Tectonics and Structure Commons^™

Minerals Rock!: Improving Audience Engagement And Interest In Stem Through Enhancement Of The In-Person And Online Mineral Collection At Ursinus College, Juliette Lyons

Environment and Sustainability Summer Fellows

Museums are a vital source of educational resources for the general public. They provide information on a variety of topics and disciplines and encourage visitors to be excited about and engaged in learning something new. As we work to comprehend key topics such as climate change, it is especially important for the broader public to better understand science, including geology. While the geological collection at Ursinus, Pieces of Earth’s History, is not in a museum, implementing methods that museums use can improve the reception of the collection. Through the application of research gathered through articles, journals, books, and talking with …

Structural Geology Of The Brady Mountain Area, Ouachita Mountains, Arkansas: Integrating Field Mapping, Geospatial Techniques, Photogrammetry And 3d Modeling For Structural Analysis, Emmanuel Darko, Zachariah Fleming

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Much of the Ouachita orogenic belt, representing the deformed Paleozoic rocks flanking the southern margin of the North American craton, is buried beneath post-orogenic Mesozoic and Tertiary sediments composing the Gulf Coastal Plain. The Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma are the largest areas of outcrop for the Pennsylvanian-age Ouachita orogenic belt, making it an ideal place to study the orogeny. This study focuses on the Brady Mountain area within the Benton Uplift, the orogenic core of the Ouachita Mountains in western Arkansas. The region is comprised of numerous ridges trending nearly east-west and are for the most part densely …

Applications Of Remote Sensing Data To Understanding Geohazards In Wyoming And Kentucky, Meredith Swallom

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

Shallow geohazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and floods profoundly impact communities globally. Constraining susceptibility to these hazards is critical for effective hazard mitigation and building more resilient communities. This dissertation includes multiple studies that leverage remotely sensed datasets to address hazard susceptibility, including: (1) characterizing a potential northern extension of the Teton fault system, (2) deriving a vegetation-based metric to improve landslide susceptibility maps in eastern Kentucky, with potential global implications, and (3) combining numerical modeling, landscape models, and field constraints to understand how anthropogenic factors affect flood severity in southern Appalachian catchments.

In the first study, analysis of new …

Visualization Of Paleocurrents On A Web Application Using Gplates, Anjan Sapkota

MS in Computer Science Theses

Paleocurrents are flow directions derived from features of sedimentary rocks that reveal the direction of the current of wind or water that deposited the sediment. In 2015, Brand et al. created a global database of paleocurrents, which contains over 1,000,000 measurements worldwide: North America, South America, Australia, Great Britain, parts of Western Europe, China, Africa are fairly well represented; Antarctica, Eastern Europe, and Asia are modestly represented and Russia is poorly represented. The contribution of this thesis is a web application that uses the GPlates’ Application Programming Interface (API) to visualize global paleocurrents through time in an interactive way based …

Beach Erosion And Recovery Since Hurricane Ivan In 2004 Along A Headland-Bay Coast In Treasure Beach, Jamaica, Elandé Engelbrecht

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Anthropogenic climate change is causing sea-level rise and shoreline changes that threaten the environment and economy of coastal communities in Caribbean Island nations. To assess this risk, this study quantifies shoreline changes at Treasure Beach in St. Elizabeth Parish on the south coast of Jamaica from 2001 to 2023. The effects of storm events on erosion were also assessed. Over 10 km of shoreline are assessed with about half being sandy pocket beaches ranging from 300 to 900 m in length, separated by rocky headlands and beach rock outcrops. Sand beach erosion trends since 2001 are assessed for seven sandy …

Simulation Of Wave Propagation In Granular Particles Using A Discrete Element Model, Syed Tahmid Hussan

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The understanding of Bender Element mechanism and utilization of Particle Flow Code (PFC) to simulate the seismic wave behavior is important to test the dynamic behavior of soil particles. Both discrete and finite element methods can be used to simulate wave behavior. However, Discrete Element Method (DEM) is mostly suitable, as the micro scaled soil particle cannot be fully considered as continuous specimen like a piece of rod or aluminum. Recently DEM has been widely used to study mechanical properties of soils at particle level considering the particles as balls. This study represents a comparative analysis of Voigt and Best …

Comparative Lineament And Geomorphic Analysis Of Chaotic Terrains And Noctis Labyrinthus, Mars, Sarah A. Walton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Noctis Labyrinthus (NL) is an extensional trough network connecting the Tharsis rise and Valles Marineris on Mars. Chaotic terrains are a group of polygonally-fractured surface features commonly associated with subsidence due to rapid fluid loss within the subsurface. Polygonal surface patterns are seen at both sites, where geometric topographic highs are bounded by low troughs. Lineaments, topography, and geomorphology of NL and chaotic terrains were analyzed to determine tectonics and fluid influence in the formation and evolution of both sites. NL shows preferential fracture patterns associated with regional extension. Lineaments within chaotic terrains do not show cumulative preferential trends but …

Timescales Of Magma Transport In The Columbia River Flood Basalts, Determined By Paleomagnetic Data, Joseph Biasi, Leif Karlstrom

Other Staff Materials

Flood basalts represent major events in Earth History, in part because they are linked to large climate perturbations and mass extinctions. However, the durations of individual flood basalt eruptions, which directly impact potential environmental crises, are poorly constrained. Here we use a combination of paleomagnetic data and thermal modeling to create a magnetic geothermometer (MGT) that can constrain the active transport lifetime of magmatic conduits and intrusions. We apply the MGT technique to eight feeder dike segments of the Columbia River basalts (CRB), demonstrating that some dike segments were actively heating host rocks for less than one month, while other …

Characterization Of Landslide Processes From Radar Remote Sensing And Hydromechanical Modeling, Yuankun Xu

Earth Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Landsides are a natural geomorphic process yet a dangerous hazard which annually causes thousands of casualties and billions of property loss in a global scale. Understanding landslide motion kinematics from early initiation to final deposition is critical for monitoring, assessing, and forecasting landslide movement in order to mitigate their hazards. Landslides occur under diverse environmental settings and appear in variable types; however, all types of landslides can be mechanically attributed to shearing failure at the basal surface due to stress regime shift contributed by internal and/or external forcing. Typical internal factors include soil/rock weathering, whereas typical external triggering forces encompass …

Joint Spacing In The Caples Lake Granodiorite Of The Sierra Nevada Batholith In Eldorado National Forest, California: A Comparative Analysis Of Joint Sets And Data Resolution, Jimmy Wood

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Joints are the most common deformation structure in the Earth’s upper crust and exert a significant influence on structural stability, landscape morphology, and fluid flow . Therefore, a greater understanding of fracture parameters (e.g., length, aperture, etc.) allows us to more accurately predict their presence, persistence, and prevalence, in the subsurface . We study the fracture spacing of two sub-orthogonal joint sets—66 NE-246 SW and 330 NW-150 SE—in the Caples Lake granodiorite of the Sierra Nevada Batholith, California. Specifically, we investigate 1) their spacing distributions with a keen interest in power-law (fractal) spacing, 2) distribution comparisons between master and cross …

A Karst Feature Prediction Model For Prince Of Wales Island, Alaska Based On High Resolution Lidar Imagery, Alexander Lyles

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

Investigation into surface karst formation is significant to hazard prediction, hydrogeologic drainage, and land management. Southeast Alaska contains over 600,000 acres of mapped carbonate bedrock, and some of the fastest recorded karst dissolution in the world. The objectives of this study are to develop and compare multiple semi-automated models to map and delineate karst features from bare-earth LiDAR imagery using ArcGIS Desktop 10.7, and to apply a preliminary geostatistical analysis of sinkhole morphometric parameters to highlight potential spatial patterns of karst evolution on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. A semi-automated approach of mapping karst features provides a dataset that minimizes …

Advancement Of Full-Vector Variable-Temperature Magnetometry For Rock-Magnetic And Paleointensity Applications, Leonid Surovitskii

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Data on the variation of the direction and strength of Earth’s ancient magnetic field (absolute paleointensity) provide crucial information into the mechanisms of the geodynamo and the Earth’s thermal history. However, the use of conventional methods and instrumentation for absolute paleointensity determination has been hampered by physicochemical alteration of the samples caused by multiple high-temperature cycles and long experiment durations. The reliability and efficiency of the measurement process can be improved by the measurement of the full remanent magnetization vector simultaneously with the temperature cycling of a sample. Such as approach can also substantially expand the scope of materials available …

Sediment Provenance Of Tsunami Deposits: Implications For Assessing The Relative Intensity Of Paleotsunamis From The Sendai Coastline Of Japan, Tiffany Otai

Master's Theses

The 2011 Tohoku tsunami impacted the northeastern coast of Japan and caused unexpected damages due to the underestimation of this type of hazard. Of particular importance is the fact that geologic evidence for a predecessor event, the Jogan tsunami (CE 869), could have forecasted the severity of the 2011 Tohoku event. While the timing of tsunamis is important for effective hazard mitigation, outside of the 2011 Tohoku event, the intensity of past tsunamis remains unclear. To understand paleotsunami intensity, it is important to document characteristics of modern analogues like the 2011 event. This study utilizes surface distributions of foraminifera from …

Integrated Studies Of Intracontinental Deformation In The Interior Western Usa, Cretaceous To Recent, Jacob Oliver Thacker

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

The advent of plate tectonic theory satisfactorily explained a number of deformation belts around the world. However intracontinental deformation (deformation inboard of a plate margin) remains poorly understood in plate tectonic models. In order to further our understanding of intracontinental tectonics and its effects, this dissertation examines paleotectonic and neotectonic settings within the interior western USA.

Chapter 1 focuses on late Miocene–Recent deformation inboard of the San Andreas plate margin fault and its role on the integration history of the lower Colorado River. The neotectonic analysis included geometric and kinematic fault data collected in key geologic units to characterize the …

Characterization Of Magma Storage And Dynamics At Akutan, Semisopochnoi, And Okmok Volcanoes From Analytical And Numerical Models Of Geodetic, Seismic, And Petrologic Data, Kimberly Degrandpre

Earth Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Volcanic eruptions can cause significant socioeconomic loss, but a better understanding of the processes and dynamics influencing the evolution of volcanic plumbing systems will advance the development of eruption forecasting models that will ultimately mitigate hazards and risks associated with eruptive events. Geologic and geophysical data must be integrated in 3D, finite- element, multiphysical, numerical models to define the coupled evolution of magmatic and crustal stress regimes in volcanic environments, but in data limited regions this is not always an option. The remote nature of the Aleutian Island Arc restricts ground-based monitoring and sampling efforts, and due to sparse temporal …

Seismic Landslide Hazard Mapping For Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Ali Fallah Yeznabad, Sheri E. Molnar, Hesham M. El Naggar

Western Research Forum

The lower Mainland of southwest British Columbia (BC) hosts about 3.5 million people and significant infrastructures of national importance. Southwestern BC has the highest seismic risk in Canada with significant potential to cause earthquake-induced hazards including tsunamis, liquefaction and landslides. A Cascadia mega-thrust (M_W 9) earthquake is predicted to generate $75 billion Canadian dollars in losses. This damage can be resulted from ground shaking or its secondary phenomena like landslides; ground shaking during earthquakes may trigger landslides that can damage or destroy buildings, bury roads and highways and kill and injure people. In Canada, during the past century and …

Identifying Key Factors Affecting Translational Landslides In Part Of The Yakima Fold And Thrust Belt, Washington State, Joseph Schilter

All Master's Theses

Washington has one of the fastest growth rates in the nation, and unfortunately also is among the most landslide-prone states. With increased population density and urban sprawl, the need for landslide hazard assessment grows. On the Columbia Plateau in central Washington, the smooth rigid, inclined surfaces of the Columbia River Basalts (CRBs) with loose sediment layers between them induces landslides of large blocks of bedrock. These hazards remain poorly understood, but their significance was heightened by the 2017 Rattlesnake Hills Landslide that currently threatens a community and an interstate highway south of Yakima, Washington. I propose that the strongest influences …

Pressure, Temperature, And Stress Conditions Of Southern Alpine Fault (New Zealand) Mylonites, Jake T. Reitman

Dissertations and Theses

The Alpine Fault, New Zealand, provides a unique window into the rheologic history of a seismically-active continental plate boundary. Due to lower exhumation rates along southern portions of the fault relative to the well-studied central Alpine Fault, deformation ages vary along strike by ~15 m.y.. Mylonites collected from two southern creeks near Haast, NZ, display a uniform recrystallized grain size of ~11 𝜇m in mylonitic quartz indicating differential stress values in the south of ~100 MPa, roughly twice the stress values observed in the central Alpine Fault. Constraints from Ti-in-quartz thermobarometry and Raman Spectroscopy of Carbonaceous Material (RSCM) indicate mylonitization …

Review Of Curbing Catastrophe: Natural Hazards And Risk Reduction In The Modern World, Kira H. Hamman

Numeracy

Timothy H. Dixon. 2017. Curbing Catastrophe: Natural Hazards and Risk Reduction in the Modern World. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press) 300 pp. ISBN 978-1108113663.

In Curbing Catastrophe, Timothy H. Dixon explores commonalities among natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and the meltdown at Fukushima. He identifies communication failure between scientists and policy makers as a major culprit in the devastation that results from such events and offers strategies for improving that communication. He includes optional in-depth scientific and quantitative examinations of the events and the resulting devastation, making the book appropriate for use …

Structural Analysis Of The Northwest Wind Mountain Quadrangle, New Mexico: Proterozoic Shearing To Cenozoic Brittle Faulting In The Burro Mountains, Jensen Kohl Angelloz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Preliminary investigation of the Bullard Peak metamorphic series (BPMS) in the northwestern Wind Mountain quadrangle within the Burro Mountains of southwestern New Mexico suggests a possible previously unidentified shear zone, prompting detailed (1:12,000) geologic mapping and collection of structural data. The study area has a complex tectonic history, including 1) ~1.65 Ga metamorphism during accretion of the Mazatzal terrane to Laurentia’s southern margin; 2) ~1.4 Ga intrusion of Granite and Rhyolite Province granitoids; 3) significant uplift during the formation of the Ancestral Rockies (~300 Ma) and the Rocky Mountains (~70-50 Ma); and 4) inversion tectonics with reactivation of compressional faults …

The Impact Of Fe-Ti Oxide Concentration On The Structural Ridgity Of The Lower Oceanic Crust, Atlantis Bank, Southwest Indian Ridge, Daniel Winkler

Master's Theses

Fe-Ti oxides are important components of oceanic core complexes (OCC) formed at slow-spreading mid-ocean ridges since Fe-Ti oxides are more susceptible to crystal-plastic deformation than silicate minerals. This study investigated the predicted relationship between the presence and concentration of Fe-Ti oxides and the presence and intensity of crystal-plastic deformation in gabbroic samples from Atlantis Bank, Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR). Atlantis Bank is an oceanic core complex that formed through the exhumation of lower oceanic crust along a detachment fault. OCCs form along slow-spreading ridges and are characterized by the complex interactions between magmatism and lithospheric extension, thus making these complexes …

A Study Of Marine Terrace Formation Along The California Central Coast, Mary C. Devlin

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

Marine terrace formation is in many instances attributed to wave action, and shore platforms are often called “wave-cut”. However, alternative models for marine terrace formation suggest that other types of physical and chemical weathering have a more central role in the formation of marine terraces than is widely acknowledged. Roering and Retallack (2012) concluded that the roles of subaerial physical and chemical weathering are significant, and played a major role in the formation of the terraces. In this study, weathering of beach cliffs and shore platforms associated with marine terraces at eight sites in two different locations along the central …

The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale: Geologic History, Depositional Analysis, And Exploration Potential, Jessica D. Pair

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) was deposited across southern Louisiana and Mississippi during the Upper Cretaceous. The study focuses on a core region containing vast deposits of Cretaceous-aged sediments that have economic importance for oil and gas exploration. This region has been conventionally drilled for decades, focusing on the recovery of the Cretaceous hydrocarbons. Explorers within this region had traditionally targeted the massive sand units of the Lower and Upper Tuscaloosa Group while neglecting the middle Tuscaloosa Marine Shale unit. With the onset of unconventional drilling technology, new explorers to the region have begun to delineate the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale’s …

Characterization And Delineation Of Karst Geohazards Along Rm652 Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography, Culberson County, Texas, Adam F. Majzoub

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Delaware Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico is the major western subdivision of the Permian Basin and a northern extension of the Chihuahuan Desert. The major evaporite unit within the Delaware Basin is the Castile Formation, which consists of gypsum/anhydrite and is highly susceptible to dissolution and karsting. Manifestations of karst within the Castile outcrop are abundant and include sinkholes, subsidence features and caves, both epigene and hypogene in origin.

Land reconnaissance surveys conducted during the summer of 2015 documented abundant karst landforms in close proximity to a major thoroughfare, RM 652, in Culberson County, Texas. 2D …

Birth And Evolution Of The Rio Grande Fluvial System In The Last 8 Ma:Progressive Downward Integration And Interplay Between Tectonics, Volcanism, Climate, And River Evolution, Marisa N. Repasch

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

The Rio Grande-Rio Chama (RG-RC) fluvial system has evolved dramatically over the last 8 Ma, undergoing channel migrations, drainage capture and integration events, volcanic damming, and carving and refilling of paleocanyons. Volcanism concurrent with the development of the river system provides a unique opportunity to apply multiple geochronometers to the study of its incision and drainage evolution. This paper reports 19 new ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar basalt ages and 19 detrital mineral samples (zircon and sanidine) collected from RG-RC alluvium overlain by dated basalt flows in the context of a compilation of published ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar basalt ages. The …

The Spatial Distribution And Origins Of Sandstone Monoliths In The Swauk Watershed, Kittitas County, Wa, Rebeca Becerra, Daniel O'Dell

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

Large groups of gigantic sandstone and conglomerate monoliths populate the Swauk Watershed of northern Kittitas County. These monoliths rest on side slopes in the watershed and distinctively project from their surroundings. The origins of these features are unknown. We studied these monoliths in the field by mapping their spatial distribution, describing their morphology and composition, and measuring their orientation and sizes in order to determine their origins. We used Google Earth and topographic maps to locate the monoliths and map their distribution. Interpretations were based from field work data and past research. Our field results show commonalities between the features …

New Research In Cave Ledenica In Bukovi Vrh On Velebit Mt In Croatian Dinaric Karst, Mladen Garasic

The International Workshop on Ice Caves

No abstract provided.

Determining Hillslope Diffusion Rates In A Boreal Forest: Quaternary Fluvial Terraces In The Nenana River Valley, Central Alaska Range, Laurel Anne Walker

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

The subarctic boreal forest biome is predicted to experience higher magnitudes of warming than other biomes due to climate change. The effects of this warming will be pronounced in areas underlain by discontinuous permafrost where melting permafrost and distinct changes in vegetation patterns are expected. To better understand rates of hillslope diffusion in the boreal forest I have used a geomorphic process modeling approach, using data from a sequence of Quaternary fluvial terraces located in the Nenana River valley of central Alaska. I hypothesized that diffusion rates here would be slower when compared to the mid-latitudes, and faster on north …

A Study Of Knickpoint Formation: Geomorphic Analysis Of San Simeon Creek, Keith Moffatt

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

The highest point of orogeny in the Santa Lucia range occurs 50-60km from the nearest active faulting. This orogeny is believed to have occurred hear due to relatively weak Franciscan Mélange versus the granitic material at the fault boundary. This paper studies the development of a knickpoint in San Simeon creek to identify the role of relatively recent (graded time) tectonic activity in orogeny of the Santa Lucia range.
The 2003 earth quake is evidence of recent base level change with the occurrence of orogeny supporting the theory of continuous orogeny in recent and graded time scale. Although the knickpoint …

Unlv Magazine, Carol C. Harter, Joe Cockrell, Tony Allen, Regina Bacolas, Lori Bachand, Jennifer Lawson, Bret C. Birdsong, Steve Parker, Erin O'Donnell, Jennifer Robison

UNLV Magazine

No abstract provided.