Browsing FAS Theses and Dissertations by FAS Department "Earth and Planetary Sciences"
Now showing items 1-20 of 59
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A Portrait of Terrestrial Volatile Evolution From Mantle Noble Gases
(2016-10-31)Volatile elements and compounds provide important insights into large-scale planetary and tectonic processes. The chapters in this thesis exploit the wealth of information provided by noble gas measurements to address a ... -
Active deformation over multiple earthquake cycles in the southern Junggar fold and-thrust belt, NW China and fractured reservoir characterization using 3D geomechanical restorations
(2016-05-19)This dissertation investigates natural deformation processes over multiple earthquake cycles in the seismically active, southern Junggar basin, NW China and additionally explores the capabilities of 3D geomechanical ... -
Amazon Forest Response to Changes in Rainfall Regime: Results from an Individual-Based Dynamic Vegetation Model
(2014-02-25)The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest in the world, and thus plays a major role on global water, energy, and carbon cycles. However, it is still unknown how the Amazon forest will respond to the ongoing changes ... -
American Maize: Climate Change, Adaptation, and Spatio-Temporal Variation in Temperature Sensitivity
(2015-04-20)Agricultural production is vulnerable to climate change. However, this vulnerability can be reduced by adapting food crops to a hotter climate. Many studies have ignored adaptation when quantifying the effect of climate ... -
Application of noble gas isotopic systems to identify mantle heterogeneities
(2014-10-21)This study addresses the origin of the combined He-Ne-Ar-Xe noble gas isotopic variation in mantle derived oceanic basalts. High precision heavy noble gas compositions of basalts from the Rochambeau Rift along the Northwestern ... -
Atmospheric Superrotation in Warm Earth Climates
(2014-02-25)This thesis considers atmospheric superrotation, a state of westerly equatorial winds which must be maintained by up-gradient eddy momentum fluxes. Superrotation has appeared in simulations of warm climates that generate ... -
Constraining Subduction Zone Processes Through Local, Regional, and Global Chemical Systematics
(2015-04-08)Subduction zones recycle material from Earth’s surface into the mantle, and are an important means of continent building. The subduction system serves as a stamp, imprinting the distinct chemical characteristics of our ... -
Constraints on Global Carbon Cycling, Basin Formation, and Early Animal Evolution During the Neoproterozoic and Early Cambrian
(2015-09-25)Within this dissertation, I document different time intervals during the Neoproterozoic through the early Cambrian (1000 – 525 Ma), one of the most dynamic and non-uniformitarian intervals in the history of the Earth. This ... -
Earthquake Characteristics as Imaged by the Back-Projection Method
(2013-02-15)This dissertation explores the capability of dense seismic array data for imaging the rupture properties of earthquake sources using a method known as back-projection. Only within the past 10 or 15 years has implementation ... -
Elemental Fluxes to the Seafloor: Pleistocene Climate and Submarine Hydrothermal Activity
(2018-01-03)Marine sedimentary records of major and trace element deposition provide a means to examine the temporal variability and interactions between a wide variety of Earth processes, including fluctuations in atmospheric and ... -
Emissions of Nitrous Oxide and Methane in North America
(2015-05-13)Methane (CH_4) and nitrous oxide (N_2O) are the second- and third-most important long-lived greenhouse gas species after carbon dioxide (CO_2) in terms of radiative forcing. This thesis describes the magnitude, spatial ... -
Estimates of Land Ice Changes from Sea Level and Gravity Observations
(2014-06-06)Understanding how global ice volume on the Earth has changed is of significant importance to improving our understanding of the climate system. Fortunately, the geographically unique perturbations in sea level that result ... -
Evolution of Silica Biomineralizing Plankton
(2013-09-18)The post-Paleozoic history of the silica cycle involves just two groups of marine plankton, radiolarians and diatoms. I apply paleobiological methods to better understand the Cenozoic evolution of both groups. The Cenozoic ... -
Exploring the Climate Impacts of Solar Geoengineering on Land-Atmosphere Interactions
(2017-08-24)We are already on our way to a much warmer world. As humans continue to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, avoiding the worst increases in surface temperature will likely require climate mitigation or even climate ... -
Exploring the Wide Net of Human Energy Systems: From Carbon Dioxide Emissions in China to Hydraulic Fracturing Chemicals Usage in the United States
(2017-08-24)Human energy systems have profound and far-reaching impacts, from global to regional levels. This thesis examines two seemingly distinct issues that are intrinsically united by the growing human appetite for energy and ... -
Fluxes of Atmospheric Methane Using Novel Instruments, Field Measurements, and Inverse Modeling
(2013-09-24)The atmospheric concentration of methane \((CH_4)\) - the most significant non-\(CO_2\) anthropogenic long-lived greenhouse gas - stabilized between 1999 and 2006 and then began to rise again. Explanations for this behavior ... -
Geodetic Imaging of Fault System Activity
(2014-06-06)Geodetic observations provide kinematic constraints on the behavior of tectonically active fault systems. Estimates of earthquake cycle activity derived from these constraints may depend on modeling assumptions and/or ... -
Geostationary satellite observations of ozone air quality
(2013-10-14)Ozone in surface air is the primary cause of polluted air in the United States. The current ozone observing network is insufficient either to assess air quality or to fully inform our understanding of the factors controlling ... -
Ice Stream Variability and Links to Climate
(2015-09-22)This dissertation explores the variability and climatic importance of ice streams, regions of fast flow in ice sheets. Observations indicate that ice stream variability plays an important role in the current mass balance ... -
Imprints of Geodynamic Processes on the Paleoclimate Record
(2016-05-18)In this thesis I investigate how solid Earth deformation associated with glacial isostatic adjustment and mantle convection impacted ice age climate. In particular, I discard approximations that treat the Earth's internal ...