Utilizing Structure-From-Motion Photogrammetry and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to Characterize Variability in Fluvial Deposits from the Salt Wash Member of the Morrison Formation, East-Central Utah

Modern fluvial systems are highly variable, often containing the entire spectrum of fluvial styles (e.g., braided to meandering). This variability is difficult to capture in ancient fluvial deposits due to limited 1- and 2-dimesional exposures, which provide only a snapshot of the depositional history at one location. As a result, researchers are forced to interpolate between exposures and develop regional scale models that often underestimate the complexity and variability seen in modern environments. Outcrops of the Upper Jurassic Salt Wash Member of the Morrison Formation in east-central Utah, USA provide a relatively unique opportunity to examine ancient fluvial sandstone bodies in planview. However, capturing the 3-dimensional nature of these outcrops is problematic in that field-based observations are too specific to delineate larger-scale trends, and existing aerial imagery does not have the resolution to distinguish important details. This thesis outlines the workflow and results of a study that utilizes unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry to produce sub-meter-scale outcrop reconstructions in 3-D. Overall, average values of sandstone body characteristics (width, orientation, paleocurrent, etc.) in the Salt Wash Member are consistent with existing models. However, within this spectrum are four distinct types of fluvial deposits, each with its own characteristics. Very narrow sandstone bodies (4-6 m wide) occur in groups, are less than 2 m thick and heavily bioturbated. Narrow sandstone bodies (15 to 45 m wide) are straight to sinuous, contain evidence of lateral migration, and were deposited by east-northeast flowing fluvial systems. Medium sandstone bodies (75 to 105 m wide) are straight, and were deposited by non-migrating, east-flowing fluvial systems. Sheet/other sandstone bodies consist of both sheet-like sandstones whose edges are not visible and eroded sandstones bodies that cannot be reconstructed. The succession is consistent with a distributive fluvial system model (DFS) previously proposed for the Salt Wash Member. However, the variability of sandstone bodies and orientations in this area suggest these deposits may be more variable at local scales (e.g. 10km2) than what would be predicted by existing DFS models

Protistan community patterns within the brine and halocline of deep hypersaline anoxic basins in the eastern Mediterranean Sea

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Extremophiles 13 (2009): 151-167, doi:10.1007/s00792-008-0206-2.Environmental factors restrict the distribution of microbial eukaryotes but the exact boundaries for eukaryotic life are not known. Here we examine protistan communities at the extremes of salinity and osmotic pressure, and report rich assemblages inhabiting Bannock and Discovery, two deep-sea superhaline anoxic basins in the Mediterranean. Using a rRNA-based approach, we detected 1538 protistan rRNA gene sequences from water samples with total salinity ranging from 39 g/kg to 280 g/Kg, and obtained evidence that this DNA was endogenous to the extreme habitats sampled. Statistical analyses indicate that the discovered phylotypes represent only a fraction of species actually inhabiting both the brine and the brine-seawater interface, with as much as 82% of the actual richness missed by our survey. Jaccard indices (e.g., for a comparison of community membership) suggest that the brine/interface protistan communities are unique to Bannock and Discovery basins, and share little (0.8-2.8%) in species composition with overlying waters with typical marine salinity and oxygen tension. The protistan communities from the basins’ brine and brine/seawater interface appear to be particularly enriched with dinoflagellates, ciliates and other alveolates, as well as fungi, and are conspicuously poor in stramenopiles. The uniqueness and diversity of brine and brine-interface protistan communities make them promising targets for protistan discovery.This study was supported by grant grant STO414/2-4 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the EuroDEEP program of the European Science Foundation under 06-EuroDEEP-FP-004 MIDDLE project and NSF-grant MCB- 034834

Field and Petrographic Analysis of the Indian Peak-Caliente Caldera Complex at Condor and English Canyons in Eastern Nevada

The Indian Peak-Caliente Caldera Complex, or IPCCC, is an ideal site to study how large-scale tectonic forces can influence mineralogy on a local scale. This research was completed and compiled by the Tectonics and Mineralogy classes at Southern Utah University during a joint class field study and subsequent laboratory analyses. During the field trip, the main focuses were to observe caldera collapse relationships and ignimbrite features and to collect samples at Condor Canyon and English Canyon, two sites near the border between Nevada and Utah within the IPCCC. After the field trip, the Tectonics class completed a detailed literature review of the overall tectonic evolution of the region while the Mineralogy students petrographically analyzed the collected samples. This report provides a summary of the results, including mineralogical descriptions; an interpretation of a piece-meal, or piston-like, collapse of the caldera complex; and a connection between the local geology and the regional tectonic setting

The International Surface Pressure Databank version 2

The International Surface Pressure Databank (ISPD) is the world's largest collection of global surface and sea-level pressure observations. It was developed by extracting observations from established international archives, through international cooperation with data recovery facilitated by the Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE) initiative, and directly by contributing universities, organizations, and countries. The dataset period is currently 1768–2012 and consists of three data components: observations from land stations, marine observing systems, and tropical cyclone best track pressure reports. Version 2 of the ISPD (ISPDv2) was created to be observational input for the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project (20CR) and contains the quality control and assimilation feedback metadata from the 20CR. Since then, it has been used for various general climate and weather studies, and an updated version 3 (ISPDv3) has been used in the ERA-20C reanalysis in connection with the European Reanalysis of Global Climate Observations project (ERA-CLIM). The focus of this paper is on the ISPDv2 and the inclusion of the 20CR feedback metadata. The Research Data Archive at the National Center for Atmospheric Research provides data collection and access for the ISPDv2, and will provide access to future versions

The Pan-STARRS Moving Object Processing System

We describe the Pan-STARRS Moving Object Processing System (MOPS), a modern software package that produces automatic asteroid discoveries and identifications from catalogs of transient detections from next-generation astronomical survey telescopes. MOPS achieves > 99.5% efficiency in producing orbits from a synthetic but realistic population of asteroids whose measurements were simulated for a Pan-STARRS4-class telescope. Additionally, using a non-physical grid population, we demonstrate that MOPS can detect populations of currently unknown objects such as interstellar asteroids. MOPS has been adapted successfully to the prototype Pan-STARRS1 telescope despite differences in expected false detection rates, fill-factor loss and relatively sparse observing cadence compared to a hypothetical Pan-STARRS4 telescope and survey. MOPS remains >99.5% efficient at detecting objects on a single night but drops to 80% efficiency at producing orbits for objects detected on multiple nights. This loss is primarily due to configurable MOPS processing limits that are not yet tuned for the Pan-STARRS1 mission. The core MOPS software package is the product of more than 15 person-years of software development and incorporates countless additional years of effort in third-party software to perform lower-level functions such as spatial searching or orbit determination. We describe the high-level design of MOPS and essential subcomponents, the suitability of MOPS for other survey programs, and suggest a road map for future MOPS development.Comment: 57 Pages, 26 Figures, 13 Table

Autonomous Detection of Particles and Tracks in Optical Images

During its initial orbital phase in early 2019, the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) asteroid sample return mission detected small particles apparently emanating from the surface of the near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu in optical navigation images. Identification and characterization of the physical and dynamical properties of these objects became a mission priority in terms of both spacecraft safety and scientific investigation. Traditional techniques for particle identification and tracking typically rely on manual inspection and are often time-consuming. The large number of particles associated with the Bennu events and the mission criticality rendered manual inspection techniques infeasible for long-term operational support. In this work, we present techniques for autonomously detecting potential particles in monocular images and providing initial correspondences between observations in sequential images, as implemented for the OSIRIS-REx mission.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figure

3rd Annual Federal Practice Institute

Outline of speakers\u27 presentations from the 3rd Annual Federal Practice Institute held by UK/CLE on September 23, 1988

Origen de los metales en depósitos tipo “manto” y skarn. Isótopos de Pb y Cu (Cabildo, Chile Central)

Este artículo ha sido publicado por la revista Macla y está accesible en: http://www.ehu.eus/sem/macla_pdf/macla13/Macla13_161.pdfEl distrito minero de Cabildo, situado en la Cordillera de la Costa de Chile Central, constituye un área minera de especial interés, dado que en la misma confluyen dos tipos de depósitos minerales: mineralizaciones de Cu-(Ag) de tipo “manto” chileno y depósitos de tipo skarn. Los depósitos de tipo skarn son bien conocidos a nivel mundial, pero poco frecuentes en la Cordillera de la Costa, siendo el skarn de Cu de Cabildo el único en producción para el Cu en la región. Los depósitos tipo “manto”, presentan aún bastantes incógnitas respecto a su génesis a pesar de su importancia económica y abundancia en la zona (Maksaev y Zentilli, 2002). En este estudio se aportan datos isotópicos de Pb y Cu de las mineralizaciones principales del distrito minero de Cabildo. Los resultados presentados ofrecen la oportunidad de discutir el origen y el comportamiento de los metales en estos depósitos.Departamento de Mineralogía y Petrología (Universidad de Granada)Departamento de Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales (Universidad de Granada)Este trabajo ha sido realizado en el marco del proyecto CGL2006-02594 (Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia y FEDER). Verónica Moreno agradece al MEC la financiación recibida a través de una beca FPU