<p>This thesis discusses a longitudinal study of psychosocial effects in a population living within 2 kilometers of the Taro Aggregates Ltd. East Landfill site in Stoney Creek, Ontario. This facility has been the source of longstanding concerns among residents in the surrounding community. The focus of the study is local residents' reappraisal of the landfill over a nine-year period. The theoretical basis for the research lies in the fields of environmental stress and coping, place effects and risk perception. A telephone survey was administered to a random stratified (by distance) sample of households during the decision making process (1996) and five years after the landfill site was constructed and began operation (2002). In-depth interviews were conducted with a sub-set of respondents in 2005 in order to better understand how people act in, and give meaning to, their own lives. The scope of this research is based on the need for additional comparative, as well as longitudinal, studies that measure how individuals and communities respond to the process of making the decision to site a landfill, and how these responses change over time as they live with the landfill. This work is part of an ongoing, multidisciplinary research program designed to determine the impacts of exposure to environmental stressors on human health and well-being and to develop strategies to reduce their adverse effects.</p> <p>Residents' reappraisal of the Taro East Landfill site reveals little change in the frequency of landfill concerns over time, with over half the respondents maintaining concerns about the site in the post-siting process. There was a significant increase in the frequency of health concern, a shift in the nature of the health concern (short-term vs. long-term) and a reduced frequency of daily life effects (perceived/anticipated) and action-focused coping as residents lived with the landfill. While most used a variety of coping strategies to mitigate effects, emotion-focused strategies were used with greater frequency. The results reveal a range of factors that mediate residents' reappraisal of the landfill related to context (e.g., lack of meaningful involvement in the siting process, mismanagement, incidents), composition (e. g., socioeconomic status, dwelling tenure and type) and collective (e.g., distrust, inequity, stigma). These findings imply an ongoing process of reappraisal whereby, for many, latent concerns remain even though they have adapted to the landfill over time. The longitudinal nature of this study, the integration of quantitative and qualitative approaches, and the focus on factors affecting the reappraisal of an environmental stressor, are the primary contributions of this research.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Rising post-glacial sea levels since the last glacial maximum have dramatically changed the configuration of coastal areas worldwide. On the western Anatolian coast of Turkey, rising Holocene sea levels and tectonic subsidence have drowned large areas of coastal and terrestrial landscapes that were once occupied by Neolithic peoples. These submerged landscapes have high potential for well-preserved Neolithic sites, but to date few systematic attempts have been made to investigate the prehistoric underwater archaeology. Further exploration for these sites is dependent on an improved understanding of the coastal paleogeography, sea level history and shoreline positions during prehistory.</p> <p>In this study, detailed coastal geoarchaeological investigations were conducted at Liman Tepe/Klazomenai, a long-occupied (Chalco lithic-Roman Age) coastal settlement near Izmir, Turkey, to reconstruct changes in the prehistoric coastal environments and to document coastal impacts associated with the construction of a Hellenistic causeway structure. Detailed sedimentological (lithofacies, grain size, magnetic susceptibility, loss on ignition), geochemical (trace metals) and micropaleontological analysis was conducted on five cores extracted from the Bay of Izmir. Core data were integrated with the results of a detailed marine geophysical survey (bathymetry, side-scan sonar, chirp seismic profiling) to reconstruct the shoreline positions from the Late Neolithic (ca. 4000 BC) to the present.</p> <p>The core results identified five distinct lithostratigraphic units (Units A-E), recording the development of transgressive barrier-lagoonal system prior to ca. 3800 BC and progradation of the coast during a subsequent high-stand phase after ca. 2800 BC. The transgressive barrier-lagoonal system is represented by a fining-upwards sequence of pebbly foreshore deposits (Unit E) overlain by laminated, organic-rich muds deposited in shallow wetland and lagoonal environments (Units C,D). The transition from beach to lagoonal sediments is represented in seismic profiles by a basin-wide, high-amplitude seismic reflector. Mapping of the reflector surface identifies the beach deposits as a linear, northeast-trending beach barrier ridge. ¹⁴C dating of organics from Unit E yielded a Late Neolithic Age (3860 +/- 120 cal BC) for the beach deposits.</p> <p>At the top of the lagoonal sequence a sharp transition to muddy silt lithofacies (Unit B) with abundant <em>Posidonia Oceanica</em> fragments records sediment accumulation with a sheltered embayment formed by construction of a causeway commissioned by Alexander the Great (334 BC). The onset of causeway construction (Phase 3) is indicated by a shift to coarser mean grain size, the appearance of pottery and masonry and abundant olive pits which yielded a ¹⁴C date of 450 ± 70 cal BC, confirming the early Hellenistic age for the causeway. The causeway construction dramatically altered the coastal sediment budget, contributing to accelerated sedimentation and rapid progradation of the coastline. An increase in the abundances of <em>Bolivinid</em> and <em>Rodalinid</em> genera below the causeway construction horizon indicates increasing eutrophication of coastal waters as Archaic populations increased at Klazomenai. The detailed record of changing coastal environments and shoreline configurations obtained through this study provide important baseline data for future underwater archaeological exploration at Liman Tepe/Klazomenai.</p> / Master of Science (MS)

This thesis describes new inversion-oriented methodological developments and their seismological applications. In the first study presented the dynamic source parameters of some local Icelandic earthquakes are studied by employing a time domain moment tensor inversion method. A windowing method for direct P and S phases was used and the inversion was performed for frequencies lower than the associated corner frequency under the double-couple constraint. The inversion algorithm could determine the dynamic source parameters correctly, even under conditions of poor azimuthal coverage. The second study deals with a new method for calculating the empirical Green's function based on inversion of earthquake radiation patterns. The resulting Green's functions then may contain both body and surface waves. The validity of the method was then confirmed by applying the method to some Icelandic earthquakes. The lithosphere-asthenosphere transition along the TOR array is investigated in the last two studies. Separate and simultaneous teleseismic P and S relative arrival-time residuals were inverted via different methods (a singular value decomposition and a quadratic programming method) to investigate the reliability and the resolution of the model. The data were corrected a priori for the effect of travel-time perturbations due to crustal structure. The results indicate that the transition between thinner lithosphere in Germany to the thicker Baltic Shield in Sweden occurs in two sharp and steep steps. A sharp and steep subcrustal boundary is found below the Tornquist Zone, with a less significant transition below the Elbe Lineament. The lithospheric structure appears to be about 120 km thick under the Tornquist Zone, increasing to more than 200 km beneath the Baltic Shield.

<p>This thesis describes new inversion-oriented methodological developments and their seismological applications. In the first study presented the dynamic source parameters of some local Icelandic earthquakes are studied by employing a time domain moment tensor inversion method. A windowing method for direct P and S phases was used and the inversion was performed for frequencies lower than the associated corner frequency under the double-couple constraint. The inversion algorithm could determine the dynamic source parameters correctly, even under conditions of poor azimuthal coverage. The second study deals with a new method for calculating the empirical Green's function based on inversion of earthquake radiation patterns. The resulting Green's functions then may contain both body and surface waves. The validity of the method was then confirmed by applying the method to some Icelandic earthquakes. The lithosphere-asthenosphere transition along the TOR array is investigated in the last two studies. Separate and simultaneous teleseismic P and S relative arrival-time residuals were inverted via different methods (a singular value decomposition and a quadratic programming method) to investigate the reliability and the resolution of the model. The data were corrected <i>a priori</i> for the effect of travel-time perturbations due to crustal structure. The results indicate that the transition between thinner lithosphere in Germany to the thicker Baltic Shield in Sweden occurs in two sharp and steep steps. A sharp and steep subcrustal boundary is found below the Tornquist Zone, with a less significant transition below the Elbe Lineament. The lithospheric structure appears to be about 120 km thick under the Tornquist Zone, increasing to more than 200 km beneath the Baltic Shield.</p>

<p>In order to improve climate- and weather forecasting models, a better knowledge of the physical processes taking place in the lowest part of the atmosphere over the oceans is essential. In these models it is often assumed that the atmospheric boundary layer over sea behaves in the same way as that over land. But, the results show that the processes over sea are significantly different, which has to be accounted for in the models.</p><p>By using long term measurements it is shown that the surface waves play a very important role for the turbulent structure in the marine atmospheric boundary layer. For example, they give rise to a height structure that can not be found over land. A consequence of this is that measurements from a buoy (at a few meters above the surface) need to be treated different than measurements on a ship (at 10-30 m above the surface).</p><p>The wave influence affects the turbulent kinetic energy budget. Besides the height dependency, the imbalance between local production and local dissipation is a function of stability, wave age and wind speed, and the commonly assumed balance can therefore be questioned. This has direct implications for the so called inertial dissipation method, a method often used to determine turbulent fluxes over sea with the aid of measurements from ships and buoys. A comparison with the more direct eddy-correlation method at 10 m height gives that the inertial dissipation method works best for near neutral conditions and growing sea.</p>

<p>Diagenesis and sequence stratigraphy have been formally treated as two separate disciplines in sedimentary petrology. This thesis demonstrates that synergy between these two subjects can be used to constrain evolution of reservoir quality in sandstones. Such integrated approach is possible because sequence stratigraphy provides useful information on parameters such as pore water chemistry, residence time of sediments under certain geochemistry conditions, and detrital composition, which ultimately control diagenesis of sandstones. </p><p>Evidence from five case studies and from literature, enabled the development of a conceptual model for the spatial and temporal distribution of diagenetic alterations and related evolution of reservoir quality in sandstones deposited in paralic environments. Diagenetic alterations that have been constrained within the context of sequence stratigraphy include: (i) formation of kaolinite and intragranular porosity, and mechanical infiltration of clay minerals in sandstones lying at variable depths below sequence boundaries, (ii) formation of pseudomatrix and cementation by calcite, dolomite, and siderite in lag deposits at parasequence boundaries, (iii) cementation by kaolinite, pyrite, and calcite in sandstones lying in the vicinity of parasequence boundaries with coal deposits, (iv) formation of glaucony in condensed interval at parasequence boundaries, transgressive and maximum flooding surfaces, (v) formation of berthierine in fluvial-dominated deltaic deposits of the highstand systems tract, (vi) cementation by calcite in bioclastic sandstones of the transgressive systems tract, and (vii) formation of kaolinite in fluvial deposits of the lowstand systems tract. The distribution of such alterations put important constrains for the pattern of burial diagenesis (e.g., formation of chlorite, illite, quartz), related evolution of reservoir quality in sandstones, and distribution of baffles and barriers for fluid flow in the context of sequence stratigraphy. </p>

<p>Field studies encounter several complicating factors not studied in the models. Examples are oblique convergence, heterogeneous materials and thermal softening by intruding magmas. Within the deeply eroded Svecokarelian orogeny, studies in eastern Bergslagen indicate strain accommodation of the N-S orogenic shortening by regional E-W folding and shear along the conjugate Singö Shear Zone and Ornö Banded Series. Rising temperature resulted in migmatites affecting the strain accommodation resulting in decoupling and rotation of folds along one of the deformation zones.</p><p>Deformation zones developed in convergent orogens have been studied in both analogue models and in nature. These studies have focused on a number of important factors controlling strain accommodation during orogenesis. The models show that the shape of the leading edge of the indenting continent controls whether the initial suture remains active or if an effective indenter develops, the spacing and number of faults, the width of the orogen and the height of the mountains. All these characteristics depend on the rate and spatial distribution of erosion and sedimentation. Erosion decreases the importance of effective indenters and favors shearing on existing faults leading to steeper, longer lived shears bounding narrow orogens. If sediments load the margin (e.g. foreland), the thrusts propagate further outboard widening the orogen. The strain that is accommodated by compaction and shearing along deep décollement and conjugate imbricate shears is episodic in time. This work links episodes of increased rates of erosion and sedimentation to episodes of high uplift rates, i.e. the development of new imbricate thrusts or pop-up wedges.</p>

Table Mountain pine is an Appalachian endemic that occurs in a patchy distribution from Georgia to Pennsylvania and is prolific at sites with a history of fire disturbance. The purpose of this dissertation was to reconstruct the fire regimes of Table Mountain pine stands in the Jefferson National Forest, Virginia. Sections from firescarred Table Mountain pines were collected at four sites to analyze fire history, while increment cores and stand composition information were collected from macroplots within each fire history site to investigate the possible influence of fires that were more ecologically severe. Results show that fire was frequent before the fire suppression era, with a Weibull median fire return interval between 2–3 years. The majority of fires occurred during the dormant season and beginning of the early growing season. Two of the four sites had a more even distribution of fire seasons, and these sites also had significant Table Mountain pine regeneration. Cohorts of tree establishment were visible in the fire charts of three of these sites, indicating fires that were likely moderate in severity. The canopy at three of the four sites is currently dominated by Table Mountain pine, but the understory at all sites has large numbers of fire-intolerant hardwoods and shrubs. These Table Mountain pine stands will likely succeed to xeric oak and fireintolerant hardwoods, such as red maple and black gum, in the future. Fire statistics indicate that all four sites currently exist outside their range of historical variation in fire occurrence.

In order to improve climate- and weather forecasting models, a better knowledge of the physical processes taking place in the lowest part of the atmosphere over the oceans is essential. In these models it is often assumed that the atmospheric boundary layer over sea behaves in the same way as that over land. But, the results show that the processes over sea are significantly different, which has to be accounted for in the models. By using long term measurements it is shown that the surface waves play a very important role for the turbulent structure in the marine atmospheric boundary layer. For example, they give rise to a height structure that can not be found over land. A consequence of this is that measurements from a buoy (at a few meters above the surface) need to be treated different than measurements on a ship (at 10-30 m above the surface). The wave influence affects the turbulent kinetic energy budget. Besides the height dependency, the imbalance between local production and local dissipation is a function of stability, wave age and wind speed, and the commonly assumed balance can therefore be questioned. This has direct implications for the so called inertial dissipation method, a method often used to determine turbulent fluxes over sea with the aid of measurements from ships and buoys. A comparison with the more direct eddy-correlation method at 10 m height gives that the inertial dissipation method works best for near neutral conditions and growing sea.