60 ft) below the …

Tracer Studies Conducted Nearly Two Decades Apart Elucidate Groundwater Movement Through A Karst Aquifer In The Frederick Valley Of Maryland, Keith A. White, Michael K. Cobb, Thomas Aley, Ethan Weikel

Sinkhole Conference 2015

A pair of groundwater tracer studies at a single karst test site were completed 18 years apart. The results of these studies have provided evidence of both relatively rapid advective transport via conduits and an extreme capacity for dye storage and retardation. The tracer results, coupled with other subsurface investigation data, are used to develop a conceptual model for groundwater movement through this karst aquifer in the Frederick Valley of Maryland, as well as identify implications for remediation. Three fluorescent tracer dyes used in the initial study were detected in several background monitoring locations established for the second study conducted …

The Rise Of Fire: Fossil Charcoal In Late Devonian Marine Shales As An Indicator Of Expanding Terrestrial Ecosystems, Fire, And Atmospheric Change, Susan M. Rimmer, Sarah J. Hawkins, Andrew C. Scott, Walter L. Cressler Iii

Earth & Space Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

An Investigation Into Transitions In Clay Mineral Chemistry On Mars, Seth Gainey

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation is comprised of three studies investigating clay mineralogy on, or near the martian surface, with an introductory chapter, introducing and linking the three studies. Chapter two is on the subject of clay mineral synthesis, including Fe/Mg clay minerals which have been detected at multiple locations across the southern highlands. These Fe/Mg clay minerals have been previously interpreted as forming in anoxic/reducing environments, conducive to the preservation of organic matter. The results of this study suggest that the previous interpretation of Fe/Mg-rich clay as requiring anoxic/reducing conditions may not be accurate, as the minor presence of Mg (below what …

Using Bromide Tracer To Measure Uranium Diffusivity In Ground Water Sediments, Francis Michael Tee, Morris E. Jones, Megan K. Dustin, Sharon Bone, John Bargar

STAR Program Research Presentations

More than 129 million liters of groundwater are contaminated with uranium at Old Rifle, Colorado – a former uranium-processing site that operated until 1958. The original Department of Energy (DOE) strategy for remediation, involving natural flushing of U from the groundwater through mixing with surface water, has not proven successful. Thin pockets of silt-, clay-, and organic-rich sediments referred to as naturally reduced zones (NRZs) act both as sinks and sources of U to the aquifer, contribute to plume persistence, and appear to be diffusion limited controlled.

To better understand how the NRZs are diffusion limited controlled, a bromide tracer …

Biogeochemical Alteration Of Particulate Pyrogenic Organic Carbon (Pyc), Jason Matthew Stuart

Master's Theses

The resistance of plant derived pyrogenic organic carbon (pyC) to abiotic and biotic means of degradation has led to increased interest in the role of pyC as a potential carbon sink, as well as a strategy for sequestering atmospheric CO2 to mitigate excess carbon emissions. Though much research pertaining to the fundamental properties of pyC degradation have been performed in a controlled lab setting, there has been very little work regarding pyC degradation in a field setting where factors such as precipitation and temperature fluctuate seasonally. This work focuses on various degradation characteristics of two …

The Role Of Blowing Snow In The Activation Of Bromine Over First-Year Antarctic Sea Ice, R. M. Lieb-Lappen, R. W. Obbard

Dartmouth Scholarship

It is well known that during polar springtime halide sea salt ions, in particular Br^-, are photochemically activated into reactive halogen species (e.g., Br and BrO), where they break down tropospheric ozone. This research investigated the role of blowing snow in transporting salts from the sea ice/snow surface into reactive bromine species in the air. At two different locations over first-year ice in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, collection baskets captured blowing snow at different heights. In addition, sea ice cores and surface snow samples were collected throughout the month-long campaign. Over this time, sea ice and surface snow …

Preliminary Isotope Assessment, La Grange Groundwater Area, Glenn A. Harrington

Natural resources commissioned reports

The Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA) is currently undertaking a Royalties for Regions funded project in the La Grange Groundwater Area south of Broome. The focus is on providing improved confidence about soil suitability and water availability for potential expansion of irrigated agriculture in the region. Groundwater in the Broome Sandstone Aquifer (BSA) is the target water resource, however before the La Grange project commenced little was known about the physical and chemical attributes of the aquifer. This report provides the results of estimated groundwater recharge and residence times using environmental tracer techniques.

Sampling of 12 existing …

Metal Mobilization In Groundwater, Bauxite, Ar, Steven Alexander Hamlin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Wilcox Aquifer of Bauxite, AR contains bauxite ore deposits that may contribute heavy metals to groundwater. Twenty-four wells were sampled for aluminum, iron, manganese, zinc, lead, barium, nitrate, sulfate, sodium, alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, chloride, pH, total organic carbon, and total dissolved solids. A Wilcoxon Rank-Sum compared the similarity of the three geographic areas covered in the study. All parameters for wells in Bauxite and Sardis failed to reject the null hypothesis, signifying that wells all occupy the Saline Formation. 2/3rds of the parameters from BFI261 and the Bauxite region did not agree, suggesting the two areas do not occupy …

Solubility And Detectability Of Hydrocarbons On The Surface Of Titan, Sandeep Singh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Titan’s thick atmosphere is enriched with organic compounds and its surface holds reservoirs of hydrocarbons. This makes Titan the only other candidate in our solar system (apart from Earth) to have stable liquid at the surface. The stability and characteristics of liquid and ices on the surface of Titan are of high importance in understanding its surface-atmosphere interactions. Titan’s hydrological cycle is similar to what we see on Earth, with the exception of methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6) taking the place of water. The smoggy atmosphere veils the surface of Titan from the view of Cassini spacecraft, except at seven …

Quantitative Hermeneutics: Counting Forestructures On A Path From W.M. Davis To The Concept Of Multiple-Permeability Karst Aquifers, H. L. Vacher, Lee J. Florea

International Journal of Speleology

Hermeneutics is the theory of interpretation. One of its major components is recognizing prejudgments, or forestructures, that we bring to our objects of study. In this paper, we construct a historical narrative of the evolution of thinking about the role of caves in relation to groundwater flow in limestone, and we tabulate forestructures as they appear in the story. This account consists of three overlapping time periods: the before and after of an incident that repelled hydrogeologists and students of karst from each other in the middle of the 20^th century; a period, up to around the turn of …

Search For Life, John W. Delano Phd

Atmospheric and Environmental Science Faculty Scholarship

NASA's Astrobiology program seeks to determine the origin and distribution of life in the Milky Way galaxy using scientific expertise from many disciplines (e.g., astronomy, biochemistry, geochemistry). This presentation, which provides an overview of the progress that has been made in this effort, was delivered on 23 June 2015 at the Green Mountain Academy for Lifelong Learning in Manchester, VT. With NASA's development of the Space Launch System (SLS), vigorous multi-disciplinary scientific research, and additional spacecraft (e.g., TESS) for finding and analyzing planets orbiting other stars, exciting discoveries will continue.

Growth In Stratospheric Chlorine From Short-Lived Chemicals Not Controlled By The Montreal Protocol, R. Hossaoni, M. P. Chipperfield, A. Saiz-Lopez, J. J. Harrison, R. Von Glasow, R. Sommariva, E. Atlas, M. Navarro, S. A. Montzka, W. Feng, P. F. Bernath

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

We have developed a chemical mechanism describing the tropospheric degradation of chlorine containing very short-lived substances (VSLS). The scheme was included in a global atmospheric model and used to quantify the stratospheric injection of chlorine from anthropogenic VSLS (Cl_y^VSLS) between 2005 and 2013. By constraining the model with surface measurements of chloroform (CHCl₃), dichloromethane (CH₂Cl₂), tetrachloroethene (C₂Cl₄), trichloroethene (C₂HCl₃), and 1,2-dichloroethane (CH₂ClCH₂Cl), we infer a 2013 Cl_y^VSLS mixing ratio of 123 parts per trillion (ppt). Stratospheric injection …