The date for the formation of the Benton Uplift, Ouachita orogeny, is bracketed by Carboniferous synorogenic sediments deposited to the north and Late Pennsylvanian to Early Permian isotopic dates from the weakly metamorphosed rocks within the uplift. We address the largely unknown structural history between these two constraints by presenting an improved 3-dimensional kinematic model using better constrained retrodeformable sections. These new sections are based on all surface and subsurface data, new zircon fission track dates and thermal maturation data including new ‘crystallinity’ data to constrain the maximum burial depth. Concordant zircon fission track ages range from 307 ± 18.8 Ma to 333.4 ± 38.9 Ma or from the Late Devonian to Early Permian. Maximum ‘crystallinity’ of both illite and chlorite indicate these exposed rocks experienced a temperature of ~300°C across the eastern Benton Uplift. This temperature is consistent with reconstructed burial depths using cumulative stratigraphic thickness without having to call on structural thickening. Comparing coarse and fine clay fractions, computed temperature for the fine clay fraction is less by ~100°C than that of the coarse clay fraction. This difference is the same for all formations studied. This uniform difference in temperature may indicate cooling of the orogen as it deformed or more than one thermal event.

Ma thèse explore les rencontres qui eurent lieu entre Français, Amérindiens et Africains en Louisiane, à l’époque de l’Amérique coloniale. C’est plus précisément sur la partie sud du territoire que ce travail s’est penché. Les bornes chronologiques sont 1686, découverte du territoire par Robert La Salle et 1803, vente du territoire, alors Français, aux Américains par Napoléon en 1803. Mon projet était d’analyser les rapports établis entre ces trois groupes en mettant l’accent sur les relations intimes qui se sont créées entre eux (relations sexuelles, concubinage, mariages mixtes), et les liens de parenté sont également des objets d’étude dans cette recherche. De ces relations intimes émergent diverses communautés : ainsi, les « métis » font référence aux enfants nés de Français et d’Amérindiens alors que les « Griffe » désignent une autre communauté, résultat d’unions entre Africains et Amérindiens. L’étude de ces deux groupes représente une partie de ce travail. Cette thèse s’attache aussi à analyser les conséquences de ces unions sur les rapports sociaux, économiques, et diplomatiques entre ces différents peuples. / Historians have agreed that the French were more successful than their competitors in developing cordial relations with Native Americans during the conquest of North America. French diplomatic savoir faire and their skill at trading with Indians are usually cited to explain this success, but the Spaniards relied upon similar policies of trade and gift giving, while enjoying considerably less success with the Indians. I propose an alternative model to understand the relative success of French Colonization in North America. Intimate Frontiers, an ethno-historical examination of the colonial encounters in the Lower French Louisiana, focuses on the social relations between Europeans, Indians and African in colonial Mississippi Valley. It examines the importance of the intimate bonds forged between settlers and natives in maintaining diplomatic alliances in the region even after the French left Louisiana in 1763. My work brings sexuality and intimacy into the political arena, challenging the prevailing view that power was defined solely by political and military alliances.

The Mississippi River Valley, is hardly known as an earthquake zone, but may in fact be a natural disaster just waiting to happen. Historical records and paleoseismic investigations have shown that large magnitude earthquakes have occurred in the area and there are constantly microquakes all along the New Madrid Fault System. The inhabitants of the Midwest are living in a death trap so long society doesn’t preoperly prepare for earthquakes. The study presented here aims to prove that, as predicting earthquakes is difficult to the point of impossible, the only serious alternative is to reinforce existing buildings and infrastructure and make sure all new developments are seismically safe. The conclusion reached is, that although expensive, building earthquake safe and retrofitting existing buildings, is for the high risk areas by far cheaper than doing nothing when, not if, a new large magnitude earthquake occurs. For a city in the high risk area, the cost of retrofitting the current structures was 13 billion dollar to be compared with the 100 billion dollars in lost lives and properties of a worst case scenario.

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This thesis is a study of the Confederate command problem in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1861-1862.

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No description available.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Background. Traditionally, departmental appointment type (basic science or clinical) and/or degree earned (PhD, MD, or MD-PhD) have served as proxies for how we conceptualize clinical and basic science faculty. However, the landscape in which faculty work has considerably changed and now challenges the meaning of these cohorts. Within this context I introduce a behavior-based role variable that is defined by how faculty spend their time in four academic activities: teaching, research, patient care, and administrative duties. Methods. Two approaches to role were compared to department type and degree earned in terms of their effects on how faculty report their perceptions and experiences of faculty vitality and its related constructs. One approach included the percent of time faculty spent engaged in each of the four academic activities. The second approach included role groups described by a time allocation rubric. This study included faculty from four U.S. medical schools (N = 1,497) and data from the 2011 Indiana University School of Medicine Faculty Vitality Survey. Observed variable path analysis evaluated models that included traditional demographic variables, the role variable, and faculty vitality constructs (e.g., productivity, professional engagement, and career satisfaction). Results. Role group effects on faculty vitality constructs were much stronger than those of percent time variables, suggesting that patterns of how faculty distribute their time are more important than exactly how much time they allocate to single activities. Role group effects were generally similar to, and sometimes stronger than, those of department type and degree earned. Further, the number of activities that faculty participate in is as important a predictor of how faculty experience vitality constructs as their role groups. Conclusions. How faculty spend their time is a valuable and significant addition to vitality models and offers several advantages over traditional cohort variables. Insights into faculty behavior can also show how institutional missions are (or are not) being served. These data can inform hiring practices, development of academic tracks, and faculty development interventions. As institutions continue to unbundle faculty roles and faculty become increasingly differentiated, the role variable can offer a simple way to study faculty, especially across multiple institutions.