A detailed study was made of the composition and distribution of modern and fossil animal and plant traces around saline, alkaline lakes in tectonically active, closed lake-basins. Modern and Pleistocene traces that were examined in lake basins of the Kenya Rift Valley (Lakes Bogoria, Magadi, and Nasikie Engida) were compared directly with fossil traces from the Eocene Lake Gosiute in the Green River Formation of Wyoming, U.S.A., which had a similar hydrochemistry. Analysis of lithofacies and the stratigraphic packaging of the sediments hosting biogenic structures was undertaken so that their vertical and lateral distribution could be used to interpret lake histories and to help to develop depositional models of enigmatic sedimentary successions. A focus was given to the application of the results for paleoecology and stratigraphy, and a model for predicting the position of different trace associations in vertical successions and in different parts of saline, alkaline lake basins has been developed. Evidence from the Kenyan lakes and Eocene Lake Gosiute shows that (1) sedimentary environments are diverse in underfilled basins, and frequent lake-level fluctuations strongly impact the distribution of sedimentary environments suitable for the production and preservation of biogenic structures; (2) the distribution of biogenic structures in underfilled basins is related to the geomorphological and structural setting, tectonic activity, catchment lithology, the basin margin or basin centre location, climate, and salinity and alkalinity, together with other finer-scale environmental and biological controls; (3) because saline environments are restrictive, sites of relatively dilute inflow (springs, rivers and deltas, ephemeral streams) provide oasis-like habitats for animals and plants, and contribute to the increased diversity and laterally variable distribution of saline-lake trace assemblages; and (4) the vertical distribution of trace fossils in a stratigraphic succession reflects changing environments through time; important stratigraphic surfaces, usually formed during periods of lake-level fall, can be recognized from the overprinting patterns of traces produced under different conditions.

A detailed study was made of the composition and distribution of modern and fossil animal and plant traces around saline, alkaline lakes in tectonically active, closed lake-basins. Modern and Pleistocene traces that were examined in lake basins of the Kenya Rift Valley (Lakes Bogoria, Magadi, and Nasikie Engida) were compared directly with fossil traces from the Eocene Lake Gosiute in the Green River Formation of Wyoming, U.S.A., which had a similar hydrochemistry. Analysis of lithofacies and the stratigraphic packaging of the sediments hosting biogenic structures was undertaken so that their vertical and lateral distribution could be used to interpret lake histories and to help to develop depositional models of enigmatic sedimentary successions. A focus was given to the application of the results for paleoecology and stratigraphy, and a model for predicting the position of different trace associations in vertical successions and in different parts of saline, alkaline lake basins has been developed. Evidence from the Kenyan lakes and Eocene Lake Gosiute shows that (1) sedimentary environments are diverse in underfilled basins, and frequent lake-level fluctuations strongly impact the distribution of sedimentary environments suitable for the production and preservation of biogenic structures; (2) the distribution of biogenic structures in underfilled basins is related to the geomorphological and structural setting, tectonic activity, catchment lithology, the basin margin or basin centre location, climate, and salinity and alkalinity, together with other finer-scale environmental and biological controls; (3) because saline environments are restrictive, sites of relatively dilute inflow (springs, rivers and deltas, ephemeral streams) provide oasis-like habitats for animals and plants, and contribute to the increased diversity and laterally variable distribution of saline-lake trace assemblages; and (4) the vertical distribution of trace fossils in a stratigraphic succession reflects changing environments through time; important stratigraphic surfaces, usually formed during periods of lake-level fall, can be recognized from the overprinting patterns of traces produced under different conditions.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Western Seminary, Portland, OR, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 241-246).

Birds are the most diverse extant group of terrestrial vertebrates, and relationships amongst major extant and extinct avian lineages remain hotly debated. A clade of Aves which has received limited attention is the extinct Zygodactylidae, a species-rich group of perching birds that possess a foot with a retroverted fourth toe, an elongate tarsometatarsus and a large intermetacarpal process in the wing. Specimens currently included within Zygodactylidae previously were thought to be sister taxa to songbirds (Passeriformes) or woodpeckers and allies (Piciformes). Zygodactylids were most abundant during the Eocene in North America and Europe and persisted to the Early Miocene. Five exceptionally preserved fossils from the Early Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming are described, and provide insights into the interrelationships of zygodactylid taxa and the position of the clade within Aves. In an attempt to resolve systematic relationships within zygodactylids, and the position of the clade within Aves, I conducted two sets of phylogenetic analyses. The first focused on clarifying relationships within Zygodactylidae. Each taxon was evaluated for 37 morphological characters. Resulting strict consensus cladograms yield topologies in which two of the new Green River specimens are positioned in a clade within Zygodactylus, a taxon previously known only from the Early Oligocene and Early Miocene of Europe. The second set of analyses sought to assess which extant avian lineage is most closely allied with Zygodactylidae. Those analyses used a dataset of 135 characters evaluated for 57 species and a supraspecific terminal, Zygodactylidae. Scoring of Zygodactylidae was based on morphological observations from all described taxa within Zygodactylidae. The extant species sample was chosen to evaluate previously proposed hypotheses of relationships between Zygodactylidae and other avian clades and included songbirds, parrots and 43 species from the coraciiform-piciform clade (e.g., woodpeckers, galbulids, rollers and motmots). Outgroup species were iteratively swapped to determine if outgroup choice affected recovered estimates of zygodactylid relationships within Aves. Zygodactylidae is the sister taxon to songbirds in the resultant tree topologies. These results forward our understanding of the relationship between Zygodactylidae and Passeriformes within Aves. / text

Accountability in community colleges, like all institutions of higher education, is a movement that has grown over the past several years. Consequently, colleges are generating a great deal of assessment data, both locally developed and nationally benchmarked. One national survey is the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). CCSSE is an appropriate focus for this study because many community colleges are concerned about the lack of comparative data that would enable them to make more comprehensive evaluations of their programs. This is a case study of a college in Wyoming and its use of the CCSSE data after the college received the results of the survey. A Wyoming college is the focus because it performed adequately on the CCSSE measures and was not currently under any economic pressures that may have affected colleges in other parts of the country during the time frame of the study. / text

This dissertation combines theories of nationalism and discourse analysis modeled on Benedict Anderson and Homi Bhabha with Kenneth Burke's dramatism to demonstrate that political states are constituted as meaningful, exclusionary communities through legislative discourses, literary representations, and practices of historiography. Although a number of scholars have acknowledged the importance of state identifications in the complex of cultural and symbolic nationalism, there has been limited examination of the composition of what I call "statist"-- as related to but distinct from "nationalist"-- identities in their own right. Using Wyoming as a case study, this project examines the unique and deeply significant affiliations formed within individual states in the United States of America. Wyoming provides an interesting lens for this discussion for several reasons. First, Wyoming's attainment of statehood in 1890 marks an important figurative closing of the frontier acknowledged in the census of that year and remarked upon as significant among many scholars of Western history. This coincidence of timing also places Wyoming's territorial period and attempts to articulate the state as an independent cultural and political entity during the period of colonialism. Many scholars, including Benedict Anderson and Homi Bhabha as well as Ernest Gellner and Eric Hobsbawm, consider this the period during which modern nationalism flowered. Finally, Wyoming presents a useful template for this analysis precisely because of its unremarkableness in legislative terms; the language of its constitution draws heavily on the models provided by earlier states as well as the US Constitution and is quite similar in this respect to many that followed. Although the symbols and narratives that circumscribe the Wyoming imaginary are unique, the process by which they are constituted is not and could be observed in some form in any state in the Union.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Nov. 25, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-205).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Western Seminary, Portland, OR, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 241-246).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 24, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on August 6 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 116-134).