Geochemistry Commons^™

The Forestry Reclamation Approach: Measuring Sediment Mass Accumulation Rates In Reclaimed Mine Lands And Naturally Regenerated Logged Forests Of Eastern Kentucky, William E. Bond

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

The spread of surface coal mining has resulted in loss of forests in the Appalachian region. The Forestry Reclamation Approach (FRA) was developed to provide guidance for restoring forests on reclaimed mined land. This study hypothesizes that the FRA will result in larger magnitude of sediment accumulation rates in reclaimed mine sites compared to those reclaimed using grassland reclamation. Three sediment cores and six trenches were sampled within four reclaimed mined and three previously logged sites in eastern Kentucky. Samples were processed for radionuclides, grain-size, stable isotopes (δ¹³C), and POC. LIDAR data were used to identify valley …

Geochemical Analysis Of Soil And Lake Deposits As Indicators Of Paleoenvironmental Conditions; Examples From Texas, New Mexico, And D.R. Congo, Mary Milleson

Earth Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Geochemical proxies of paleoenvironmental conditions are presented from studies of modern lacustrine deposits from White Rock Lake, Dallas Texas, Upper Pennsylvanian through Lower Permian paleosols from Mora County New Mexico, and Upper Paleozoic lacustrine strata from the Congo Basin, D.R. Congo.

The composition of sedimentary organic matter of White Rock Lake is utilized to establish a temporal relationship between urbanization of the local watershed and lake system. Geochemical proxies of watershed conditions allow for the evaluation of changes in lake morphometry, which are correlated with historical records of urbanization. The δ¹³C and C/N values of sedimentary organic matter …

Seasonal Soil Carbon Fluxes In Transitioning Agricultural Soils In Central Washington State: Relations To Land-Use, Environmental Factors And Soil Carbon-Nitrogen Characteristics, Brandon Kautzman

All Master's Theses

Changing agricultural land-use practices to increase soil carbon sequestration contributes to climate change mitigation and improved food security by moving CO₂ from the atmosphere into soil as soil organic carbon (SOC). In 2016, a farm in Thorp, Washington, Spoon Full Farm, began converting land historically farmed using conventional methods of tillage and synthetic fertilizers to conservation farming methods with direct seeding and organic soil amendments with a goal of sequestering carbon in the soil. This project evaluates relationships of soil CO₂ respiration and net ecological exchange (NEE) with land-use types, seasonal environmental factors (air temperature, relative humidity, soil …

Late Devonian Sedimentary Record Of Appalachian Tectonics And Erosion: Geochronology And Geochemistry Of Detrital Muscovite And Zircon From Central Pennsylvania Strata, Cole T. Gardner

Honors Theses

Foreland basin sediment deposition in North-Central Pennsylvania during Late Devonian time records erosion of hinterland source terranes exhumed during regional plate convergence, including the collisional Acadian orogeny. The Catskill clastic wedge preserves a coarsening-upwards stratigraphic succession from marine to fluvial environments associated with sediment progradation and sea-level regression, yet depositional timescales and quantitative provenance data are largely unconstrained.

Detailed facies analysis of eight outcrops spanning >2 km of stratigraphy in Lycoming Co., Pennsylvania documents distinct upsection changes, interpreted to reflect changes in depositional environments consistent with previous sedimentology of the Catskill clastic wedge. Stratigraphy displays a transition from nearshore marine …

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 …

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 …

Carbonatites As A Record Of The Carbon Isotope Composition Of Large Igneous Province Outgassing, Ellen Gales

Dissertations and Theses

Large igneous province (LIP) eruptions have been linked in some cases to major perturbations of Earth’s carbon cycle. However, few observations directly constrain the isotopic composition of carbon released by LIP magmas because carbon isotopes fractionate during degassing, which hampers understanding of the relative roles of mantle versus crustal carbon reservoirs. Carbonatite magmatism associated with LIPs provides a unique window into the isotopic systematics of LIP carbon because the majority of carbon in carbonatites crystalizes rather than degassing. Here, we present new δ¹³C data for the Guli carbonatites in the Siberian Traps. In addition, we compile ~260 published …

Volatiles And Trace Element Contents In Melt Inclusions From The Zoned Green Tuff Ignimbrite (Pantelleria, Sicily): Petrological Inferences., Pierangelo Romano, John C. White, Alessandro Ciulla, Ida Di Carlo, Claudia D'Oriano, Patrizia Landi, Silvio G. Rotolo

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The island of Pantelleria is one of the best known localities of bimodal mafic-felsic magmatism (alkali basalt and trachyte-pantellerite). Among the felsic rocks, the coexistence in a single eruption of products of both trachyte and pantellerite compositions is limited to few occurrences, the Green Tuff (GT) ignimbrite being one of these. The GT is compositionally zoned from pantellerite (70.1 wt% SiO2, mol Na+K/Al = 1.86, 1871 ppm Zr) at the base to crystal-rich (>30 vol%) comenditic trachyte (63.4 wt% SiO2, mol Na+K/Al = 1.10, 265 ppm Zr) at the top, although the pantellertic compositions dominate the erupted volume. We …

Quantifying Magma Recharge At Parinacota Volcano, Northern Chile (52 Ka - Recent): Insight From The Magma Chamber Simulator, Jennifer Mcleod

All Master's Theses

The Magma Chamber Simulator (MCS; Bohrson et al., 2014) was used to produce new thermodynamic models that constrain and quantify recharge and fractional crystallization (RFC) processes for the Old Cone (OC; 52-20 ka; 56-66 wt.% SiO₂) and Healing Flows (HF; >8 ka-recent; 58-64 wt.% SiO₂) eruptive stages of Parinacota volcano, northern Chile. Using the MCS, over 200 RFC models were produced that constrain host magma initial conditions, including pressure, fO₂ and H₂O, and host and recharge magma masses, temperatures and compositions. A Rhyolite Domes (RD; 47-40 ka; 74 wt.% SiO₂) …

Ductile Deformation In The Central Panamint Mountains - A Multi-Disciplinary Approach To A Multi-Dimensional Problem., Tai Antonia Subia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study provides new insights into the geometry and timing of ductile, syn-metamorphic structures in the central Panamint Mountains of eastern California. The study focused on Surprise Canyon, where exposures of Meso- to Neoproterozoic miogeocline rocks, reworked crystalline basement, and syn-metamorphic granitoids record fabric overprints indicative of at least two distinct dynamo-thermal metamorphic events. Prograde metamorphism at greenschist and amphibolite metamorphic facies conditions occurred during Early Jurassic plutonism based on deformation of a dioritic pluton with a U-Pb date reported here of 175.6 ± 3.2 Ma. Mid Jurassic deformation (D1) generated the main continuous cleavage in the rocks (S1) as …

Scratching The Surface Of The Isotope Landscape Of An Ore Deposit Molybdenum-Sulfur Isotope Relationships In A Porphyry Copper-Molybdenum Deposit (Santa Rita / Chino Mine, Nm), Joshua Roger Peterson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

More than 95% of the world's molybdenum (Mo) is mined from porphyry deposits (Sinclair, 2007). Molybdenum is an important component for the metal industry, as a key ingredient in stainless steel alloys and high-speed heat resistant tools. Despite the importance of porphyry deposits for the supply of this industrially important metal, major questions about Mo mineral precipitation remain unresolved and the process of ore body emplacement and formation remains poorly investigated (Cooke et al., 2014a).

Recent observations have revealed a wide range of Mo isotope compositions in porphyry deposits, both globally and locally (Greber et al., 2014a; Shafiei et al., …

Precipitation And Transformation Of Iron-Sulfide Nanoparticles In Low-Temperature Aqueous Environment: Effects Of Reactant Iron And Sulfide Sources, Ezequiel A. Moreno Flores

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Iron sulfide nanoparticles assume an important role within a wide range of geological settings as indicators of redox environmental conditions and elemental cycling mechanisms. Initial precipitates of iron sulfide are exclusively nanoscale sized in low temperature aqueous conditions and have been reported to go through diverse morphological and phase transformations, possibly leading to the ultimate deposits of pyrite in geologic records of various times. A systematic understanding of how the early-stage nanoparticles of iron sulfide may develop into more crystalline iron sulfide forms is still lacking however. The major goal for this study was to illuminate the effects of the …

Use Of Pre-Industrial Baselines To Assess Sources And Pathways Of Metals In Surface Sediment Of Floodplain Lakes In The Peace-Athabasca Delta (Alberta, Canada), Tanner Owca

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The effects of natural resources exploitation in northern Canada on downstream aquatic ecosystems is a concern. Assessing these effects requires comprehensive monitoring practices to better inform stakeholders and environmental stewardship decisions. Here, a monitoring approach is developed and applied to assess metals concentrations in lake surface sediments of the Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD), northern Alberta, Canada. Since the ecological integrity of the PAD is strongly tied to river floodwaters that are critical for replenishing the delta, and the PAD is located downstream of the Alberta oil sands, concerns have been raised over the potential transport of metal contaminants to the PAD …

Utilizing Lipid Biomarkers To Understand The Microbial Community Structure Of Deep Subsurface Black Shale Formations, Rawlings Akondi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The deep subsurface environment has been known to host microbes as early as 1926 and has also been suggested to potentially account for as much as 50% of the Earth`s biomass. Researchers have shown that microbes alter their membrane lipid components in response to physiological stress, producing stress indicative lipid biomarkers. However, little effort has been made to understand the subsurface microbial community of the shale ecosystem which is increasingly being exploited and altered by addition of drilling and hydraulic fluids to meet our growing energy needs. Phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) are microbial lipid biomarkers and are found in all …

Sediment Provenance Study Of The Lower Hamilton Group: An Analysis Of The Organic-Rich Facies And Its Depositional History, Luke Patrick Fritz

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Currently, insufficient geological models exist to explain the variability and distribution of TOC in the Marcellus Shale, within the Hamilton Group. TOC is one of the several limiting factors for natural gas production within the Marcellus Shale basin. One possible explanation for the low TOC regions is that detrital dilution was variable across the basin, with different sediment sources contributing detritus to low TOC areas, compared to surrounding regions with higher TOC. This hypothesis is tested by analyzing the source composition of inorganic detritus, using elemental and mineralogical proxies, with two cores in the Hamilton Group. The Armstrong #1 core …

Environmental Forensic Characterization Of Former Rail Yard Soils Located Adjacent To The Statue Of Liberty In The New York/New Jersey Harbor, Diane Hagmann, Michael A. Kruge, Matthew Chi-Hymn Cheung, Maria Mastalerz, José Luis Gallego, Jay Prakash Singh, Jennifer Krumins, Xiaona N. Li, Nina M. Goodey

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Identifying inorganic and organic soil contaminants in urban brownfields can give insights into the adverse effects of industrial activities on soil function, ecological health, and environmental quality. Liberty State Park in Jersey City (N.J., USA) once supported a major rail yard that had dock facilities for both cargo and passenger service; a portion remains closed to the public, and a forest developed and spread in this area. The objectives of this study were to: 1) characterize the organic and inorganic compounds in Liberty State Park soils and compare the findings to an uncontaminated reference site (Hutcheson Memorial Forest); and 2) …

Exploration For Alteration Halos Around The Ag-W Deposits In Southeastern Missouri, Usa, Daniel Joseph Warbritton

Masters Theses

"The St. Francois Mountains in SE Missouri are an extensive terrane of granitic ring complexes and associated rhyolites. They were an important source of Ag, W, and Sn and mined intermittently from the 1800s until the 1950s. The Ag-W ores occur in the Silvermine Granite and rhyolite roof rocks. The deposits are classified as a xenothermal ore system with mineralization occurring in quartz veins and surrounding greisen (up to 2.5 m). Exploration for hydrothermal ore deposits often focuses on the identification of alteration halos in the surrounding host rocks. In the vast majority of xenothermal ore deposits, such as in …

An Analysis Of Mixed-Layer Clay Minerals And Major Element Geochemical Trends In Middle-Upper Pennsylvanian-Aged Paleosols As A Proxy For Characterizing Basin-Wide Diagenetic Patterns And The Paleoenvironment Of The Illinois Basin, U.S.A., Julia A. Mcintosh

Earth Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Pennsylvanian-aged paleosols from four Illinois Basin (IB) cores were sampled to characterize clay mineralogy, paleosol morphology, and major element geochemistry. This data combined with X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) data from two other stratigraphically equivalent cores were used to better understand basin-wide diagenetic patterns. Paleosols unimpacted by diagenesis are considered reliable proxies for continued geochemical analyses and paleoclimate interpretations of middle to late Pennsylvanian (Desmoinesian-Missourian) low-latitude environments.

Reichweite Ordering, as determined from XRD analysis ofprofiles, indicates that diagenesis impacted the deep interior of the basin and the southern portion of the basin. Further investigation of illitization mechanisms derived …

Mercury In Big Cypress Bayou And Caddo Lake Watersheds In Marion And Harrison Counties Texas, Joseph Watkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Caddo Lake has been included on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality 303(d) list for impairment due to mercury (Hg) content since 1996. One of the primary tributaries, Big Cypress Bayou, flows across Eocene-aged rocks and sediments associated with the Wilcox Group; the Wilcox is of interest because it contains lignite coal, which has a direct link to mercury. Previous research has focused on dry deposition from fossil fuel combustion as the primary source of mercury but has not addressed the potential watershed contribution to mercury concentrations in Caddo Lake.

Big Cypress Bayou flows through Harrison and Marion counties in …

Diamond Intracrystalline Stable Isotope Chemical Image Analysis By Time-Of-Flight Secondary Ionization Mass Spectrometery, Tyler J. Sundell

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The chemical resistance of diamond allows in-situ study of the diamond source regions. For a majority of gem quality diamonds, this source region is the sublithospheric mantle keel of a cratonic nuclei. Through analysis of stable isotopes, radiogenic isotopes and trace elements, diamond geochemical analyses can define chemical fluxes in the mantle keel. However, such studies require multiple methodologies for each chemical suite, high spatial resolution and analytical precision. Here, I evaluate Time-of-Flight Secondary Ionization Mass Spectrometer (ToF-SIMS) as an alternative method for diamond geochemical analyses. ToF-SIMS analysis can perform in cation and anion mode to measure the entire periodic …