The addition of buried impact structures to the known database of surface structures is key to a complete understanding of the geologic history of Mars because it allows for a more precise calculation of crustal age. Also, because these buried structures record an impact event and a resurfacing event they can be used to clearly define crustal versus surface ages. This study used topographic data and a crustal thickness model to identify buried and visible impact structures. This process was repeated twice and then correlated to create a global database of impact structures greater than 200 km. During the study confidence factor protocol was developed based on [1] ratio of crater diameter to relief and [2] percentage of rim present. This criteria was applied to each visible and buried structure. The comparison of visible and buried impact structures provides constraints on the timing of resurfacing events. Cumulative and N(300) values were calculated to derive the relative crustal ages in major geologic provinces. It was found that [1] the Martian lowlands and highlands have similar crustal ages when combining the visible and buried impact structures, [2] Tharsis is younger than these two regions, [3] the lowlands appear to have been thinned before or during the Late Heavy Bombardment (LBH), and [4] the resurfacing of the lowlands must have happened at the same time or shortly after the rise of the Tharsis bulge. / Geology

Preterm delivery (PTD) is a leading cause of infant death, and surviving infants are at risk for poor health. Data from the Iowa Health in Pregnancy Study, a case-control study of maternal stress on risk of PTD and small for gestational age (SGA) deliveries were used to address three aims: 1) develop a method to correct for error in ultrasound measurement among suspected SGA infants, 2) estimate the association of occupational stress on risk of PTD, and 3) examine injury-related risk factors for PTD. Estimates of gestational age using ultrasound can be biased if the fetus is growth-restricted, yielding underestimates due to the small stature of the fetus. Multivariate linear regression modeling was used to estimate and correct for this bias among subjects with a suspected SGA infant who 1) began prenatal care in the first trimester, 2) reported a last menstrual period and 3) had an ultrasound examination between 7-21 weeks. To correct for this bias, an average of 1.5 weeks was added to the ultrasound gestational age. Following the correction, the proportion of PTD cases decreased from 29.1% to 26.5% while SGA cases increased from 23.7% to 31.3%. Using this PTD classification, occupational physical and psychosocial stressors were studied. Continuous employment over the first 20 weeks of pregnancy was associated with a 30% increased risk of PTD versus not working. Working women reporting highly repetitive tasks (aOR=1.47(1.10-1.98)) or inadequate breaks (aOR=1.67(1.03-2.73)) were at increased risk of PTD. Working women who reported high lifting in the home had double the risk of PTD. Over 5% of control subjects reported an injury during pregnancy, and injured women tended to be younger, unmarried, less educated, and have lower incomes. Women with injuries involving >1 body part (aOR=2.50(1.14-5.49)), or injuries to the abdomen and other regions of the body (OR=1.75(0.59-5.23)) were at increased risk of PTD. Our findings provide a statistical approach to assess and correct for underestimates of ultrasound gestational age in case-control studies of PTD and SGA. The analyses of occupational exposures and injury during pregnancy indicate the need for studies that incorporate specific and standardized assessments of these exposures.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The northern Central Highlands region of Tasmania extending north from Cradle Mountain to the Middlesex Plains shows evidence of three glacial stages, with the final stage consisting of several ice advance phases. From oldest to youngest these have been named the Middlesex Glaciation, the Sunshine Glaciation and the Cradle Glaciation. Cosmogenic exposure-age dating of boulders and ice-abraded bedrock, radiocarbon dating of post-glacial organic deposits, and relative dating techniques have resulted in assignment of the following ages for the events: Middlesex Glaciation, MIS 10; Sunshine Glaciation, MIS 6 and the Cradle Glaciation having MIS 3 and MIS 2 phases. The Cradle Glaciation correlates with the global Last Glaciation. Exposure-age dating of three of the Cradle Glaciation ice advance phases indicates that the Pencil Pine Phase predates 38.9±4.0 ka, the Dove Phase occurred ca. 29.2±1.4 ka, and the Cradle Valley Phase occurred between >19.7±1.1 – 17.6±1.0 ka. At least two undated retreat/readvance phases followed the Cradle Valley Phase. Deglaciation of the area was probably complete considerably before 11.2 ka. The recognised glacial events decreased in areal extent in each successive advance. Using the 0°C summer mean isotherm as the base for the altitude of the equilibrium line altitude, the regional snowline, regional snowline depression and temperature depression for each of the events were: Middlesex Glaciation, 942 m/1616 m/10.5°C; Sunshine Glaciation, 984 m/1574 m/10.23°C; Pencil Pine Phase, 1010 m/1548 m/10.06°C; Dove Phase, 1050 m/1508 m/9.8°C; and the Cradle Valley Phase, 1060 m/1498 m/9.74°C. The geomorphic evidence and dating of several phases of the Cradle Glaciation indicates a complex history of ice advances for Tasmania during the Last Glaciation.

No description available.

The Coles Hill uranium deposit in Pittsylvania County, VA, is the largest un-mined uranium deposit in the United States. The deposit is located in the Virginia Piedmont in a geologic unit located immediately west of the Chatham Fault, which separates the granitic rocks of the Virginia Piedmont to the west from the metasediments of the Danville Triassic basin to the east. Groundwater at the site flows through a complex interconnected network of fractures controlled by the geology and structural history of the site. In this study groundwater is characterized in a small study area just south of the main deposit. Methods used in this investigation include electrical resistivity profiling, bore hole logging, a pumping test, and age dating and water chemistry. In this thesis groundwater flow is confirmed to occur from the Piedmont crystalline rocks across the Chatham Fault and into the Triassic basin at the study area as evidenced by pumping test data and static water-level data from observation wells. Well logs have identified fractures capable of transmitting water in the granitic rocks of the Piedmont, the Triassic basin metasediments and the Chatham Fault but the largest quantities of flow appear to occur in the Triassic basin. A definable recharge area for the groundwater present at Coles Hill can not yet be determined due to the complexity of the fracture system, but age dating confirms that groundwater is composed of both young and old (>60 years) components, indicating that at least a portion of groundwater at Coles Hill originates from a more distant area. / Master of Science

Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) are a group of 209 ‘man-made’ chlorinated organic compounds that were widely used in the 20th century for a variety of industrial uses. PCBs were first commercially produced in the 1929 and were manufactured until the 1980s when their use was phased out due to environmental and human health risks. However, due to their widespread use and persistence they are ubiquitous in the environment and remain a contaminant of concern. The structural properties that determine the persistence of PCBs in humans were therefore elucidated by statistical analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). PCBs with chlorine bonding in the 2,5-and 2,3,6- positions (and 2- in di- and tri-chlorinated congeners) were rapidly biotransformed and so can be classed as episodic congeners whereas PCBs with chlorine bonding in the 2,3,4-, 2,4,5-, 3,4,5-, and 2,3,4,5- positions were more resistant to biotransformation and can therefore be classed as steady state congeners. A fundamental requirement of using PCB signatures for environmental fingerprinting is an effective analytical method capable of producing high resolution signatures from biological samples. An extraction and clean-up method was developed that was successfully applied to different biological matrices (blood and tissues). A two dimensional gas chromatography with time of flight mass spectrometry (GCxGC-ToFMS) method was designed and optimised to provide a congener specific method capable of identifying 200 out of the 209 PCBs, with detection limits in human serum in the range of 1 to 10 ng g-1 lipid. The extraction and detection methods were used to determine the source of PCB contamination and age date exposure in workers at a transformer dismantling plant. A total of 84 different PCB congeners were identified in the sera of 30 workers with concentrations of the 7 indicator PCBs ranging from 1.2 - 39 μg g-1 lipid. Analysis of PCB signatures was able to distinguish recent from prolonged exposure and also identified an additional source of inhalation exposure in a subgroup of workers. Analysis of 12 different tissue types obtained from the common guillemot (Uria aalge) suggested a high degree of perpetuation between the PCB signature in different tissue types. This shows that comparative assessments can be undertaken between animals using different tissue types and that small (1 g) samples of blood can be used as a non-lethal sampling technique. The regional provenance of 25 wrecked Leach’s storm petrels (Oceanodroma leucorhoa) was also determined using PCB signatures. Results from GCxGC-ToFMS analysis revealed distinctively different PCB signatures in birds from Canada and Europe. The findings reported in this thesis enhance our understanding of PCB signatures in the environment and show how they can be used effectively to age date and identify the source of exposure in humans and animals.

Southern Star Valley is a structural and physiographic basin bounded on the east by the southern Star Valley fault, an active normal fault associated with Basin and Range extension. The southern Star Valley fault separates southern Star Valley from the Salt River Range and forms a dramatic north-south trending topographic escarpment. Statistical analysis of relative-age dating (RD) parameters taken from glacial deposits in the Salt River Range defined distinctive age groups for the deposits, and comparison of RD data allowed correlations with late Pleistocene and Holocene glacial deposits elsewhere in the Rocky Mountains. However, the sedimentary lithologies in the glacial deposits in the study area and inherent variability of RD data limited definitive regional correlations. The southern Star Valley fault (SSVF) lies in a parabola-shaped zone of large, seismogenic normal faults. The zone trails to the west of the eastward-migrating Yellowstone hot spot. Basin-facing fault scarps up to 11 meters high created by recurrent late Quaternary faulting along the southern Star Valley fault are preserved in late-Pleistocene and Holocene alluvial fans along the Salt River Range front. Radiocarbon ages from faulted deposits exposed in a trench provide age estimates of ca. 8,090 ± 80 and 5,540 ± 70 yrs. B. P. for the two most recent paleoearthquakes. The magnitudes of the paleoearthquakes, based on surface rupture height and length and estimates, were between Ms6.9 and Ms7.1. The tectonic geomorphology of river alluvium and alluvial fans near the SSVF suggests that recurrent faulting has downdropped the northern end of southern Star Valley more in relationship to the southern part of the valley and created a deep depocenter in the northern part.

Since fetal alcohol syndrome was first reported, studies have demonstrated a range of perinatal/developmental abnormalities that fall under the umbrella term fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Of these, low birth weight in exposed children is among the most commonly observed and widely accepted. However, in the past, assertion of an association between prenatal alcohol exposure and preterm birth was controversial. Methodological difficulties may have contributed to failure to consistently detect such a relationship. However, new evidence suggests that pregnancy drinking may be a major contributor to extreme, but not mild prematurity. Extreme prematurity is a major cause of severe perinatal morbidity and mortality. If recent findings are confirmed, it suggests that extreme prematurity might be reduced by eliminating prenatal alcohol exposure.

No description available.

This thesis develops a better knowledge of the extent and timing of glaciations in southern Argentina throughout the Quaternary. It provides a detailed understanding of successive major glacial outlet lobes in the Lago Pueyrredón valley. The glacial and glaciofluvial deposits in the valley, as elsewhere in the region, are extremely well-preserved and reflect punctuated glacial advances between ~ 1.1 Ma and ~ 17 ka. Several intermediate glaciations are undated, constrained by the limited time frame of radiocarbon age dating, the limited potential volcanic sites for K-Ar or 40Ar/39Ar age dating, and erosion and exhumation problems associated with cosmogenic-nuclide surface exposure ages on moraines. This thesis provides a new chronology for the mid-Quaternary glaciations based on methodological advances in cosmogenic-nuclide surface exposure age dating. This is done by deriving ages from glacial outwash terrace sediment and demonstrating their reliability. The work shows that for younger (i.e., last glacial) moraines, well-constrained ages can be derived from the common-practice of dating large boulders on the moraine surface. However, on older moraines, the ages so-derived become considerably scattered. This is interpreted to be caused primarily by boulder exhumation as a consequence of moraine erosion, resulting in shorter residence of some boulders at the surface relative to the moraine formation date. By contrast, glacial outwash surfaces in this area, if carefully chosen, can be shown to have undergone little aggradation or erosion, and thus have had long and consistent surface exposure since formation. Provided these surfaces can be stratigraphically linked with the glacial limits, they can provide good surface exposure ages. This has been convincingly confirmed in one location by a sequence of ages obtained from a 10Be concentration depth-profile which demonstrate the surface stability and lack of inherited nuclides. Using these methods, cosmogenic 10Be and 26Al surface exposure ages indicate successive major advances occurred at ~ 1.2 Ma, ~ 600 ka, ~ 260 ka and ~27 – 17.5 ka. These are correlated with global marine and ice core records.