Considerable interest lies in understanding the hydrologic response to climate change in the upper Deschutes Basin, particularly as it relates to groundwater fed streams. Much of the precipitation occurring in the recharge zone falls as snow. Consequently, the timing of runoff and recharge depend on accumulation and melting of the snowpack. Numerical modeling can provide insights into evolving hydrologic system response for resource management consideration. A daily mass and energy balance model known as the Deep Percolation Model (DPM) was developed for the basin in the 1990s. This model uses spatially distributed data and is driven with daily climate data to calculate both daily and monthly mass and energy balance for the major components of the hydrologic budget across the basin. Previously historical daily climate data from weather stations in the basin was used to drive the model. Now we use the University of Washington Climate Impact Group's 1/16th degree daily downscaled climate data to drive the DPM for forecasting until the end of the 21st century. The downscaled climate data is comprised from the mean of eight GCM simulations well suited to the Pacific Northwest. Furthermore, there are low emission and high emission scenarios associated with each ensemble member leading to two distinct means. For the entire basin progressing into the 21st century, output from the DPM using both emission scenarios as a forcing show changes in the timing of runoff and recharge as well as significant reductions in snowpack. Although the DPM calculated amounts of recharge and runoff varies between the emission scenario of the ensemble under consideration, all model output shows loss of the spring snowmelt runoff / recharge peak as time progresses. The response of the groundwater system to changing in the time and amount of recharge varies spatially. Short flow paths in the upper part of the basin are potentially more sensitive to the change in seasonality. However, geologic controls on the system cause this signal to attenuate as it propagates into the lower portions of the basin. This scale-dependent variation to the response of the groundwater system to changes in seasonality and magnitude of recharge is explored by applying DPM calculated recharge to an existing regional groundwater flow model.

Climate exerts considerable control on wildfire regimes, and climate and wildfire are both major drivers of forest growth and succession in interior Northwest forests. Estimating potential response of these landscapes to anticipated changes in climate helps researchers and land managers understand and mitigate impacts of climate change on important ecological and economic resources. Spatially explicit, mechanistic computer simulation models are powerful tools that permit researchers to incorporate climate and disturbance events along with vegetation physiology and phenology to explore complex potential effects of climate change over wide spatial and temporal scales. In this thesis, I used the simulation model FireBGCv2 to characterize potential response of fire, vegetation, and landscape dynamics to a range of possible future climate and fire management scenarios. The simulation landscape (~43,000 hectares) is part of Deschutes National Forest, which is located at the interface of maritime and continental climates and is known for its beauty and ecological diversity. Simulation scenarios included all combinations of +0��C, +3��C, and +6��C of warming; +10%, ��0%, and -10% historical precipitation; and 10% and 90% fire suppression, and were run for 500 years. To characterize fire dynamics, I investigated how mean fire frequency, intensity, and fuel loadings changed over time in all scenarios, and how fire and tree mortality interacted over time. To explore vegetation and landscape dynamics, I described the distribution and spatial arrangement of vegetation types and forest successional stages on the landscape, and used a nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMS) ordination to holistically evaluate overall similarity of composition, structure, and landscape pattern among all simulation scenarios over time. Changes in precipitation had little effect on fire characteristics or vegetation and landscape characteristics, indicating that simulated precipitation changes were not sufficient to significantly affect vegetation moisture stress or fire behavior on this landscape. Current heavy fuel loads controlled early fire dynamics, with high mean fire intensities occurring early in all simulations. Increases in fire frequency accompanied all temperature increases, leading to decreasing fuel loads and fire intensities over time in warming scenarios. With no increase in temperature or in fire frequency, high fire intensities and heavier fuel loads were sustained. Over time, more fire associated with warming or less fire suppression increased the percentage of the landscape occupied by non-forest and fire-sensitive early seral forest successional stages, which tended to increase the percentage of fire area burning at high severity (in terms of tree mortality). This fire-vegetation relationship may reflect a return to a more historical range of conditions on this landscape. Higher temperatures and fire frequency led to significant spatial migration of forest types across the landscape, with communities at the highest and lowest elevations particularly affected. Warming led to an upslope shift of warm mixed conifer and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests, severely contracting (under 3�� of warming) or eliminating (under 6�� of warming) area dominated by mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) and cool, wet conifer forest in the high western portion of the landscape. In lower elevations, warming and fire together contributed to significant expansion of open (<10% tree canopy cover) forest and grass- and shrubland. The compositional changes and spatial shifts simulated in the warming scenarios suggest that climate change is likely to significantly affect forests on this landscape. Warming and associated fire also tended to increase heterogeneity of forest structural stages and landscape pattern, resulting in a more diverse distribution of structural stages, especially in lower elevations, and a more divided landscape of smaller forest stands. The NMS ordination emphasized the dissimilarity between the severe +6�� scenarios and the other two temperature scenarios. The +0�� and +3�� scenarios differed from each other in composition (mainly because cool forest was lost in the +3�� scenarios), but within a given level of fire suppression they remained remarkably similar in terms of overall composition, structure, and landscape pattern, while the +6�� scenarios separated noticeably from them. Such decisive differences suggest that under the simulated ranges of precipitation and fire suppression, the interval between 3 and 6 degrees of warming on this landscape may capture an ecological threshold, or tipping point. Additional simulation research that incorporates (for example) management actions, insects and pathogens, and a wider array of precipitation scenarios could help illuminate more clearly the possible range of future landscape conditions. Still, these results provide a glimpse of potential divergent outcomes on this important landscape under possible future climates, and suggest that these forests will undergo considerable changes from both historical and current conditions in response to higher temperatures expected in this area. Some changes may be inevitable with warming, such as the upslope shift of warm forest types, but careful planning for fire and fuels management might allow land managers to modulate fire behavior and steer vegetation dynamics toward the most desirable outcome possible. / Graduation date: 2013

Silicic volcanism in the central Oregon Cascade range has decreased in both the size and frequency of eruptions from its initiation at ~40 Ma to present. The reasons for this reduction in silicic volcanism are poorly constrained. Studies of the petrogenesis of these magmas have the potential for addressing this question by providing insight into the processes responsible for producing and erupting silicic magmas. This study focuses on two extensive and well-preserved ash-flow tuffs from within the ~4-8 Ma Deschutes Formation of central Oregon, which formed after the transition from Western Cascade volcanism to the modern High Cascade. Documentation of outcrop extent, outcrop thickness, clast properties, and samples provide the means to estimate a source location, minimum erupted volumes, and to constrain eruptive processes. Major and trace element chemistry of glass and minerals constrain the petrogenesis and chemical evolution of the system. The tuffs selected for this study, the Lower Bridge and McKenzie Canyon, are the first known silicic units originating from the Cascade Arc following the reorganization from Western Cascade to High Cascade Volcanism at ~8 Ma. These eruptions were significant in producing a minimum of ~5 km�� DRE each within a relatively short timeframe. These tuffs are sourced from some vent or edifices related to the Three Sisters Volcanic Complex, and capture an early phase of the volcanic history of that region. The chemical composition of the tuffs indicates that the Lower Bridge erupted predominately rhyolitic magma with dacitic magma occurring only in small quantities in the latest stage of the eruption while McKenzie Canyon Tuff erupted first as a rhyolite and transitioned to a basaltic andesite with co-mingling and incomplete mixing of the two magma types. Major and trace element concentrations in minerals and glass indicate that the basaltic andesite and rhyolite of the McKenzie Canyon Tuff were well convected and stored in separate chambers. Geothermometry of the magmas indicate that the rhyolites are considerably warmer (~850��) than typical arc rhyolites. Trace element compositions indicate that both the Lower Bridge and McKenzie Canyon Tuff experienced mixing between a mantle derived basaltic melt and a rhyolitic partial melt derived from gabbroic crust. Rhyolites of the Lower Bridge Tuff incorporate 30-50% partial melt following 0->60% fractionation of mantle derived melts. The McKenzie Canyon Tuff incorporates 50-100% of a partial melt of a mafic crust with up to 15% post mixing fractionation. The results of this study suggest that production of voluminous silicic magmas within the Cascade Arc crust requires both fractionation of incoming melts from the mantle together with mixing with partial melts of the crust. This provides a potential explanation for the decrease in silicic melt production rates from the Western Cascades to the High Cascades related to declining subduction rate. As convergence along the Cascade margin became more oblique during the Neogene, the consequent slowing rate of mantle melt production will result in a net cooling of the crust, inhibiting the production of rhyolitic partial melts. Without these partial melts to provide the rhyolitic end member to the system, the system will evolve to the mafic melt and fractionation dominated regime that has existed along Cascadia throughout the Quaternary. / Graduation date: 2013