Understanding climatic and water-mineral chemistry affecting hominin habitats duringthe period 1.92 to 1.80 Ma in Paleolake Olduvai basin, Tanzania is of social and scientific interest. Previous Olduvai research reported climate cycles in bulk sample mineral analyses. Xray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, and color analyses of Locality 80 Tuff Bed I samples tested the null hypothesis: Alteration mineralogy of Central Basin volcanic Tuffs IA through IF reflect salinity/alkalinity cycles. Such cyclicity was not found. Several primary authigenic minerals were confirmed, but not as previously reported. Tuffs are thoroughly altered, mostly to potassium-feldspars, zeolites, and carbonates, plus other feldspars and clay minerals (clays not in this study). Nevertheless, other findings reveal there is more to be learned. Results imply a majorgeochemical shift around 1.869-1.857 Ma, from non-zeolite forming environments to zeolite forming environments. A newly developed age model could aid re-analysis of past work and assist future research.

Yes / Grotta del Romito has been the subject of numerous archaeological, chronological and palaeoenvironmental investigations for more than a decade. During the Upper Palaeolithic period the site contains evidence of human occupation through the Gravettian and Epigravettian periods, multiple human burials, changes in the pattern of human occupation, and faunal, isotopic and sedimentological evidence for local environmental change. In spite of this rich record, the chronological control is insufficient to resolve shifts in subsistence and mobility patterns at sufficiently high resolution to match the abrupt climate fluctuations at this time. To resolve this we present new radiocarbon and tephrostratigraphic dates in combination with existing radiocarbon dates, and develop a Bayesian age model framework for the site. This improved chronology reveals that local environmental conditions reflect abrupt and long-term changes in climate, and that these also directly influence changing patterns of human occupation of the site. In particular, we show that the environmental record for the site, based on small mammal habitat preferences, is chronologically in phase with the main changes in climate and environment seen in key regional archives from Italy and Greenland. We also calculate the timing of the transitions between different cultural phases and their spans. We also show that the intensification in occupation of the site is chronologically coincident with a rapid rise in Mesic Woody taxa seen in key regional pollen records and is associated with the Late Epigravettian occupation of the site. This change in the record of Grotta del Romito is also closely associated stratigraphically with a new tephra (the ROM-D30 tephra), which may act as a critical marker in environmental records of the region. / Leverhulme Trust (F/0 0235/I) and by a Natural Environment Research Council ORADS radiocarbon dating award (NF/2011/2/7).

Estimation of natural mortality within statistical catch-at-age models has been relatively unsuccessful and is uncommon within stock assessments. The models I created estimated population-dynamics parameters, including natural mortality, through Metropolis-Hastings algorithms from Gulf of Mexico red-snapper Lutjanus campechanus data. I investigated the influences of assumptions regarding model configuration of natural mortality and selectivity-at-age parameters by comparing multiple models. The results of this study are preliminary due to parameter estimates being bounded by uniform priors and thus a potential lack of convergence to the posterior distribution. Estimation of a natural-mortality parameter at age 0 or a Lorenzen natural-mortality parameter could be confounded with selectivity-at-age-1 parameters for bycatch from the shrimp fisheries. The Lorenzen natural-mortality curve was calculated by dividing the parameter by red snapper length at age. An age-1 natural-mortality parameter might not be estimable with the currently available data. Values of the natural-mortality parameter for ages 2 and older appear to be slightly less influenced by assumptions regarding selectivity-at-age parameters. We conducted a simulation study to determine the accuracy and precision of natural-mortality estimation assuming the selectivity-at-age-1 parameter for bycatch from the shrimp fisheries equaled 1.0 and a Lorenzen natural-mortality curve. The simulation study indicated that initial abundance-at-age parameters may be inestimable within the current model and may influence other parameter estimates. The preliminary simulation results showed that the Lorenzen natural-mortality parameter was consistently slightly underestimated and apical-fishing-mortality parameters were considerably underestimated. The estimation of natural mortality within a statistical catch-at-age model for Gulf of Mexico red snapper has many caveats and requires additional investigation. / Master of Science