In recent years there has been growing environmental concern regarding ‘microplastics’: microscopic plastic granules, fibres and fragments, categorised as <1 or <5 mm diameter. Microplastics are manufactured to be of a microscopic size, or derive from the photo- and mechanical degradation and subsequent fragmentation of larger plastic litter. Microplastics debris has been identified in the water column and sediments of marine and freshwater ecosystems across the globe, although difficulties in sampling and isolating smaller particulates has resulted in the abundance of <333 µm microplastics being under-reported. Microplastics are bioavailable to a range of aquatic organisms, including fish, seabirds and benthic invertebrates, and can be trophically transferred. The consumption of plastic debris can result in gut blockages, heightened immune response and a loss of lipid reserves. The potential risk to food security, and thereby human health, has led regulators to call for better understanding of the fate and effects of microplastic debris on marine life. Here I tested the hypothesis that microplastics can be ingested by and may negatively impact upon zooplankton. Zooplankton encompass a range of aquatic animals that form a key trophic link between primary producers and the rest of the marine food web. I used a suite of feeding experiments, bio-imaging techniques and ecotoxicological studies to explore the interactions and impacts of polystyrene microplastics on marine zooplankton. My results demonstrate that a range of filter-feeding zooplankton taxa, including copepods and bivalve and decapod larvae, have the capacity to ingest microplastics. Microplastics significantly reduced algal feeding in the copepods Centropages typicus and Calanus helgolandicus. With prolonged microplastic exposure C. helgolandicus produced smaller eggs with reduced hatching success, and had reduced survival owing to declining energetic reserves. Microplastics egested by copepods significantly altered the properties and sinking rates of faecal pellets, with potential repercussions for marine nutrient flux. This investigative work highlights that microplastics pose a significant risk to the health of animals at the base of the marine food web.

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

Indirect searches for planets (such as radial velocity studies)show that their formation may be quite common. The planets are however too small and faint to be seen against the glare of their host stars; therefore, their direct detectionis limited to the nearest systems. Alternatively one can study planets by studying their &quot;by-product&quot; -- dust. We see raw material available for planets around young stars, anddebris dust around old stars betraying planet-induced activity. Dust has a larger surface area per unit mass compared with a large body; it can be spread over a largersolid angle, intercepting more starlight and emitting much more lightvia reprocessing. By studying dusty disks we can infer the presence of planets at larger distances.Here we present results of a survey conducted with the SpitzerSpace Telescope of debrisdisks in three open clusters. With ages of 30--100 Myrs, these clusters are old enough that the primordialdust should have accreted into planetesimals, fallen onto the star, or been blown away due to a numberof physical processes. The dust we observe must come from collisions or sublimation of larger bodies.The purpose of this study is to investigate the dustevolution in the terrestrial planet zone, analogous to the Zodiacal cloud in our Solar system. We are most sensitive to this zone becausethe peak of a 125 K black body radiation falls into the primary pass-band of our survey -- 24 micron. We investigate the fraction and amount of the infra-red excesses around intermediate- to solar-mass stars in open stellar clusterswith well defined ages. The results are analyzed in the context of disk studies at other wavelengths and ages, providing an understanding of the time-scale for diskdissipation and ultimately planet building and frequency.

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Laser copper plasma sources are a compact, economical means of producing high intensity x-rays at the correct wavelengths for x-ray lithography. Copper debris in the form of vapor, ions, dust, and high-speed particles is an unwanted byproduct of the laser copper plasma technique. Improved methods for debris mitigation are essential for production x-ray lithography using laser copper plasma sources. The objective of this project was to develop and implement a tool for the study of the size, amount, and velocity spectrum of high speed particulate debris. The measurements used a source-laser-pulse-synchronized high speed spinning disc. An optical scanning boom microscope analyzed debris collected on a target. Debris target imagery was analyzed using an image processing and pattern recognition program. This provided an unbiased assessment of debris accumulation. The position of debris particles was used to determine their velocity using kinematic triangulation. Velocities of copper debris particles were found to be in the hundreds of meters per second, roughly one order of magnitude slower than previously believed. The accuracy of these results was compromised by multi-pulse aliasing. The new understanding of debris velocities suggests reconsideration of a host of countermeasures previously thought to be too slow to effectively stop high speed debris particles. This study also suggests that x-rays emitted at high laser pulse rates could be blocked by the low speed debris generated during the previous laser pulse. The target location and laser spot size and focal point are critical elements in the plasma generation process and were found to have a low tolerance for variation. This finding identified the mechanics of plasma generation and parameter control as areas requiring further refinement and study.

Reaches dominated by debris flow scour and incision tend to greatly influence landscape form in steepland basins. Debris flow networks, despite their ubiquity, have not been exploited to develop erosion rate proxies. To bridge this gap, I applied a proposed empirical function that describes the variation of valley slope with drainage area in fluvial and debris flow reaches of steepland channel networks in the Oregon Coast Range. I calibrated a relationship between profile concavity and erosion rate to map spatial patterns of long-term uplift rates assuming steady state. I also estimated the magnitude and inland extent of coseismic subsidence in my study area. My estimates agree with field measurements in the same area along the Cascadia margin, indicating that debris flow valley profiles can be used to make interpretations from spatial patterns of rock uplift that may better constrain physical models of crustal deformation. This thesis includes unpublished co-authored material.

Tidal debris structures are striking evidence of hierarchical assembly -- the premise that the Milky Way and galaxies like it have been built over cosmic time through the coalescence of many smaller objects. In the prevailing Lambda -- Cold Dark Matter cosmology, the vast majority of mergers by number are minor; one dark matter halo, hosting a larger galaxy, dominates the interaction and a smaller object, the satellite, is stripped of mass by tidal forces. When the luminous component of the satellite is disrupted the debris may form structures such as stellar tidal streams or shells, depending on the parameters of the interaction. In this Thesis we examine the properties of this debris left behind by minor mergers theoretically, computationally, and observationally, making strides towards a more complete understanding of what tidal debris can tell us about the history of galaxy formation in the Universe. Around the Milky Way itself we have examined the properties of the Orphan Stream, a stellar tidal stream so named due to uncertainty about the position and current state of its progenitor. Using 3.6 um observations taken as part of the Spitzer Merger History and Shape of the Galactic Halo program, the latest period--luminosity--metallicity relations, and archival data, we compute precise distances to RR Lyrae stream members with state--of--the--art 2.5% relative uncertainties. Fitting an orbit to the data, we measure an enclosed mass for the Milky Way that is in good agreement with other recent results, once the biases in orbit fitting are taken into account. By applying the same technique to N--body simulations we determined that the Orphan progenitor is most likely similar to the classical dwarf spheroidal satellites. We also examined tidal debris more generally, in particular by investigating the source of the morphological dichotomy between shells and streams. We find that the transition from a stream--like to a shell--like morphology occurs when the differential azimuthal precession between the orbits of stars exceeds the position angle subtended by individual petals of the progenitor orbit's rosette. This statement is cast more precisely in terms of scaling relations that control the dispersion of energy and angular momentum in the debris, and we find that the observed morphology can be predicted for a given host, orbit, and mass ratio. This leads us to the idea that the observed occurrence rates of different morphologies can be used to recover, at the population statistics level, the progenitor satellites' orbital infall distribution. This a part of the cosmological accretion history that is otherwise inaccessible. To achieve this in practice requires an unbiased and automated method to detect and classify substructure; we have developed just such a tool and demonstrate its effectiveness. In the upcoming era of LSST and WFIRST the methods and insights developed in this Thesis will be useful in decoding the information about the current state and assembly of galaxies encoded in tidal debris.

Rainfall-induced landslides that change into debris flows and travel large distances are one of the treacherous natural calamities that can occur in mountainous areas, particularly in Nepal’s mountains. Debris flow was the second highest cause of human death in Nepal after epidemics between 1971 and 2016. Because debris flow is common in mountainous regions, its prediction and remedial measures through land use plans are important factors to consider for saving lives and properties. The spatial distribution of the initial landslides that change into debris flow, on a watershed scale, is still an important area of study in this mountainous region to develop essential land use plan. In this research, hydrologic, slope stability and Flow-R models are applied in GIS modeling to locate potential landslide and debris flow areas for a given threshold rainfall in a mountainous watershed-Kulekhani, Nepal. Soil samples from 73 locations within the watershed and a geotechnical investigation on one old landslide area were considered to determine the Soil Water Characteristics Curve (SWCC), friction angle, cohesion, and infiltration characteristics of the subsurface soils in the study area. This information is applied in an unsaturated slope stability model to find unstable locations in the study watershed in a GIS environment. The model is tested on a recorded 24-hour rainfall of 540 mm in the watershed, and potential landslide locations are obtained. The validation results show that there is a good agreement between the predicted and mapped landslides. For debris flow run out, Flow-R model, which has the capability to analyze debris flow inundation with limited input information, and the model software is readily available in the public domain, was chosen for further analysis. Two recent debris flow events and the study watershed are taken as case studies to identify the appropriate algorithms of Flow-R for runout analysis of the study areas. Landslide-triggering threshold rainfall frequency is related to the frequency of landslides and the debris flow hazard in these mountains. The above validated models are applied in a GIS environment to locate potential debris flow areas in expected threshold rainfall. Rainfall records from 1980 to 2013 are computed for one- to seven-day cumulative annual maximum rainfall. The probable rainfalls for 1 in 10 to 1 in 200 years return periods are identified. The anticipated probable rainfalls are modeled in the GIS environment to identify the factor of safety of mountain slopes for landslide susceptibility in the study watershed. The Flow-R model with user-defined landslide-susceptible areas was chosen for debris flow runout analysis. A relation between the frequency of rainfall and landslide-induced debris flow hazard area is derived for return periods of 25, 50, 100, and 200 years. Also, the debris flow hazard results from the analysis are compared with a known event in the watershed and found to agree. This developed method can be applied to anticipated landslide and landslide-induced debris flow from the live rainfall record to warn hazard-prone communities for saving lives and regulating hazardous transportation corridors in these mountains. In addition to this, this methodology will be a useful tool to help policy makers create appropriate land use plans.

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