Saltville, Virginia (Smyth County and Washington County) has been known for its late Pleistocene megafauna since the 1700s. Based on reviews of past excavations and material in collections, the most prominent fossils found at Saltville are proboscideans. Teeth of Mammuthus (mammoth) and Mammut (mastodon) from East Tennessee State University Museum of Natural History, Virginia Museum of Natural History, and Smithsonian were the focus of this research. Evidence of sedimentary abrasion and degree of concretion development was used to address the taphonomic history of the assemblage. Evidence of root resorption, tooth expectoration, and eruption and wear of proboscidean molars was used to understand age-related patterns in the proboscidean assemblage. The Saltville proboscidean assemblage contains a disproportionate amount of juvenile mammoth and mastodon teeth, some of which were lost in life. This assemblage has also been modified extensively by sedimentary abrasion.

On December 24, 1924, a wall of water and alkali muck engulfed Palmertown, a small community in Saltville, Virginia. Houses were swept away and by the time all of the bodies were pulled from the wreckage, the death toll had reached 19-an immense loss for the tight-knit community. A dam, owned by Mathieson Alkali Works, loomed approximately 100 feet above Palmertown, keeping at bay the chemical muck produced by the company plants. Despite the extent of the damage, the flood is largely absent from discourse and no historical marker exists to memorialize the tragedy. Furthermore, Palmertown and neighboring Henrytown were expunged in the mid-twentieth century when Olin Corporation rebuilt the dam overtop of the town sites. Stories of the event have been passed down for generations, immortalizing a specific story of the disaster in the memories of many local residents of Saltville, so why is it not memorialized? The cultural framework of Saltville determined how and why this disaster and others have been remembered or forgotten. In 1924, Saltville residents were accustomed to tragic events; to some extent these events were seen as part and parcel of life in a company town in Appalachia. Yet, nearly a century after the tragedy, the process of unearthing of difficult events can illuminate much of the community's collective history and restore the fragmented communal memory. The memorialization of the Palmertown Tragedy of 1924 establishes a framework for acknowledging an arduous past and identifying the roots of a town's resilience. / Master of Arts

Mercury contamination of the North Fork Holston River below Saltville, Virginia has nearly extirpated most mussel populations. Because natural recovery of these populations has not occurred, this research combined field and laboratory assessments to determine the extent of ecological impairment in the river. In situ 60-day Asian clam (Corbicula fluminea) growth studies in 2005 showed a positive correlation (p=0.03) between low clam growth and sediment mercury levels. Because of severe low flow conditions of the NFHR in late 2005 conductivity dissipation from a point source brine discharge downstream rarely reached background level (~345 µS/cm) and was observed as high as 690 µS/cm 640 m below the discharge site. In addition, conductivity doubled in the river section adjacent to the remediated Ponds 5 and 6 (rm 81.6 and 80.4). Such low flow conditions (mean flow < 50 ft3/sec) occur in the NFHR approximately every five years. This low flow situation also evidenced a thick white flocculent or floc observed to accumulate at the base of the two remediated ponds. Analysis of the flocculent determined it to be high in aluminum (1.9-38 mg/L) and iron (2.0-51.0 mg/L), well above US Environmental Protection Agency Water Quality Criteria limits (0.0087 and 1.0 mg/L, respectively); riverine sediments collected below the accumulated floc also had high levels of calcium (240,000-380,000 mg/kg) and mercury(0.62-1.7 mg/kg). Acute tests with juveniles of Villosa iris and <24-hr old Ceriodaphnia dubia were used to measure the toxicity of the brine discharge, which had a conductivity of ~ 14,000 µS/cm. Results of these tests indicated C. dubia to be more sensitive than V. iris; however, chronic toxicity test results were similar for V. iris and C. dubia. The Lowest Observed Adverse Effect Concentration (LOAEC) for mussel survivorship after 28 days was 10,000 µS/cm, while the LOAEC for growth was 5,000 µS/cm. LOAECs for the C. dubia 7-day chronic were 25 % (survivorship) and 12.5 % (reproduction), while mean conductivity at these two concentrations was 4,054 and 2,211 µS/cm, respectively. Toxicity tests conducted with Pond 6 dyke cut discharges resulted in similar lethal concentrations for C. dubia and V. iris. Forty-eight hour LC50s of these discharges ranged from 12.07-15.95 % for C. dubia, and 17.36-18.95 % for V. iris. Dyke cut discharges also exhibited exceedingly high alkaline pH (11.5-12.2), which caused 100 % mortality to C. dubia in 15 min. The Pond 5 and 6 dyke discharges are the likely source for the flocculent accumulation at the base of the two remediated pond areas. The combined effect of mercury, aluminum and iron, along with periodic fluxes of high conductivity and alkaline pH during low flow conditions may contribute to low mussel recruitment downstream of Saltville, VA. / Master of Science

The Saltville-Broadford area is largely on the northwestern limb of the Greendale syncline in the Valley and Ridge Province of Virginia. The area mapped covers 12 square miles of the northwest corner of Smyth County, Virginia. The rocks in the area ranging in age from Cambrian to Mississippian are found in three different structural settings, the hanging wall and footwall of the Saltville fault, and in two thrust slices located along the trace of the Saltville fault. The hanging wall consists of the Honaker Dolomite of Cambrian age and younger rocks outside the map area. The footwall consists of the Price Sandstone, Maccrady Shale and Little Valley Limestone all of Mississippian age and older rocks outside the map area. The larger of the two slices consists of an overturned sequence of the Juniata Sandstone of Ordovician age to the Brallier Formation of Devonian age. The smaller slice consists of undifferentiated Devonian shale. The Saltville fault, a low-angle thrust, has overturned and cut off the southeastern limb of the Greendale syncline. During thrusting, two slices, at least one of which is overturned, were carried with the overriding block to their present positions. A total of 12,500 feet of movement was measured where the Cambrian, Honaker Dolomite is in fault contact with the Mississippian Little Valley Limestone. Total movement of the fault is believed to be of the order of 4 miles. The upper part of the Mississippian Maccrady Formation is a sequence of evaporites. Halite and gypsum constitute the chief economy of the Saltville area. / M.S.

This study focuses on a series of thrust sheets exposed in the Appalachian Valley and Ridge Province Blacksburg-Pembroke area in southwest Virginia. Structures in the hanging wall of the Saltville thrust (Saltville thrust sheet) and the footwall of the Saltville thrust (Narrows thrust sheet) are examined. The first part of this study involves the construction of a series of thrust transport-parallel 1:24,000 scale geologic cross sections to constrain the subsurface geometry of fault and fold structures within the Saltville and Narrows thrust sheets. The second part of the study involves an outcrop-scale study of geologic structures exposed along a series road cuts in the footwall of the Saltville thrust and the geometric and relative timing relationships between folding, cleavage formation and thrust faulting. The cross sections show a series of interconnected splay faults branching off of the Saltville thrust and cutting both its hanging wall and footwall. Angle of dip and magnitude of dip-slip displacement on thrust and splay faults progressively decrease from hinterland to foreland within this fault system that is referred to as the Spruce Run Mountain-Newport (SRMN) fault system. Bedding within this fault system essentially forms a structural transition zone between the Saltville and Narrows thrust sheets, defining a km-scale fractured synform-antiform fold structure that has many structural attributes usually associated with fault propagation folding. In the road cut outcrops, early meter-scale faults are folded by later foreland-(NW) vergent folds. Although cleavage defines convergent cleavage fans about these folds, subtle obliquities between folds and cleavage indicate that folding post-dates early layer-parallel shortening and associated foreland-vergent thrusting. / Master of Science

The Saltville valley in southwestern Virginia is home to Quaternary localities containing paleontological and archaeological remains. Historically the valley has been mined for salt and the small lakes, ponds and springs along the valley floor have a brackish signature. A preliminary report on the site’s ostracode fauna suggested that the site’s water was not always saline. This study analyzed modern and Quaternary ostracodes to understand the valley’s hydrologic and chemical evolution. Sediments contained primarily freshwater species, including the environmentally sensitive Candona crogmaniana. The presence of Pelocypris tuberculatum and a new Fabaeformiscandona species throughout a vertical section spanning the latest Pleistocene and Holocene suggests that ephemeral pools were being fed by freshwater springs throughout the latest Quaternary. Climate ranges, estimated through species autecology and MOTR, reveal that the site’s mean annual temperature was between 0 - 19.1℃. Ostracode salinity tolerances suggest that the site was fresh during the sampled record.

The battle of Saltville Va. (Oct. 3, 1864) and the subsequent massacre of wounded prisoners from the 5th United States Colored Cavalry has been a neglected and misinterpreted topic. The narrative follows the Federal advance from Kentucky to southwest Virginia including Confederate delaying actions. The work studies the Southern victory and the massacre in detail and introduces new evidence that clarifies the extent of the carnage. The study rates Saltville as the worst battlefield atrocity of the American Civil War. / M.A.