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Οι κατολισθήσεις συνιστούν ένα από τα συχνότερα και πιο καταστροφικά δευτερογενή φυσικά φαινόμενα, από άποψη πρόκλησης ζημιών και κινδύνου απώλειας ανθρώπινων ζωών στη διάρκεια των σεισμών. Κατά τη διάρκεια των ιστορικών χρόνων, έχουν διαπιστωθεί πολυάριθμες κατολισθήσεις, με τη σεισμική δραστηριότητα να αποτελεί πάντα μία από τις κύριες αιτίες των φαινομένων αυτών. Ο Ελληνικός χώρος φιλοξενεί από την αρχαιότητα μέχρι σήμερα ένα σημαντικό αριθμό σεισμικά προκαλούμενων κατολισθήσεων. Το γεγονός αυτό οφείλεται στις πολυσύνθετες γεωλογικές δομές, τη γεωμορφολογία, τις κλιματικές συνθήκες, καθώς και τη συνεχή σεισμικότητα, λόγω των υψηλών τεκτονικών τάσεων. Η πλειονότητα των κατολισθήσεων στην χώρα μας συνίσταται από περιοχές παλαιότερης ενεργοποίησης. Για αυτόν το λόγο, το πρόβλημα θα μπορούσε να χαρακτηριστεί ιδιαίτερα σημαντικό, τόσο οικονομικά όσο και κοινωνικά, αφού είναι πλέον πολύ συχνές οι καταστροφές οδικών δικτύων και άλλων τομέων των τεχνικών έργων, ενώ οι επιπτώσεις αφορούν την τρωτότητα και τη βιωσιμότητα των οικισμών, λόγω των επισφαλών συνθηκών. Πρωταρχικό στόχο αυτής της διατριβής αποτελεί η παρουσίαση της κατανομής των καταγεγραμμένων κατολισθήσεων του όρους Σκόλις, οι οποίες ενεργοποιήθηκαν από τον σεισμό της 8ης Ιουνίου του 2008. Το ισχυρό σεισμικό γεγονός , με μέγεθος Mw=6.4, προκάλεσε εκτεταμένες καταστροφές σε ακτίνα 30 km από την επικεντρική περιοχή. Εδαφικές αστοχίες παρατηρήθηκαν ευρέως σε απόσταση αρκετών χιλιομέτρων από το ρήγμα, κυρίως υπό μορφή σεισμικών διαρρήξεων και κατολισθήσεων. Τα κατολισθητικά γεγονότα έλαβαν χώρα στα απότομα πρανή του όρους Σκόλις, το οποίο βρίσκεται στη Βορειοδυτική Πελοπόννησο, στη Δυτική Ελλάδα. Ακολούθως, η παρούσα μεταπτυχιακή εργασία παρέχει μια εικόνα των βαρυτικών μετακινήσεων στο όρος Σκόλις, όπου μελετώνται αναλυτικά: 1) οι μηχανισμοί ενεργοποίησης των ολισθήσεων και των πτώσεων βράχων, 2) ο αριθμός και το καθεστώς της ενεργότητάς τους, 3) ο καθοριστικός ρόλος των εγκαρσίων ρηγμάτων στη διεύρυνσή τους, 4) ο βαθμός επαναδραστηριοποίησης των ολισθήσεων, που υπολογίστηκε περίπου σε ποσοστό 85%, και 5) οι καταστροφές που προκλήθηκαν στην κατοικημένη περιοχή. Τέλος, ύστερα από τη συσχέτιση μεταξύ προϋπαρχουσών και επαναδραστηριοποιημένων ολισθήσεων, παρατίθενται συγκεντρωτικά τα συμπεράσματα που προέκυψαν από την εξέταση όλων των παραγόντων. / Seismically-induced landslides are a frequent and destructive secondary phenomenon, in terms of damage and human loss. Innumerable landslides have been triggered by earthquakes during historic time and seismic activities have always been a main cause of landslides throughout the world. Greece hosts since the antiquity a significant number of earthquake-triggered landslides due to complex geological features, geomorphology, climatic conditions, as well as continuous background seismicity due to high tectonic stress. Most landslides in our country constitute areas of older activation. Hence, the problem could be characterized particularly socially and economically important, after the more often consequences occur in destructions of road networks and their sessions of technical works, as well as in the vulnerability of settlements because of precarious conditions. The primary aim of this thesis is the presentation of the distribution of recorded landslides on Skolis Mountain, triggered by the 8 June 2008 earthquake. The strong seismic event of magnitude Mw=6.4, caused extensive damage along 30 km wide area. Ground failures were widely observed within several kilometers of the fault, mostly taking the form of seismic fractures and landslides. The landslides phenomena took place on the unstable rock slopes of Skolis Mountain, which is located in the Northwestern Peloponnesus, in Western Greece. Furthermore, the present master essay provides a portrait over the whole of Skolis mountain, regarding: (1) the triggering mechanisms of rock falls and rock slides; (2) the number and their state of activity, (3) the crucial role of the cross strike normal faults, (4) the rate of reactivation of rock slides, estimated at 85 percent and (5) the damages that they caused in the residential area. Finally, after examining the correlation between pre-existing and reactivated rock slides, the conclusions that results from the examination of all parameters of interest, are presented aggregately.

abstract: The Kinsley Mountain gold deposit of northeastern Nevada, located ~70 km south of Wendover, Nevada, contains seven sediment-hosted, disseminated-gold deposits, in Cambrian limestones and shales. Mining ceased in 1999, with 138,000 ounces of gold mined at an average grade between 1.5-2.0 g/t. Resource estimates vary between 15,000 and 150,000 ounces of gold remaining in several mineralized pods. Although exploration programs have been completed within the study area, the structural history and timing of precious-metal mineralization are still poorly understood. This study aims to better understand the relation between stratigraphy, structural setting, and style of gold mineralization. In order to accomplish these goals, geological mapping at a scale of 1:5,000 was conducted over the property as well as analysis of soil and rock chip samples for multi-element geochemistry. Using cross-cutting relationships, the structural history of Kinsley Mountain has been determined. The deformation can broadly be categorized as an early stage of compressional tectonics including folding, attenuation of the stratigraphy, and thrust faulting. This early stage was followed by a series of extensional deformation events, the youngest of which is an ongoing process. The structural history determined from this study fits well into a regional context and when viewed in conjunction with the mineralization event, can be used to bracket the timing of gold mineralization. The northwest oriented structure responsible for concentrating decalcification, silicification, and mineralization has two generations of cave fill breccias that both pre- and post-date the gold event. The statistical analysis of multi-element geochemistry for rock chip and soil samples has determined that Au is most strongly associated with Te, while weaker correlations exist between Au and Ag, As, Hg, Mo, Sb, Tl, and W. This suite of elements is associated with an intrusion driven system and is atypical of Carlin-type gold systems. From these elemental associations the gold mineralization event is thought to be controlled by the emplacement of a felsic intrusion. The responsible intrusion may be an exposed quartz monzonite to the south of the study area, as suggested by possible zonation of Cu, Pb, and Zn, which decrease in concentration with increasing distance from the outcropping stock. Alternatively, an unexposed intrusion at depth cannot be ruled out as the driver of the mineralizing system. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Geological Sciences 2012

This thesis presents a new description and theoretical analysis of the nominal system of Katcha (Nilo-Saharan, Kadu), spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. The description and analysis are based on a synthesis of data from several sources, including unpublished archive material and original fieldwork. The study is placed in context with a discussion of the demographic, cultural and political background affecting the Katcha linguistic community, a review of the current state of linguistic research on Katcha and a discussion of the ongoing controversy over the place of the Kadu languages within the language phyla of Africa. The morphosyntactic descriptions first focus on the role of nominals as heads, considering phenomena such as classification, agreement and modification. It is shown that Katcha has a unusual system of gender agreement with three agreement classes based on the concepts of Masculine, Feminine and Plural and that the gender of a noun may change between its singular and plural forms. Surprisingly, these phenomena are both most commonly found in Afro-Asiatic, which is not a phylum to which Kadu has previously been ascribed. The gender changes are shown to be predictable, determined by number-marking affixes. The study then gives a unified analysis of various types of nominal modifiers; relative clauses, possessives, demonstratives and adjectives all display similar morphological properties and this is accounted for by analysing all modfiers as appositional, headed by a demonstrative pronoun. This analysis of modifiers shows them to be related to, though not the same as, the notions of relative markers and construct state found widely in African languages. The role of nominals within sentential argument structure is then considered, with discussion of phenomena such as prepositional phrases, case and verbal valency. From the interaction of prepositions and pronouns, it is tentatively concluded that Katcha has three cases: Nominative, Accusative and Oblique. From the interaction of verbs and nouns, it is demonstrated that the verbal suffixes known as ‘verb extensions’ primarily serve to license the absence of otherwise mandatory core arguments. The second part of the thesis provides a theoretical analysis of the nominal system within the framework of Dynamic Syntax (DS). Two key features of the DS formalism come into play. Firstly, DS construes semantic individuals as terms of the epsilon calculus. Verb extensions are analysed as projecting context-dependent epsilon terms, providing a value for the ‘missing’ argument. Secondly, DS allows information sharing between propositions by means of a ‘LINK’ relation. Prepositional phrases are analysed as projecting a subordinate proposition which shares an argument with the matrix tree. These two formal tools come together in the analysis of nominal modifiers, which are construed as projecting an arbitrarily complex epsilon term LINKed to some term in the matrix tree, directly reflecting their descriptive analysis as appositional nominals. In presenting new data for a little studied language, this thesis adds to our knowledge and understanding of Nuba Mountain languages. In describing and analysing some of the typologically unsual features of Katcha’s nominal system, it challenges some standard assumptions about these constructions and about the genetic affiliation of the Kadu family. And in the theoretical analysis it demonstrates the suitability of Dynamic Syntax to model some of the key insights of the descriptive analysis.

The Heart Mountain Detachment (HMD) in Wyoming constitutes one of the largest known rock slides (3400 km2) on Earth. This detachment took place along the stratigraphic boundary between the Bighorn Dolomite at the hanging-wall and the Snowy Range Formation at the footwall. The slide resulted in the formation of an up to 3 m-thick carbonate ultracataclasite (CUC) at the base of the slide. The origin of the CUC and the nature of the triggering mechanism responsible for the initiation of the catastrophic movement have long been controversial. The most widely accepted theory is a mid-Eocene eruption in the Absaroka volcanic province that triggered rupture and subsequent detachment of Paleozoic rocks. Rapid sliding was facilitated by basal fluidization generated by thermo-mechanical decomposition of carbonate rocks. Here I present a proof of concept study addressing the question of the consistent magnetic fabrics observed in the CUC, as well as new observations indicating the discovery of mineral grains of volcanic origin within the CUC. Additionally, some constraints are placed on the thermo-chemical conditions operating at the base of this catastrophic landslide. Overall, the CUC displays an average magnetic susceptibility one order of magnitude higher (1803 . -6 [SI]) than the overlying Bighorn Dolomite (148 . -6 [SI]) and underlying Snowy Range Fm (636 . -6 [SI]). Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) data, field observations and microstructural analysis suggest that ferromagnetic (s.l) minerals in the CUC originate from the Bighorn Dolomite, the Tertiary volcanics and synkinematic thermal decomposition of pyrite into pyrrhotite and magnetite. Thermomagnetic investigations revealed a Curie temperature of 525 °C which suggests that magnetite is the dominant magnetic carrier mineral in the CUC. Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy analyses confirm that this magnetite has a relatively low ulvöspinel content. Magnetic hysteresis properties point to an average pseudo-single domain magnetic grain size or, alternatively, a mixture of single domain and multi-domain grains. The origin of AMS is magnetostatic, elucidated by a high degree of consistency between AMS directions and 3–D SPO directions. The anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) directional data displays two dominant fabric orientations suggesting possible strain partitioning in the CUC. The consistency of magnetic fabrics suggests that the CUC followed a dominantly transpressive regime. The deformation mechanism causing the consistent AMS is a homogeneous passive rotation of magnetite grains. Microstructural analysis of iron bearing minerals suggests that a high oxygen fugacity was present in the CUC at the onset of the slide. Evidence for elevated temperatures in the CUC is shown by broken twins in calcite which form as result of dynamic recrystallization. High pore fluid in the CUC is indicated by CUC dikes intruding the hanging wall and by accretionary grains (lapilli). Finally, the presence of unserpentinized and a few weakly serpentinized olivine clasts in the CUC brings the "hot water" weakening mechanism proposed by Ahranov and Anders (2006) into question.

This thesis attempts to shed light on the process approach developed at Prickly Mountain, Vermont by investigating the influence of Yale professors Robert Engman and Chris Argyris. As a sculptor, Professor Engman influenced the way in which Prickly Mountain builders interacted with their materials, allowing space for discovery. On the other hand, professor Argyris from the Industrial Administration program inspired Prickly Mountain builders to consider the element of human behavior in interacting with their structures. Argyris' teaching also inspired critical engagement with the practice of architectural education. Together, Engman and Argyris present a more in depth picture of the design process at Prickly Mountain and thus help to provide an academic footing for this otherwise eccentric practice.

Parasitoids represent a diverse and little studied group of insects, employing variety of adaptations to utilize and kill their hosts. Among the unresolved issues related to the host-parasitoids interactions are responses of such interactions to global climate change, especially in cases specialized insect species adapted to cold environments such as alpine habitats. Example of such hosts are the Holarctic butterflies of the genus Erebia Dalman, 1986 (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) inhabiting mountains of Central Europe. The aim of this study was sampling caterpillars of lowland and mountain Satyrinae butterflies, rearing the caterpillars to determine the degree of infestation and determine the host specificity of parasitoids using combination of classical and molecular methods. I sampled 39 caterpillars of the Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina), seven caterpillars of the Mountain Ringlet (Erebia epiphron) and four caterpillars of the Large Ringlet (Erebia euryale) at 14 habitats along the altitudinal gradient in Krkonoše Mountains. It was found more than a one-third parasitization by Ichneumon caloscelis among Maniola jurtina caterpillars and no parasitoids among the mountain species. It suggests the possibility of a higher rate of infestation among species living at lower altitudes than at higher altitudes. There are many factors affecting the parasitization's rate among butterflies. This issue requires further monitoring. This study demonstrates the time-consuming sampling of solitary living caterpillars on common plants. Molecular determination of parasitoids using DNA barcoding is possible without major problems, but with certain restrictions.

Globalization affects all types of rural places and it is time to know whether this process is in accordance to sustainable development. Here, I analyze the concept of sustainability and its strategies applied at local levels.The sustainable local strategies model brings the opportunity to see the interrelationships of events and current phenomena at spatial scales and at different organizational levels; it allows to see more clearly the intrinsic of the unions of the socioeconomic, political-cultural and environmental dimensions. It allows to pick-up the vulnerabilities of the local systems and the opportunities involved. It contemplates individuals, families, and communities as active actors and appreciates their knowledge and creativity. In my opinion, this model has also the potential to develop as the application experiences are accumulated. / La globalización afecta a las zonas rurales de todo tipo y ya es tiempo de saber si esta va de acuerdo con lo que se entiende como desarrollo sostenible. Aquí se analiza el concepto de sostenibilidad y sus estrategias a nivel local, a la vez que se señalan sus limitaciones y defectos.El modelo de estrategias locales sostenibles permite apreciar las interrelaciones de eventos y fenómenos ocurrentes a escalas espaciales y a niveles organizacionales diferentes; deja ver con más claridad lo intrínseco de las uniones de las dimensiones socioeconómica, político-cultural y medioambientales de la realidad. También, permite captar las vulnerabilidades de los sistemas locales y las oportunidades que encuentran. Contempla a los individuos, a las familias y a las comunidades como actores activos y aprecia su saber y su creatividad. En mi opinión, el modelo tiene también el potencial de su desarrollo, a medida que se vayan acumulando las experiencias de su aplicación.

In most ways, The Mountain Eagle is an ordinary community oriented weekly newspaper, and indeed, a close examination of the paper will reveal that it focuses mostly on community news in Letcher County Kentucky, a small county in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. It carries holiday recipes, neighborhood news, and coverage of local government, school boards and sporting events. But a closer examination of the paper and its history reveals a different kind of community weekly. The Mountain Eagle is one of the most recognized, commented upon, and decorated community newspapers in the United States. Since Tom and Pat Gish took the paper over in 1957, the Gishes and their newspaper have been shunned by their neighbors, boycotted, and the paper’s offices were fire-bombed in 1974. And yet, the paper survived and continues to report the news, honesty and without bias. Although Tom Gish was born and raised in the coal fields of Letcher County both Gishes were “city journalists” when they came to Whitesburg. Pat worked for The Lexington Leader and Tom managed the United Press Desk in the state capital of Frankfort. They met while studying Journalism at the University of Kentucky, and pursued careers in the field. Their desire to run a small-town newspaper brought them to Whitesburg, Tom’s hometown. Their insistence on doing their jobs the way they had been trained soon put them at odds with the Fiscal Court, the School Board, the coal operators, and the elites who ran Letcher County. Coal mining drove the economy, and the county operated on a near feudal basis, with people owing fealty to elected officials and coal companies, and none of the controlling interests liked the idea of seeing their activities on the front page. This dissertation is a chronological examination of The Mountain Eagle and its publishers during period between 1957, when the Gishes took over the newspaper, to 1977, when the Federal Surface Mining Reclamation and Control Act was signed into law. During that period, Letcher County and the United States experienced the assassination of a president, the War on Poverty, the Vietnam War, and the widespread use of strip mining to gouge rich veins of coal out of the Appalachian Coalfields. Strip mining soon became the most common method of extracting coal in the country, and its effects on the steep hillsides of eastern Kentucky became the focus of much of The Eagle’s news and editorial activity. Both Gishes said many times that it had never been their intention to become crusaders or to take on any particular group. But as they began to undertake what they saw as their primary job, that of reporting on the news of the county, they began to experience obstacles in reporting on civic activities, which by Kentucky law were supposed to be open to the public. In an introductory speech delivered to the Rotary Club in the county seat of Whitesburg, Tom Gish pointed out that while there were a lot of things about the newspaper that he liked and intended to keep, there were other areas where he thought the paper could be improved. One of those areas was in the coverage of civic events, primarily the meetings of the fiscal court, the various city councils, and the board of education, the first of the controlling bodies to come into conflict with the newspaper. Pat Gish did most of the reporting, and when she started attending school board meetings, she learned that while she might be tolerated, she would certainly not be welcomed. The board initially told the paper that their meetings were closed, only one person at a time was allowed into the board chamber, and they were there to discuss their business with the board and then leave. Tom Gish informed them that the Kentucky Open Meetings Law gave the press access to public meetings and grudgingly, the board allowed Pat to attend. But they refused to provide her with a chair, so she had to stand during meetings that often lasted for several hours, even while she was pregnant with her second child. Tom Gish also began to attend meetings to provide a basis for the editorials he wrote asking for improvements in county-wide education. This came during a period when Kentucky Schools were under investigation by the state legislature and Whitesburg Attorney Harry Caudill, who represented the county in the General Assembly, chaired a committee that delivered a scathing report on Kentucky schools, and called particular attention to education in eastern Kentucky. Caudill’s guest editorials and Letters to the Editor began to appear in The Mountain Eagle during this period and marked the first phase of a long collaboration between Caudill and Gish that addressed a broad range of issues that affected the region. Not long afterward, one of the board members, the physician who had delivered Tom Gish and owned several businesses in the county, announced that he would withdraw his advertising from the paper and the “word went out” that teachers had been forbidden to purchase the paper. Tom Gish later said that newsstand sales had skyrocketed during this and subsequent boycotts. Tom Gish joined his wife in covering the Letcher County Fiscal Court and they soon angered the judge and magistrates by reporting that magistrates had voted themselves a substantial pay raise. Although the court had initially welcomed the newspaper at meetings, they soon passed an ordinance to make at least part of their meetings closed. This was another violation of the Open Meetings Act and the Attorney General weighed in on the newspaper’s behalf. A long-running feud developed between The Eagle and the court that included several efforts to de-certify the paper as the newspaper with the largest circulation. This meant that all legal documents, including ordinances and other court actions had to be published in The Eagle before they became law. These publications, along with bond advertisements from coal companies and other legally required publications were a significant source of the newspaper’s income. The feud with the court finally came to a head in 1974 when the County Judge Executive and Sheriff ignored threats to blow the newspaper’s offices up just weeks before the paper was fire-bombed by a former Whitesburg City Police officer, who had resigned after being named in several articles concerning police brutality. The Mountain Eagle’s involvement with the War on Poverty and its advocacy for strip mine regulation brought the paper into the national spotlight. Many of the national reporters who published articles on Appalachian poverty that captured the nation’s imagination and sympathy came directly through the offices of The Mountain Eagle, and the Gishes often served as their guides to eastern Kentucky. The New York Times’ initial report on the endemic poverty that plagued eastern Kentucky, which captured Senator John F. Kennedy’s attention during his campaign for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination, came after Times Reporter Calvin Trillen spent time at the Gish home in Whitesburg and toured the region with them. Tom and Pat Gish became deeply involved in efforts to alleviate suffering in the region and spent so much time testifying before congressional committees and on other poverty related activities during the War on Poverty, the paper often came out late and suffered financially. Tom Gish frequently wrote editorials that praised the federal government’s efforts, but just as often, his editorials were among the most scathing in the country, when he felt that it was too little, too late. The newspaper had a complex relationship with the coal industry. Tom Gish’s father was a mine superintendent with South East Coal Company, one of the larger companies in the county. Tom saw underground coal mining as the logical basis for the economy in the region, but he also advocated for diversifying the economy so it would not be entirely dependent on a single industry. When he visited a strip mine in eastern Letcher County with his father Ben, both men were horrified at the destruction visited on a small community there and Tom began to call for strip mining to be outlawed all together or at the very least, strictly regulated. This began a twenty-year struggle that finally came to fruition with the 1977 Federal Surface Mining Reclamation and Control Act. But the legislation was far from perfect and not only codified strip mining in federal law, but also opened the door for the even more destructive practice of mountain top removal. The Mountain Eagle’s involvement with the War on Poverty, along with their opposition to strip mining, also angered some people in Letcher County, and the Gish family was shunned by many of their neighbors, and the paper was boycotted by some advertisers. Efforts to undermine them were rampant and threats from coal operators were frequent. When a Molotov Cocktail was finally thrown through the window of the newspaper’s offices in 1974, many of the residents of Whitesburg turned their backs on the Gishes. They still managed to get the next edition out the week following the fire, although the paper was put together in the family’s living room, and the family moved their home to a rural part of the county, but kept the offices in Whitesburg because it was the county seat. For the next three years, the paper devoted a significant amount of space to the events surrounding the prosecution of the arsonists, but they still focused heavily on county news. The 1976 Scotia Mine disaster, when two methane explosions claimed the lives of 26 men at Oven Fork in Letcher County took their full attention for much of the entire following year. The Mountain Eagle has survived into the 21st Century, and the Gishes and their paper won a number of national awards for excellence and courage in journalism, along with several major awards for their contribution to freedom of the press. Both Tom (2008) and Pat (2014) have since died and their son Ben is the Editor and the only member of the Gish family still working at the newspaper. Letcher County has experienced many of the same changes as the rest of the country, but the economy never expanded past coal mining, so when the coal industry collapsed in 2015, the rest of the county economy failed with it. Unemployment is high now and many of the younger families have left seeking employment elsewhere. Tom Gish’s prediction that eastern Kentucky could eventually find itself mostly with very young and very old recipients of government assistance living there has come true and the region is currently struggling to find a way to manage. The Mountain Eagle has suffered too, but it still manages, and it still adheres to the masthead slogan, “It Screams."

A method of linking SORTIE-ND and PrognosisBC was developed for the purpose of predicting natural regeneration and forecasting future stand conditions in mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins - MPB) attacked stands in the Interior Douglas-fir (IDF) and Sub-Boreal Spruce (SBS) biogeoclimatic ecosystem zones of central and southeastern British Columbia. PrognosisBC, a spatially-implicit growth model, lacked a submodel suitable for predicting natural regeneration in unsalvaged MPB-disturbed stands. To fill this gap, estimates of regeneration (trees <7.5 cm diameter at breast height - DBH) were supplied to PrognosisBC using the light-mediated forest dynamics model SORTIE-ND and the linked model was used to forecast future stand conditions. In order to improve results, a density-dependent system of crown allometry equations to predict crown depth and crown radius was developed and then added to SORTIE-ND. The equations used stand-level measures of stems ha-¹, basal area (m² ha-¹), and the basal area of trees taller than the target tree to explicitly account of the effects of crowding on the crown axes. Additionally, crown radius and crown depth were used as dependent regressors. The equations were fit using a nonlinear three-stage least squares estimator and generally provided good estimates of crown depth and crown radius for lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia), hybrid spruce (Picea engelmannii x glauca (Moench) Voss), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca (Beissn.) Franco) and trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.). Tests of the hybrid model with the improved system of crown allometry equations were performed using reconstructed plot data collected from natural stands disturbed by MPB 25-years ago. The hybrid model provided good estimates (small mean bias and low root mean square error) for the basal area of advance regeneration (2 < DBH < 7.5 cm) for lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia). The best estimates were achieved when trees <7.5 cm DBH were transferred from SORTIE-ND to PrognosisBC 15-years after MPB-disturbance. For trees <2 m in height, poor estimates of stems ha-¹ where obtained. Despite the shortcomings with respect to trees <2 m tall, the results suggest that linking SORTIE-ND and PrognosisBC is an effective method of building a hybrid model capable of being used in MPB-disturbed forests. However, full parameterization of the SORTIE-ND model is likely needed to obtain accurate estimates for all sizes of natural regeneration. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate