Other Earth Sciences Commons^™

Tectonic Influences On The Preservation Of Marine Terraces: Old And New Evidence From Santa Catalina Island, California, R. Randall Schumann, Scott A. Minor, Daniel R. Muhs, Lindsey T. Groves, John P. Mcgeehan

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The California Channel Islands contain some of the best geologic records of past climate and sea-level changes, recorded in uplifted, fossil-bearing marine terrace deposits. Among the eight California Channel Islands and the nearby Palos Verdes Hills, only Santa Catalina Island does not exhibit prominent emergent marine terraces, though the same terrace-forming processes that acted on the other Channel Islands must also have occurred on Santa Catalina. We re-evaluated previous researchers' field evidence and examined new topographic, bathymetric, and stream-profile data in order to find possible explanations for the lack of obvious marine terrace landforms or deposits on the island today. …

Cora – A Dedicated Device For Carbon Dioxide Monitoring In Cave Environments, Marc Luetscher, Felix Ziegler

International Journal of Speleology

High resolution time-series of cave CO₂ fluctuations are increasingly demanded to quantify calcite precipitation processes. CORA, an energy-efficient NDIR-device, has been specifically developed for the long-term monitoring of carbon dioxide in remote cave environments. To allow comparison between different cave sites, changes in air pressure and temperature are compensated for using dedicated probes. Laboratory experiments demonstrate that CORA’s precision is adapted to the analysis of spatially and temporally variable CO₂ regimes and therefore suitable for a large number of applications. Data obtained with 12 independently calibrated instruments are reproducible within 3% (1σ). The two-point calibration function is validated …

Spatially Dense Drip Hydrological Monitoring And Infiltration Behaviour At The Wellington Caves, South East Australia, Catherine N. Jex, Gregoire Mariethoz, Andy Baker, Peter Graham, Martin S. Andersen, Ian Acworth, Nerilee Edwards, Cecilia Azcurra

International Journal of Speleology

Despite the fact that karst regions are recognised as significant groundwater resources, the nature of groundwater flow paths in the unsaturated zone of such fractured rock is at present poorly understood. Many traditional methods for constraining groundwater flow regimes in karst aquifers are focussed on the faster drainage components and are unable to inform on the smaller fracture or matrix-flow components of the system. Caves however, offer a natural inception point to observe both the long term storage and the preferential movement of water through the unsaturated zone of such fractured carbonate rock by monitoring of drip rates of stalactites, …

On The Spatial And Temporal Variability Of Upwelling In The Southern Caribbean Sea And Its Influence On The Ecology Of Phytoplankton And Of The Spanish Sardine (Sardinella Aurita), Digna Tibisay Rueda-Roa

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Southern Caribbean Sea experiences a strong upwelling process along the coast from about 61°W to 75.5°W and 10-13°N. In this dissertation three aspects of this upwelling system are examined: (A) A mid-year secondary upwelling that was previously observed in the southeastern Caribbean Sea between June-July, when land based stations show a decrease in wind speed. The presence and effects of this upwelling along the whole southern Caribbean upwelling system were evaluated, as well as the relative forcing contribution of alongshore winds (Ekman Transport, ET) and wind-curl (Ekman Pumping, EP). (B) Stronger upwelling occurs in two particular regions, namely the …

Mapping And Assessing Urban Impervious Areas Using Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis: A Case Study In The City Of Tampa, Florida, Fenqing Weng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The advance in remote sensing technology helps people more easily assess urban growth. In this study, the utility of multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis (MESMA) is examined in a sub-pixel analysis of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery to map urban physical components in Tampa, FL. The three physical components of urban land cover (LC): impervious surface, vegetation and soil, were compared using the proposed MESMA with a traditional spectral mixture analysis (SMA). MESMA decomposes each pixel to address the heterogeneity of urban LC characteristic by allowing the number and types of endmembers to vary on a per pixel basis. This …

Remote Sensing Of Whitings In The Bahamas, Ryan Allen Lloyd

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Whitings on both the Great Bahama Bank (GBB) and Little Bahama Bank (LBB) were evaluated using data collected from 2000-2010 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments onboard the Terra and Aqua satellites. A semi-objective method was developed to classify whiting patches from other look-alike features using the recently developed Floating Algae Index (FAI) algorithm, an empirical cloud masking algorithm, and a gradient analysis from the 250-m resolution MODIS data. A total of 1,500 images with minimal cloud cover was used to calculate long-term and seasonal trends as well as an average daily coverage for both banks. Annual and …

Spring Migration Of Mallards From Arkansas As Determined By Satellite Telemetry, David George Krementz, Kwasi Asante, Luke W. Naylor

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

We used satellite telemetry to document spring migration phenology, routes, stopover regions, and nesting sites of mallards Anas platyrhynchos marked in Arkansas during the winters of 2004–2007. Of the 143 marked mallards that migrated from Arkansas, they did so, on average, by mid-March. Mallards flew over the Missouri Ozarks and 42% made an initial stopover in Missouri, where they used areas that had larger rivers (Mississippi River, Missouri River) embedded in an agricultural landscape. From this stopover region they either migrated directly to the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) or they migrated north to Minnesota where they either moved next to …

Geogram 2011, David J. Keeling Editor, Wku Department Of Geography And Geology

Earth, Environmental, and Atmospheric Sciences Publications

No abstract provided.

Droughtscape, Fall 2011, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Drought Preparedness Community Options

Drought Likely to Persist, Intensify Across South

Database Will Help Planners Find Options

Impacts: Ag Losses, Fire, Water Restrictions

NDMC Welcomes International Visitors

New Drought Impact Reporter Online

Sim-Drought, Available Now at Select Agencies

The Potential For Indicators In The Management Of Climate Change Impacts On Cultural Heritage, Caithleen Daly

Conference papers

The global scale and unpredictable nature of climate change impacts on cultural heritage poses a challenge for conservation management. This article explores the potential of indicators as an aid for decision makers in the heritage sector. The author proposes a new indicator tool for addressing long-term stone recession impacts that may be related to climate change. The indicator is being installed at two World Heritage sites in Ireland but no results are available. The prototype was developed during doctoral research at the Technological University of Dublin.

Droughtscape, Summer 2011, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

New NDMC Website

Drought May Improve in Southeast and Southwest

Impacts Summary: Fire, Crop Loss and More

International Activities

NDMC Launches Ranch Planning Tool

Serving Data to Order

Workshop Builds Drought Planning Community

Identifying Changes In Climatic Trends And The Fingerprints Of Landuse And Landcover Changes In The High Plains Of The Usa, Denis Mutiibwa

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Human activities such as conversion of natural ecosystem to croplands and urban-centers, deforestation and afforestation impact biophysical properties of land surface such as albedo, energy balance, and surface roughness. Alterations in these properties affect the heat and moisture exchanges between the land surface and atmospheric boundary layer. The objectives of this research were; (i) to quantitatively identify the High plains’ regional climate change in temperatures over the period 1895 to 2006, (ii) detect the signatures of anthropogenic forcing of LULC changes on the regional climate change of the High Plains, and (iii) examine the trends in evolving regional latent heat …

Building An Enhanced Drought Early Warning System (Dews): Tools And Services For Decision Support, Mark Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Outline

• About the NDMC
• Drought Early Warning System (DEWS) Overview
• Tools (USDM, DIR, Atlas, VegDRI, + EPC/DRC)
• NDMC and the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS)
• Toward a Global Drought Early Warning System (NIDIS)
• Toward a Global Drought Early Warning System (GDEWS)
• Summary
• Q&A

Droughts In The 21st Century And Beyond, Vijay P. Singh, Chris Funk, Jim Angel, Mark Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Drought: Science

• Characterization
• Mechanisms
• Modelings
• Prediction and Forecasting

Drought Monitoring

• Measurement
• Mapping
• Space
• Time
• Data Sharing
• Updating

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

International 2011 Conference on Karst Hydrogeology and Ecosystems

No abstract provided.

Secretive Marsh Bird Species Co-Occurrences And Habitat Associations Across The Midwest, Usa, Jason R. Bolenbaugh, Sarah E. Lehnen, David G. Krementz

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Because secretive marsh birds are difficult to detect, population status and habitat use for these birds are not well known. We conducted repeated surveys for secretive marsh birds across 264 sites in the Upper Mississippi River and Great Lakes Joint Venture region to estimate abundance, occupancy, and detection probabilities during the 2008 and 2009 breeding seasons. We identified species groups based on observed species co-occurrences. Two species, least bittern Ixobrychus exilis and American bittern Botaurus lentiginosus, co-occurred with other species less often than expected by chance, and two species groups, rails (Virginia rail Rallus limicola and sora Porzana carolina) and …

Rapid Wetland Expansion During European Settlement And Its Implication For Marsh Survival Under Modern Sediment Delivery Rates, Matthew L. Kirwan, A. Brad Murray, Jeffrey P. Donnelly, D. Reide Corbett

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Fluctuations in sea-level rise rates are thought to dominate the formation and evolution of coastal wetlands. Here we demonstrate a contrasting scenario in which land-use–related changes in sediment delivery rates drive the formation of expansive marshland, and vegetation feedbacks maintain their morphology despite recent sediment supply reduction. Stratigraphic analysis and radiocarbon dating in the Plum Island Estuary (Massachusetts, United States) suggest that salt marshes expanded rapidly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries due to increased rates of sediment delivery following deforestation associated with European settlement. Numerical modeling coupled with the stratigraphic observations suggests that existing marshland could survive, but not …

Improving Energy Sustainability In Pound Hall, Craig Adams

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

This research project deals with improving energy sustainability in Pound Hall dormitory located on the University of Nebraska at Lincoln’s (UNL) city campus.  An investigation on the current energy usage of Pound Hall showed that its energy rates worsened between the years of 2009 and 2010.  These combined (electricity, steam, and water) energy rates were compared with those of the newly renovated Othmer Hall to emphasize the lack of sustainability in the older dormitory.  In order to improve Pound Hall’s energy rates, an energy benefit analysis of implementing a green roof was performed.  Having a green roof on this dormitory …

Growing The Urban Ecosystem In Detroit, Michigan, Sean Basalyga

Social Sciences

Many views of the future are seen as bleak and devoid of the life where once stood beauty and abundance. However, the Living Cities Design Competition challenges these views and calls for a vision of the future that inspires hope, biodiversity, and a healthy interaction between human and natural systems. We chose to redesign the city of Detroit, Michigan to be a living city by the year 2035. As the earth scientist on an interdisciplinary team, I acted as an ecological consultant. By developing the urban ecosystem of Detroit, a number of social, economical, and environmental problems can be solved. …

Assessing Seasonal Features Of Tropical Forests Using Remote Sensing, Roberto Bonifaz-Alfonzo

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Tropical forests are key components of the biogeochemical cycles, complex in structure, diversity and dynamics, also, tropical regions have been deforested and modified by human activities particularly for agriculture. Understanding the inter-annual and intra-annual variation dynamics of tropical regions could give valuable information on temporal characteristics of ecosystems behavior which is important for mapping and monitoring. This dissertation assesses seasonal and inter-annual changes in the tropical land cover that may be related to changes in the natural environment and/or human activities. Research was focused on the Mayan forest located in southern Mexico and Northwest Guatemala, one of the northern-most important …