This dissertation offers an examination of the concept of sustainability, via an ethnography of geothermal life in the district of Puna on Hawaiʻi Island. In the midst of global discourse on climate change, population growth, and energy needs, ‘sustainability’ brands a remarkable number of initiatives to signify a thoughtful connection with earth, and concern with the continuation of all of existence. Close examination of what sustainable measures have meant for life in the district of Puna on Hawaiʻi Island, however, reveal the ties of discourses on and enactments of ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable’ living to the sustenance of market, colonial inheritance and renewability, and the manufacture of narratives that erase forms of existence—human and nonhuman, including and especially the geological. Examinations of the notion of ‘sustainability’ alongside currents of Kanaka ʻŌiwi inquiries into earth’s heat element and its relations, and settler experiences of geothermal activity, reveal the pliability of material Natures in the face of human desire, the graceless scaffolding of lives under Late Liberalism, and the structure of Late Liberal biases as suspended in love with the biontological—those forms deemed “Life.” In the dissertation I examine engagement points between literatures on Development, Indigeneity, and Space, in particular what they reveal about possible relationships with land and resource, as well as literatures on Foucauldian biopower and what Elizabeth Povinelli (2016) has termed “geontopower”—increasingly exposed arrangements of power as divisions between Life and Nonlife in the Late Liberal period—to think through the commodification of rock and earth, and the spaces between things where the possibility for hulihia (overturning) continues to exist.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 1990. / Typescript (photocopy). Presented to the Department of Geological Sciences and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-164).

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Mechanical Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Includes bibliographical references. / by David Thomas Barr. / M.S.

Twenty-one Schlumberger resistivity soundings were performed on the island of Maui. Analysis consisted of one-dimensional modeling using an automatic ridge-regression inversion algorithm (Anderson, 1979). The inversion results were compared with available well-log information and geologic maps in order to make geologic interpretations. The soundings were conducted primarily to estimate the depth to and the electrical resistivity of, seawater-saturated basalt for different parts of the island. The resistivity of seawater-saturated basalt on Maui ranges between 3.5 and 60 ohm-meters. The lowest values occurred near Ukumehame canyon, on the south rift zone of West Maui. In this area, which is the site of a warm water (33°C) well, the computed resistivity for seawater-saturated basalt is about 4 ohm-m. Using typical Hawaiian basalt porosity values of 15% to 25%, Archie's Law implies temperatures of between 62° and l7loC at depths below 200 meters in the Ukumehame area. Freshwater piezometric heads were estimated from the sounding data. The largest freshwater head (91 m) was obtained in Keanae valley. The inferred large volume of freshwater is perched on Keanae alluvial valley fill and is observed in a well (W100) towards the back of the valley. All other freshwater heads are under 4 m, indicating that the freshwater lens is rather thin near the coast at the areas surveyed. / ill / maps

This thesis reports on a study of underground fluid flow and boiling processes which take place in hydrothermal eruptions. A conceptual model is presented for the eruptive process and a laboratory scale physical model confirming the effectiveness of this process is described. A mathematical formulation of the underground flow problem is given for two fluid flow regimes: two-phase homogeneous mixture (HM) flow and separable two-phase (SP) flow. Solutions to the system of equations obtained are solved under the simplifying assumptions of two-dimensional steady isothermal flow and transient non-isothermal horizontal flow. The main contribution of the study on steady isothermal flows is a description of how the ground flow may recover following a hydrothermal eruption. A numerical technique developed for plotting the streamlines in this case (and verified against analytic results) may also have applications in solving the steady non-isothermal flow problem. The main contribution of the study on the transient horizontal flow problem is a comparison of the differing predictions of HM and SP flow. The rate at which a boiling front progresses through a porous medium and the degree of boiling which occurs is described for each fluid flow regime. A set of horizontal physical experiments and numerical simulations have also been carried out for comparison with the mathematical model. Qualitative results for these three models agree. Suggestions given for improvements to the design of the physical experiment provide a basis for future study into the type of flow which occurs in hydrothermal eruptions

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 254-269).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 177-192) Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.) -- University of Montana, 2008. / Title from author supplied metadata. Description based on contents viewed on July 15, 2009. Includes bibliographical references.