Mount St. Helens and Catastrophism

The explosion of Mount St. Helens In Washington State on Hay 18, 1980 was Initiated by an earthquake and rocksiide Involving one half cubic mile of rock. As the sum it and north slope slid off the volcano that morning, pressure was released inside the volcano where super-hot liquid water Immediately flashed to steam. The northward-directed steam explosion released energy equivalent to 20 million tons of TNT which toppled 150 square miles of forest In six minutes. In Spirit Lake north of the volcano, an enormous water wave initiated by one eighth cubic mile of rockslide debris stripped trees from slopes as much as 850 feet above the pre-eruption water level. The total energy output on May 18 was equivalent to 400 million tons TNT, approximately 20,000 Hiroshima-size atomic bombs. On Hay 18 and also during later eruptions critical energy thresholds were exceeded by potent geologic processes which were able to accomplish significant changes in short order. These processes challenge our way of thinking about how the earth works and serve as a miniature laboratory for catastrophisra

Gathering Around the Organizational Campfire: Storytelling As a Way of Maintaining and Changing For-Profit Organizational Cultures

Stories abound in the business world. They may be called success stories, best practices sharing, or even simply stories, but however they are referred to, these tales not only become part of the organizational culture, but they also help define it. This study examines storytelling among for-profit organizations to demonstrate how stories are selected, told, and related to employees for the purposes of either changing the organizational culture or helping to maintain the existing one. Four companies have been chosen to capture the nature of storytelling as it relates to the sharing of cultural information within these firms. Using the qualitative research methodology known as portraiture, four portraits have been be crafted and emergent themes concerning the relationship of storytelling and culture are identified: organizational culture is not easily defined, culture emanates from the top, stories about culture are numerous, histories of organizations are stories, maintaining or changing culture is difficult, and stories about culture are real. The purpose of this study is to deepen our understanding about how and why stories function in for-profit cultures.. The electronic version of this dissertation is accessible at the OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.ed

Tight Folds and Clastic Dikes as Evidence for Rapid Deposition and Deformation of Two Very Thick Stratigraphic Sequences

Tight folds In 17,000 feet of Miocene to Pleistocene strata on the Split Mountain Fault in Southern California Indicate that Miocene or lower Pliocene sandstone remained In a nonlithified condition until folded in the late Pleistocene. Likewise, soft sediment deformation features (clastic dikes, tight drag folds and Intense monoclines) In 14,000 feet of Cambrian to Cretaceous strata on the Ute Pass Fault in Colorado argue that even the Cambrian strata were not lthified when the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains was uplifted in the late Cretaceous Laramide event. Evolutionists have assumed the California strata sequence Involves about six million years between deposition and deformation. Furthermore, they have assumed the Colorado strata sequence Involves up to 430 million years between deposition and deformation. How these two sedimentary sequences could escape lithification after deep burial for millions of years remains unexplained by evolutionists. On the other hand, creationists view this evidence that sedimentation and tectonics are concurrent as evidence for rapid deposition and deformation

Investigation of wellbore stability in a North Sea field development

Planning drilling operations is key to the development of oil and natural gas fields. As part of well design, wellbore stability and pore pressure analysis are main factors in determining the safe operating window for selecting mud density. The motivation for this research was to conduct wellbore stability based on exploration wells as basis for planning new offshore field developments with deviated and horizontal wells. A second objective was to investigate the use of a probabilistic approach to wellbore stability, and compare it to the conventional deterministic methods, in order to evaluate the value of including a probabilistic approach to wellbore stability analysis. The field to be developed is located in the Southern North Sea, and includes a reservoir consisting of conglomerate and sandstone. Data from multiple exploration and appraisal wells were analyzed to create the geomechanical model used as the basis for developing safe mudweight window for the deviated and horizontal injection and production wells in the field. The wellbore failure analysis shows the necessity of triaxial testing, mini-frac tests, and other advanced data collection techniques to improve the geomechanical model when studying new lithologies, not included in existing rock strength correlations. A probabilistic approach to wellbore stability analysis was implemented using Monte-Carlo analysis. It was determined that this approach to wellbore stability resulted in an unrealistically high minimum mudweight for an acceptable risk level. Based on the level of uncertainty of the input parameters, with current geomechanical modeling techniques, the probabilistic approach to wellbore stability analysis was determined to be ineffective as a tool for planning new field developments. As such, it is concluded that the best method for conducting wellbore stability analysis is deterministically, based on the best estimate of each input parameter for this analysis --Abstract, page iii

Nautiloid Mass Kill and Burial Event, Redwall Limestone (Lower Mississippian), Grand Canyon Region, Arizona and Nevada

Billions of large orthocone nautiloids occur within an extremely persistent lime packstone bed of the Redwall Limestone through the Grand Canyon region, Arizona and Nevada. The platform facies of the packstone bed is 2 m thick at the top of the Whitmore Wash Member (Osagean Series of Mississippian System). Abundant nautiloids occur within the platform facies of the bed from Marble Canyon, Arizona westward 290 kilometers to Las Vegas, Nevada. The slope facies of the bed, where nautiloids are rare, is 3-to-14-m-thick, light-gray-weathering grainstone occurring northwest of the platform facies in southern Nevada, extreme northwestern Arizona, and southwestern Utah. Both platform and slope facies of the bed are named formally Whitmore Nautiloid Bed (WNB). Bed area exceeds 3 x 104 km2 and bed volume exceeds 100 km3. Orthocone nautiloids assignable to the genus Rayonnoceras show evidence that bodies occupied the shells during mass kill and burial of an entire population. Shell orientation, inverse grading, outsized coral heads, and water-escape pipes indicate rapid deposition of the platform facies from a high-velocity, laminar, low-cohesion, fluidized dispersion of carbonate sand and silt. This moving dispersion can be called a hyperconcentrated flow (volume concentration sediment ≈ 35%, flow density ≈ 1.6 g/cm3). Nautiloids and large coral heads were separated within the dispersion being supported as a raft above the highest-density, strongly fluidized, laminar flow. The flow event resembles the process that suspends lithic fragments and pumice clasts within a pyroclastic density current. WNB has internal structure resembling ignimbrite. The hyperconcentrated flow was initiated as a liquefied flow slide, probably in southwest Colorado, and hydroplaned toward southern Nevada at velocity ≈ 5 m/s through the carbonate platform in northern Arizona. When the flow encountered the slope in southern Nevada and southwest Utah, it was transformed into a turbulent, concentrated flow (volume concentration sediment ≈ 25%) depositing most of its sediment mass. Further westward in Nevada the flow lost its hydroplane and became a tractive current. This is the first documentation in the geological literature of a regionally extensive hyperconcentrated sediment gravity flow upon a marine carbonate platform

#BlackWorkersMatter

Asserting that Black lives matter also means that the quality of those lives matters, and economic opportunity is inextricably linked to quality of life. Decades after the Civil Rights Movement and the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, structural barriers still hold back African Americans in the workplace.The authors of this report provide some broader context on the black jobs crisis, including its origins and effects; the particular impact of the crisis on African American women; the declining state of black workers and their organizations, particularly within the labor movement; and the implications of the twin crises of joblessness and poverty-level wages for organizing. This report also features examples of how black worker organizations are combining strategic research, services, policy advocacy, and organizing to help black workers weather the economic storms and improve the quality of jobs that are open to African Americans over the long term

Evidences for Rapid Formation and Failure of Pleistocene Lava Dams of the Western Grand Canyon, AZ.

Over 200 isolated outcrops of horizontally stratified, basaltic lava flows within the inner gorge of western Grand Canyon indicate that several natural lava dams blocked the flow of the Colorado River during the Pleistocene, resulting in the formation of several lakes within the canyon. The largest lake was 90 m above the high water level of present-day Lake Powell and backed up a distance of over 480 km to Moab, Utah . Although early studies indicated that three or less dams once blocked the inner gorge, work completed in 1994 indicated that at least 13 distinct lava dams may have blocked the Colorado River. Comparison with modern erosion rates of cliff retreat (Niagara Falls) indicate that the 13 dams would have required a minimum of 250,000 years to erode during the Pleistocene. However, geologic features and relationships not previously considered indicate that the dams formed rapidly (hours, days, or months) and failed catastrophically soon after formation. Excess radiogenic argon is contain within many basalts of Grand Canyon. This initial argon invalidates K-Ar model ages which are assumed by many geologists to require an age of more than one million years for the oldest lava dams. We envision that the entire episode of the lava darns can easily be reconciled within a time-frame of less than two thousand years. Our observations and interpretations reveal serious flaws in the current long-age timescale of the Pleistocene Epoch