The seismicity at the northern section of the Gorda Ridge has been studied with Ocean Bottom Seismographs. Nearly one hundred earthquakes were located with RMS travel time residuals less than 0.5 seconds. Most of these events lie within or near the array and they are probably associated with the dynamics of crustal formation which creates the observed bench-like features in the Gorda Ridge. An average of 5 microtremors per hour can be detected in the median valley with a lower activity outside of the ridge. Considerable clustering in time can be seen and it is typical of a main-shock sequence with the largest shock at or very near the beginning followed by a progressive decay in number. Clustering was spatial as well as temporal and the records indicate that they have similar mechanisms. A brittle zone of 18 km thickness at 42°N and 13 km at 42.5°N was found implying any possible magma chamber must be at greater depth. These thicknesses are larger than those observed in the Mid Atlantic ridge and in the East Pacific Rise. They may be explained by the depression of isotherms due to the heat lost by the contact of the ridge with the old and cold plates across the Blanco and the Mendocino Fracture Zones. Comparison of earthquakes locations using only OBS with those obtained from land stations indicate a major P-delay for the Gorda Basin. The seismic activity appears to decrease markedly to the south of 42°N. This drop in activity indicates that the southern part of the ridge is more stable than the northern part. This decrease in activity is not consistent with a southward propagating rift if we accept that higher seismicity levels are expected at the tip of the propagating ridge segments. / Graduation date: 1982

In this thesis anomalous downcore shallowing of paleomagnetic inclinations is interpreted to be caused by sediment compaction. Thus, compaction-induced inclination shallowing may influence tectonic reconstructions that are based on inclinations from deep-sea sediment cores. Progressive downcore shallowing of the remanent inclination was observed in a 120-m section of Plio- Pleistocene sediments at Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) site 578 in the northwest Pacific. Near the top of the section the average inclination corresponds to the expected geocentric axial dipole value of 53° but shallows downcore by about 6° to 8°. In sediments spanning the same time interval of neighboring site 576, no inclination shallowing was observed. This second site has considerably lower sedimentation rates, and the Plio- Pleistocene is represented by a 26-m sedimentary section. The inclination shallowing at site 578 was correlated to a downhole decrease in porosity, and these results are interpreted to suggest that both the downhole inclination shallowing and decrease of porosity in site 578 were caused by sediment compaction. Microscopic models demonstrate that sediment compaction may lead to inclination shallowing of the magnetic remanence. Furthermore, it is shown that inherent initial within-sample dispersion of the magnetic moments will transform any form of microscopic mechanism to an equation of a standardized form: tan (I-ΔI) = (1-a ΔV) tan I, where I is the inclination of the ambient field, ΔI is the inclination shallowing, a is a constant and ΔV the compaction. Paleomagnetic inclinations of Cretaceous DSDP sediments from the Pacific plate are known to be systematically shallower than predicted from paleolatitudes of hot spot reconstructions. Published paleomagnetic data were reexamined and the shallow Cretaceous inclinations explained as a result of sediment compaction. The Cretaceous data are used to estimate the parameter a. The resulting a values are comparable to those of previous studies of compaction-induced inclination shallowing, both from laboratory experiments and the considerably younger deep-sea sediments at site 578. Values of the parameter a suggest that it might be controlled by sediment lithology with greater shallowing for clayey than calcareous sediments. / Graduation date: 1991

Graduation date: 1987 / Best scan available for figures.

Management strategies to prevent overfishing while achieving optimum yield vary according to the available data and life history of the fished stock. I evaluated two sets of management strategies for Pacific coast rockfish: strategies to set harvest limits for data-poor stocks, and strategies intended to protect the age structure of fished stocks. Setting Harvest Limits for Data-poor Stocks - The collapse of canary rockfish, Sebastes pinniger, in the northeast Pacific began more than two decades before the stock was officially declared overfished. The 2006 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act requires a scientifically-based harvest limit for all fished stocks, including those with data limited to catch. Two such "data-poor" methods are currently in use for the management of west coast stocks, depletion-corrected average catch (DCAC) and depletion-based stock reduction analysis (DB-SRA). To evaluate the performance of each method when challenged with catch and biological uncertainty, I retrospectively applied the methods to the catch and biological data available at the time of the first and second canary rockfish stock assessments in 1984 and 1990. In 1980 canary rockfish would be classified as "data-poor", and in 1990 as "data-rich". To evaluate the sensitivity of DCAC and DB-SRA to error in the catch data, harvest limits were estimated using both the historic catch data from each assessment, and the reconstructed catch data from the most recent stock assessment. In addition, harvest limits were estimated using simulated catch data sets for the years 1916 to 1983 with increasing variability around the true catch. DCAC and DB-SRA estimated harvest limits were significantly lower than the catch recommended in both the data-poor and data-rich stock assessments, but higher than the "true" overfishing limit. Use of current catch data improved the estimated harvest limit when the stock was data-poor, but not when the stock was data-rich. The simple methods responded to increasing error in the catch time series with decreasing mean estimates of the harvest limit, indicating that these methods are highly precautionary for this species, when the catch time series is the only source of error. Age Structure Management Strategies - In a variable oceanographic environment, a population with many reproductive age classes benefits not only from the increased fecundity of older fish; but also, in some species, an increase in larval fitness. Older females may also spawn at different times or over longer periods than younger females, increasing the probability of larvae encountering favorable environmental conditions. Despite the accumulating evidence for the importance of age structure to long-term population viability in harvested fish populations, long-lived west coast rockfish (Genus Sebastes) are managed with a biomass-based harvest control rule. I compared three strategies for age structure management, and evaluated the strategies relative to the status quo, biomass-based harvest control rules, across three rockfish life histories. I examined the tradeoff between yield and traditional management reference points, as well as performance measures that could serve as management reference points for age structure. Yield was reduced by strategies that maintain "old growth" age structure, but annual variation in the catch and the probability of becoming overfished were also reduced. The longest-lived rockfish benefited the most from strategies that maintained older fish in the population through dome-shaped selectivity. The shorter-lived rockfish benefited from adjustments in the catch limit based on the age composition of the catch one year previous. Achieving "pretty good yield" with management strategies that also decrease the potential for overexploitation is an important goal for stocks that are well-studied and those that are poorly understood; these investigations contribute to a growing literature on alternative approaches to sustainable fisheries management. / Graduation date: 2012

The effects of harvesting Pacific hake (Merluccius productus) were examined with a multi-species numerical model composed of seven logistic growth equations coupled by a food web. The food web was composed of: California sea lions (Zalophus californianus), hake, sablefish (Anaplopoma fimbria), spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias), a generic rockfish species (Sebastes spp.), Northern anchovy (Engraulis mordax), and a generic euphausiid species (as an example, Pacific krill, Euphausia pacifica). The model was tuned to mimic stock assessment biomass estimates for the years 1980 to 1991, after which a short term experiment and a sensitivity analysis were conducted. The short term experiment used a factorial design, with hake fishing and fishing for rockfish, sablefish, and anchovy as treatments. It was analyzed with scale analysis techniques. The results indicate that hake (from a management viewpoint) is potentially most important in the offshore community as a prey item for sea lions and as a predator on anchovies, but hake fishing mortality had a small effect on either population during the time span of the experiment. Results also suggest that hake has little or no competitive interaction with other species that are trophically similar. Increased harvesting of hake would probably do little to increase the biomass of rockfish or sablefish. The general conclusion of both the sensitivity analysis and the experiment is that species below their carrying capacity are mostly affected by changes in growth and removal processes while species close to their carrying capacity are mostly affected by processes controlling prey availability. A forty year projection from 1991 to 2031 was conducted to examine the effects of hake fishing on sea lion and anchovy biomass. Results indicate that sea lion biomass will vary inversely with hake fishing effort, while anchovy biomass is directly proportional to hake fishing effort. Results also indicate that hake experience environmental conditions not favorable to recruitment. During favorable conditions the hake population builds up a "surplus" that carries it through periods of unfavorable conditions. Increased hake fishing effort reduces the response of the population to favorable conditions. The results of this research constitute a step from the theory toward the practice of proactive multi-species and ecosystem management. / Graduation date: 1995

This study was directed to improve our understanding of the ecology of Swiss needle cast (SNC) of Douglas-fir, a disease that produces extensive damage to forests and plantation in the coastal region of Oregon and Washington. A disease prediction model for the coastal area of Oregon was built by establishing the relationship between the distribution of disease severity and the environment. Currently available methods of determining the distribution of SNC were analyzed, and the possibility of mapping the disease using Landsat TM satellite images was explored. Two types of regression approaches were used to study the relationship between disease severity and climate, topography, soil and forest stand characteristics. Although both types provided useful information and insight, the multiple regression approach was chosen over the regression tree analysis to build the model, due to its capacity to produce a continuous prediction response. Fog occurrence, precipitation, temperature, elevation and slope aspect, were the variables that contributed to explain most of the disease severity variability. Findings agree with and formalize our previous understanding of the ecology of SNC: cool and wet conditions in summer appear to increase disease severity. When the model was applied to past climate conditions, retrospective predictions suggest that changes in climate in the last two decades could help to explain the observed recent regional increase in SNC disease severity. The resulting model was used to construct a disease prediction map. This map showed an accuracy equivalent to the currently available SNC aerial survey. The prediction model, however, is able to produce a continuous prediction surface, more suitable for testing and appropriate for assisting in disease management and research. A strong relationship between mature stand canopy defoliation and the Landsat TM indices greenness and brightness, indicates that it is possible to use satellite imagery to map SNC. In contrast, young stands showed high variability, most likely due to the relatively high proportion of exposed understory vegetation. The possibility of mapping stand defoliation is of great importance because this symptom can be directly linked to tree growth and forest productivity. Satellite imagery can be used in future and in retrospective disease mapping. / Graduation date: 2002

In 1990, the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges moved to an accreditation model based on outcomes, their assessment and deliberative attempts at institutional change and improvement. No study existed in northwest community colleges which identified the systematic application of effectiveness indicators for institutional change and improvement. This study was conducted with primary administrators in northwest community colleges that have completed the regional accreditation process since 1990. It examined the perceived importance of using effectiveness indicators for assessing institutional outcomes, and their congruence with actual or potential use in making institutional change and improvements. This study shows there is a positive relationship in community colleges between the development of institutional effectiveness indicators and institutional change and improvement. All administrators believed they should be using effectiveness indicators but used them in varying degrees for planning, improving services, budgeting, accreditation, program review and other decision making processes essential to the functioning of community colleges. Although the use varied by category and administrative subgroup, those administrators who had used effectiveness indicators believed their use led to positive institutional change. In order for this study to have an affect on northwest community colleges, several important conditions need to be addressed. The Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges must enforce Policy Statement 2.2, Policy on Educational Assessment, which requires the adoption of an institutional effectiveness model. Community colleges must embrace this model as a mechanism useful for the continuous improvement process. Faculty, staff, administrators and boards must be trained in the application and use of the institutional effectiveness model. Boards must establish outcomes or institutional goals based on their unique mission and must hold the community college president accountable for the achievement of institutional outcomes and the implementation of an assessment process. Assessment must be completed at all levels of the institution. Institutions must adopt an assessment model that reflects the institutions goals and objectives, and place its responsibility prominently within the organization. Finally, measures must be developed at each level or process by the persons closest to the process. Failure to enforce accreditation standards will lead to publicly enacted performance indicators aimed at achieving institutional effectiveness or accountability. / Graduation date: 1998

Graduation date: 1997

Graduation date: 1996

Graduation date: 1966