Joint Orientations in the Red River Gorge Geological Area, East-Central Kentucky

The Red River Gorge Geological Area and Clifty Wilderness Area of Daniel Boone National Forest and Natural Bridge State Park in east-central Kentucky provide an excellent opportunity to observe and study differential weathering and erosion, mass wasting, and jointing in the development of cliffs, rock shelters, and natural arches. Joints in the study area have varying orientations, but dominant northeast- and northwest-striking orientations are prevalent. Jointing in the study area is related to unloading of overburden and regional tectonic stresses. Unloading joints result from removal of overburden from a rock mass, and orientations of joints are controlled by either residual or contemporary tectonic stresses. The effects of tectonic stresses are evident in joint orientations surrounding the Glencairn Fault

Stratigraphy and Structure of Part of the Western Blue Ridge Foothills near Tellico Plains, Southeastern Tennessee

The Upper Proterozoic Walden Creek and Great Smoky Groups (Ocoee Supergroup) are a thick sequence of metasedimentary rocks that underlies the western Blue Ridge Foothills in southeastern Tennessee. These rocks represent synrift sedimentation along the Late Proterozoic to Early Cambrian Laurentian margin. They were subsequently deformed and metamorphosed during the Taconic orogeny (Ordovician), then brittlely deformed by northwestward thrusting during the Alleghanian orogeny (Permian). Rejected alternative interpretations suggest that the Walden Creek Group may be Middle Ordovician to Mississippian in age, and deposited in a post-Taconic successor basin, possibly during the Acadian orogeny. Those interpretations require that these rocks were metamorphosed and deformed only during the Alleghanian orogeny. Detailed geologic mapping (1:12,000 and 1:24,000) of a 191 km2 (~74 mi2) area indicates the western Blue Ridge Foothills in southeastern Tennessee consist of Chilhowee Group (Lower Cambrian), Walden Creek Group, and Great Smoky Group lithologies broken by late Paleozoic brittle faults. Rocks assigned to the Great Smoky Group are correlated with the Ammons and Dean formations, whereas rocks of the Walden Creek Group are correlated with the Wilhite and Sandsuck formations. A klippe of quartz arenite on Groundhog Mountain is correlated with the Hesse Quartzite (Chilhowee Group). The contact between the overlying Walden Creek Group (Wilhite Formation) and Great Smoky Group (Dean Formation) is conformable, thus providing an upper bound for the age of the Walden Creek Group. This contact previously has been interpreted as the southern continuation of the Greenbrier fault, as a Middle Ordovician unconformity, and more recently as conformable. The only other conformable contact between formations in the study area is between the Dean Formation and the underlying Ammons Formation (Great Smoky Group); all others are faults. In the Walden Creek Group, the Wilhite Formation is thrust (Miller Cove fault) onto the Sandsuck Formation, which is thrust (Great Smoky fault) onto Valley and Ridge units. Rocks within the study area were metamorphosed once, and cut by six regional thrust faults, and four generations of folds and cleavages. Metamorphism during the Taconic orogeny reached chlorite and biotite grade in the study area. During this orogeny, F1 folds with axial-planar slaty cleavage (S1) formed along with pressure-solution cleavage (S1a). Brittle Alleghanian deformation resulted in emplacement of the Bullet Mountain, Great Smoky, Maggies Mill, Miller Cove, Rabbit Creek and Oconaluftee faults. These faults separate the western Blue Ridge Foothills in the study area into three thrust sheets (Great Smoky, Miller Cove, and Rabbit Creek thrust sheets). The Bullet Mountain thrust sheet is located in the Valley and Ridge and is interpreted to have been transported northwestward beneath the Great Smoky thrust sheet. F2 kink folds and S2 crenulation cleavage formed as a result of this Alleghanian deformation in the Miller Cove thrust sheet. F3 folds and axial- planar slaty cleavage (S3) formed in the Great Smoky thrust sheet. Folding of these western Blue Ridge thrust sheets by duplexing of Valley and Ridge footwall units represents the F4 folding event. Strain analysis (Rf/0| and normalized Fry methods) of ten oriented sandstones from the Walden Creek Group and the Great Smoky Group in three western Blue Ridge thrust sheets yield mean strain ratios (Rxy, Rxz, Ryz) of 1.33, 1.71, 1.3 (X≥Y≥Z) and 1.61, 2.27, 1.43 (X≥Y≥Z), respectively. Strains appear to be the result of one or two western Blue Ridge deformation events. The highest strain values occur near Alleghanian brittle faults, and toward the southeast in the direction of increasing metamorphic grade and deformation. An environmental assessment for a hypothetical residential development within the Sixmile Creek and Rocky Branch watersheds in the study area indicates slope instabilities exist due to mechanical discontinuity characteristics in bedrock, recognition of previous landslides, topography, and climate. Previous landslides within this area are classified as debris slides and debris flows, and were possibly triggered by heavy rainfall events. Extensive development is not recommended in most of the assessment area

Short-term Response of Holcus lanatus L. (Common Velvetgrass) to Chemical and Manual Control at Yosemite National Park, USA

One of the highest priority invasive species at both Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks is Holcus lanatus L. (common velvetgrass), a perennial bunchgrass that invades mid-elevation montane meadows. Despite velvetgrass being a high priority species, there is little information available on control techniques. The goal of this project was to evaluate the short-term response of a single application of common chemical and manual velvetgrass control techniques. The study was conducted at three montane sites in Yosemite National Park. Glyphosate spotspray treatments were applied at 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0% concentrations, and compared with hand pulling to evaluate effects on cover of common velvetgrass, cover of other plant species, and community species richness. Posttreatment year 1 cover of common velvetgrass was 12.1% 6 1.6 in control plots, 6.3% 6 1.5 averaged over the four chemical treatments (all chemical treatments performed similarly), and 13.6% 6 1.7 for handpulled plots. This represents an approximately 50% reduction in common velvetgrass cover in chemically- treated plots recoded posttreatment year 1 and no statistically significant reduction in hand pulled plots compared with controls. However, there was no treatment effect in posttreatment year 2, and all herbicide application rates performed similarly. In addition, there were no significant treatment effects on nontarget species or species richness. These results suggest that for this level of infestation and habitat type, (1) one year of hand pulling is not an effective control method and (2) glyphosate provides some level of control in the short-term without impact to nontarget plant species, but the effect is temporary as a single year of glyphosate treatment is ineffective over a twoyear period

Joint Map of Hardin County, Kentucky

New field mapping of joints with previously published joint and fault locations. This fracture map can be used as a critical data source for hydrological, karst or geotechnical applications. Joint orientations were measured in 2009, 2022 and 2023, and are combined with joint and fault locations for Hardin County, Kentucky from 1:24,000-scale USGS geologic quadrangle maps that were published from 1962 to 1977. The geologic quadrangle maps for the county were digitized from 2002 to 2007. The geology of Hardin County consists of Upper Devonian New Albany Shale overlain by Lower to Upper Mississippian-age sequences of limestone, dolomite, sandstone and shale. These units were juxtaposed by normal faulting after the Late Pennsylvanian. Dominant joint orientations for all map units trend 0-20, and 70-80 degrees, with minor orientations trending 40-50 and 290-310 degrees, with many joint orientations parallel to subparallel to nearby faults. Most joint orientations were measured in the Middle Mississippian St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve Limestones, which are the most extensive rock units in the study area. These joint orientations can be viewed online on the Kentucky Geological Survey map service (https://kgs.uky.edu/kygeode/geomap/)

File Fragmentation over an Unreliable Channel

It has been recently discovered that heavy-tailed file completion time can result from protocol interaction even when file sizes are light-tailed. A key to this phenomenon is the RESTART feature where if a file transfer is interrupted before it is completed, the transfer needs to restart from the beginning. In this paper, we show that independent or bounded fragmentation guarantees light-tailed file completion time as long as the file size is light-tailed, i.e., in this case, heavy-tailed file completion time can only originate from heavy-tailed file sizes. If the file size is heavy-tailed, then the file completion time is necessarily heavy-tailed. For this case, we show that when the file size distribution is regularly varying, then under independent or bounded fragmentation, the completion time tail distribution function is asymptotically upper bounded by that of the original file size stretched by a constant factor. We then prove that if the failure distribution has non-decreasing failure rate, the expected completion time is minimized by dividing the file into equal sized fragments; this optimal fragment size is unique but depends on the file size. We also present a simple blind fragmentation policy where the fragment sizes are constant and independent of the file size and prove that it is asymptotically optimal. Finally, we bound the error in expected completion time due to error in modeling of the failure process

DEMAND FOR TANF IN MISSISSIPPI

The federal to state devolution of welfare programs accent the need for state and local policy makers to anticipate aggregate welfare demand. Pooled regression analysis using six years of county-level Mississippi TANF data identified effects of rurality, education, unemployment, poverty levels, and family structure on caseload numbers.Food Security and Poverty, Public Economics,

House Price Changes and Idiosyncratic Risk: The Impact of Property Characteristics

While the average change in house prices is related to changes in fundamentals or perhaps market-wide bubbles, not all houses in a market appreciate at the same rate.The primary focus of our study is to investigate the reasons for these variations in price changes among houses within a market. We draw on two theories for guidance, one related to the optimal search strategy for sellers of atypical dwellings and the other focusing on the bargaining process between a seller and potential buyers. We hypothesize that houses will appreciate at different rates depending on the characteristics of the property and the change in the strength of the housing market. These hypotheses are supported using data from three New Zealand housing markets.Atypicality; Bargaining; Housing Risk; House Price Appreciation; Search Models