Geomorphology Commons^™

Full Conference Program With Abstracts, Jason S. Polk, Leslie A. North

International 2011 Conference on Karst Hydrogeology and Ecosystems

No abstract provided.

A Map Of Relict Landscapes And Landslides: Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge, Kern County, California, Usa, Colin Lawson, Jeanette Mccracken

Earth and Soil Sciences

The San Andreas Fault Zone is a great location to conduct geomorphologic research, because of its recent history of tectonism and related surface uplift. In the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge - located in Kern, San Luis Obispo, Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties – a map of relict landscapes and landslides was created. The map was created using a combination of techniques of air photo mapping and field mapping. A digital version of the map was created and used for further analysis of the relict landscapes and landslides. This research serves as reconnaissance for future research in this area, and …

Aerial Reconnaissance Of Stream Terraces And Landslides Within Bitterwater Creek Watershed In Kern County, California, Zachary Smith

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Memorial To Charles Alexander Baskerville (1928–2009), Allen W. Hatheway, Ajitkumar Shah, Joseph J. Lifrieri, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Stanley Schleifer

Publications and Research

Charles Alexander Baskerville captured our imagination, as a senior colleague in the practice of engineering geology in New York City. “Charlie” held the seat of master Big Apple Geologist during his matured career. He was the source, he knew the possibilities, he was aware of the pitfalls of this most geologically complex of American cities. His final work was his greatest reach—the four bedrock geologic quadrangles of the city. Baskerville mapped New York City for more than fifty years. He was sought and given access to sites of bedrock and bedrock/ overburden interface on the various capitol construction projects undertaken …

Co-Development Of Biological Soil Crusts, Soil-Geomorphology, And Landscape Biogeochemistry In The Mojave Desert, Nevada, U.S.A. – Implications For Ecological Management, Amanda Jean Williams

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are complex matrices of soil particles, mosses, lichens, and cyanobacteria that prevent erosion and influence water and energy balances, soil fertility, and vascular plant germination. The processes that form BSCs, the factors that control their distribution, and the ecosystem feedbacks that they sustain are poorly understood. This dissertation employed a novel interdisciplinary approach to address those research unknowns through investigations of the micromorphological structure, soil-geomorphic relationships, and biogeochemical feedbacks of BSCs in the Mojave Desert.

A micromorphological study of BSCs resulted in a succession model that illustrates how crust formative processes and structures change through time. …

Mesozoic Burial, Mesozoic And Cenozoic Exhumation Of The Funeral Mountains Core Complex, Death Valley, Southeastern California, Mengesha Assefa Beyene

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Funeral Mountains of Death Valley National Park, CA, provide an opportunity to date metamorphism resulting from crustal shortening and subsequent episodic extensional events in the Sevier hinterland. It was not clear whether crustal shortening and thus peak temperature metamorphism in the hinterland of the Sevier-Laramide orogenic wedge have occurred whether in Late Jurassic, Early Cretaceous , Late Cretaceous or somewhere between. Particularly ambiguous is the timing of crustal shortening in the deep levels of the hinterland of the Sevier belt, now manifest in the metamorphic core complexes, and how and when these middle-to-lower crustal rocks were exhumed. A 6-point …

In-Situ Synchrotron X-Ray Diffraction Study Of Quartz Deformation Using The D-Dia Apparatus, May Sas, Dawn Pape, Brian Erickson, Sylvia-Monique Thomas, Pamela Burnley

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

Deformation is a rock’s mechanical response to external parameters such as temperature and pressure. Knowledge of deformation is necessary to understand geodynamic processes. The behavior of rocks and minerals during deformation depends on the behavior of individual grains within those minerals as they interact. The mineral we are studying is quartz, which we chose since it is very well studied and is highly abundant. We use high-pressure high temperature experiments to simulate conditions of Earth’s interior and the D-DIA apparatus combined with synchrotron x-ray diffraction allows us to record data directly during the process of deformation. The data we collect …

Middle To Late Miocene Extremely Rapid Exhumation And Thermal Reequilibration In The Kung Co Rift, Southern Tibet, Jeffrey Lee, Christian Hager, Simon R. Wallis, Daniel F. Stockli, Martin J. Whitehouse, Mutsuki Aoya, Yu Wang

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

The Kung Co rift is an approximately NNW striking, WSW dipping normal fault exposed in southern Tibet and is part of an extensive network of active approximately NS striking normal faults exposed across the Tibetan Plateau. Detailed new and published (U-Th)/He zircon and apatite thermochronometric data from the footwall of the early Miocene Kung Co granite provide constraints on the middle Miocene to present-day exhumation history of the footwall to the Kung Co fault. Inverse modeling of thermochronometric data yield age patterns that are interpreted as indicating (1) initiation of normal fault slip at ∼12–13 Ma and rapid exhumation of …

Evidence Of Tectonic Uplift Along The Oceanic Fault Near San Simeon, San Luis Obispo County, California, George Gecy

Earth and Soil Sciences

Post-Seismic satellite imagery after the 2003 earthquake near San Simeon confirmed 10s of millimeters of north-east side uplift along the Oceanic Fault. In order to determine whether or not there has been a history of tectonic uplift northeast of the Oceanic Fault zone, longitudinal profiles of Morro Creek and San Simeon were made using a digital planimeter and 1:24,000 scale maps. Utilizing the stream profiles, convexities could be observed in the streams coinciding where the streams crossed the Oceanic Fault; of the stream profiles, the convexity along San Simeon Creek could be confirmed to be caused by north-east side uplift …

Secondary Minerals From Extrapedogenic Per Latus Acidic Weathering Environments At Geomorphic Edges, Eastern Nebraska, Usa, Robert Matthew Joeckel, K.D. Wally, B.J. Ang Clement, P.R. Hanson, J.S. Dillon, S.K. Wilson

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

Acidic weathering of the sulfidic Upper Cretaceous Carlile and Pierre Shales in Nebraska has led to the precipitation of the Al sulfate–hydroxide minerals aluminite, alunite, “basaluminite”/felsöbányaite (e.g.,), the aluminum hydroxides gibbsite and bayerite, and the rare Al phosphate hydroxide vashegyite. Kaolinite has also been produced as a result of this acidic weathering. These minerals do not appear as neoformed constituents in any extant soils in the region, and their existence underscores the ability of pyrite oxidation to produce major changes in mineralogy on a Holocene to Recent time scale. Jarosite, hydronium jarosite, gypsum, halotrichite, and melanterite also appear as secondary …

Lineament Mapping For Groundwater Exploration Using Remotely Sensed Imagery In A Karst Terrain : Rio Tanama And Rio De Arecibo Basins In The Northern Karst Of Puerto Rico, Carla A. Alonso-Contes

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Remote sensing and advanced digital image processing techniques were developed and tested for delineating karst features important for the subterranean hydrology in the Tanamá River and Rio Grande de Arecibo catchments located in the North Coast Tertiary Basin of Puerto Rico, where groundwater contributes to base flow for surface water bodies which in itself is the main supply of drinking water. This aquifer region is a karst platform of carbonate rocks and clastic beds, thought to comprise a confined aquifer beneath and an unconfined aquifer. Products derived from ASTER, Landsat (ETM+ and TM), a NED DEM (30 m), and a …

Demographic Responses Of Least Terns And Piping Plovers To The 2011 Missouri River Flood—A Large-Scale Case Study, Michael J. Anteau, Mark H. Sherfy, Terry L. Shaffer, Rose J. Swift, Dustin L. Toy, Colin M. Dovichin

United States Geological Survey: Publications

2011 led to substantial changes in abundance and distribution of unvegetated sand habitat. This river system is a major component of the breeding range for interior Least terns (Sternula antillarum; “terns”) and piping plovers (Charadrius melodus; “plovers”), both of which are Federally listed ground-nesting birds that prefer open, unvegetated sand and gravel nesting substrates on sandbars and shorelines. The 2011 flood inundated essentially all tern and plover nesting habitat during 2011, but it had potential to generate post-flood habitat conditions that favored use by terns and plovers in subsequent years. We compared several tern and plover demographic parameters during the …

Tapeworms Of Elasmobranchs, Part Iii: A Monograph On The Phyllobothriidae (Platyhelminthes, Cestoda), Timothy R. Ruhnke

Bulletin of the University of Nebraska State Museum (1924–2023)

This monograph aims to provide information on the taxonomic status of all genera associated with the tetraphyllidean family Phyllobothriidae. Full treatments of the three valid species of the type genus, Phyllobothrium, in addition to the 47 valid species of Clistobothrium, Crossobothrium, Marsupiobothrium, Monorygma, Nandocestus, Orectolobicestus, Orygmatobothrium, Paraorygmatobothrium, Ruhnkecestus, and Scyphophyllidium are provided, as is a taxonomic history of the family. Of the valid genera historically associated with the family, only Phyllobothrium is considered to be an unambiguous member of the family. The genera Bibursibothrium, Calyptrobothrium, Cardiobothrium, Clistobothrium, Crossobothrium, Doliobothrium, Flexibothrium, Marsupiobothrium, Monorygma, Nandocestus, Orectolobicestus, Orygmatobothrium, Paraorygmatobothrium, Ruhnkecestus, Scyphophyllidium …

Communications And 'Forestructures' At The Geological Intersection Of Caves And Subsurface Water Flow: Hermeneutics And Parochialism, Lee J. Florea, H. L. Vacher

Geology Faculty Publications

The direction of cave and karst science throughout its history has been partly determined by communication—or, more commonly, the lack of communication—between non-scientist cavers and non-caving physical geologists writing about karst. Within each community, advancement of ‘cave awareness’ occurred through a hermeneutic circle in which ‘forestructures’ guided progress. One result was regionalism of speleo-genetic theories developed within karst science because of the weight of evidence placed upon local or regional observations. Many speleogenetic theories of the mid-1900s suffer from this parochialism, failing to take into account findings from karst of different geologic settings. During the past half-century, the accumulated worldwide …

A 1-D Mechanistic Model For The Evolution Of Earthflow-Prone Hillslopes, Adam M. Booth, Joshua J. Roering

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

In mountainous terrain, deep‐seated landslides transport large volumes of material on hillslopes, exerting a dominant control on erosion rates and landscape form. Here, we develop a mathematical landscape evolution model to explore interactions between deep‐seated earthflows, soil creep, and gully processes at the drainage basin scale over geomorphically relevant (>10³ year) timescales. In the model, sediment flux or incision laws for these three geomorphic processes combine to determine the morphology of actively uplifting and eroding steady state topographic profiles. We apply the model to three sites, one in the Gabilan Mesa, California, with no earthflow activity, and two …

Trace Element And Stable Isotope Data From A Flowstone In A Natural Cave Of The Mining District Of Sw Sardinia (Italy): Evidence For Zn²⁺-Induced Aragonite Precipitation In Comparatively Wet Climatic Conditions, Guglielmo Angelo Caddeo, Jo De Waele, Franco Frau, Loren Bruce Railsback

International Journal of Speleology

A speleothem from Crovassa Azzurra, a mine cave in SW Sardinia (Italy), has been analysed for mineralogy, minor and trace elements and stable isotopes. It is composed of layers of primary calcite and aragonite, with a region of secondary calcite. The primary carbonate is strikingly rich in Zn and Pb, presumably as the result of transport in solution from overlying Pb-Zn deposits. Immediately below the transition between calcite and aragonite, concentrations of Zn, Cd and P increase. At the transition between aragonite and Pb-rich aragonite, concentrations of Pb and P increase. Stable isotopes indicate an evolution toward more humid periods …

The First Cave Occurrence Of Orpiment (As₂S₃) From The Sulfuric Acid Caves Of Aghia Paraskevi (Kassandra Peninsula, N. Greece), Georgios Lazaridis, Vasilios Melfos, Lambrini Papadopoulou

International Journal of Speleology

Orpiment, tamarugite and pickeringite occur in close association above the surface of thermal water cave pools in the active sulfuric acid caves of Aghia Paraskevi on the Kassandra peninsula, northern Greece. Gypsum also occurs as small interstitial crystals or encrustations. Orpiment is of high significance since it has not previously been reported as a cave mineral. In addition, tamarugite and pickeringite rarely occur in karst caves. Water from a borehole and a spring is of Na-Cl type and contains traces of CO₂ and H₂S. The B/Cl ratios indicate seawater participation with a possible mixing with geothermal water …

Secondary Halite Deposits In The Iranian Salt Karst: General Description And Origin, Michal Filippi, Jiří Bruthans, Lukáš Palatinus, Mohammad Zare, Naser Asadi

International Journal of Speleology

This paper summaries 12 years of documentation of secondary halite deposits in the Iranian salt karst.

A variety of secondary halite deposits was distinguished and classified into several groups, on the basis of the site and mechanism of their origin. Deposits formed: i) via crystallization in/on streams and pools, ii) from dripping, splashing and aerosol water, iii) from evaporation of seepage and capillary water, and iv) other types of deposits. The following examples of halite forms were distinguished in each of the above mentioned group: i) euhedral crystals, floating rafts (raft cones), thin brine surface crusts and films; ii) straw …

Encyclopedia Of Snow, Ice And Glaciers, Vijay P. Singh, Pratap Singh, Umesh K. Haritashya

Department of Earth, Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

The objective of this encyclopedia is to present the current state of scientific understanding of various aspects of earth’s cryosphere – snow, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, ice shelves, sea ice, river and lake ice, and permafrost – and their related interdisciplinary connections under one umbrella. Therefore, every effort has been made to provide a comprehensive coverage of cryosphere by including a broad array of topics, such as the atmospheric processes responsible for snow formation; snowfall observations; snow cover and snow surveys; transformation of snow to ice and changes in their properties; classification of ice and glaciers and their worldwide …

Timing, Distribution, Amount, And Style Of Cenozoic Extension In The Northern Great Basin, Christopher D. Henry, Allen J. Mcgrew, Joseph P. Colgan, Arthur W. Snoke, Matthew E. Brueseke

Department of Earth, Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

This field trip examines contrasting lines of evidence bearing on the timing and structural style of Cenozoic (and perhaps late Mesozoic) extensional deformation in northeastern Nevada. Studies of metamorphic core complexes in this region report extension beginning in the early Cenozoic or even Late Cretaceous, peaking in the Eocene and Oligocene, and being largely over before the onset of “modern” Basin and Range extension in the middle Miocene. In contrast, studies based on low- temperature thermochronology and geologic mapping of Eocene and Miocene volcanic and sedimentary deposits report only minor, localized extension in the Eocene, no extension at all in …