Essa pesquisa foi estruturada para refletir sobre a construção de uma expografia de forma participativa, particularmente as condições para o desenvolvimento de exposições sobre temas científicos voltados a públicos não acadêmicos. O lócus do estudo é o Acervo de Minerais e Rochas do Instituto de Geociências, dedicado à pesquisa e ao ensino relacionado às Geociências na Universidade de São Paulo. Este Acervo, criado em 1934 para as aulas práticas de geologia e química, foi aberto nos anos 1990 para visitação pública e é conhecido como Museu de Geociências. Embora o museu tenha passado por mudanças consideráveis em termos de vínculo institucional e perfil de visitantes ao longo do tempo, essas mudanças não se refletiram na expografia, que continua a exibir terminologia acadêmica e retórica classificatória de mineralogia. Acreditamos que isso provoque o que Ulpiano Bezerra de Meneses descreve como fetichização dos objetos, mistificando-os. Com a finalidade de aproximar a sociedade deste museu, planejamos um processo de desenvolvimento conceitual da expografia no qual os sujeitos da pesquisa, funcionários do museu, têm participação ativa, usando o plano museológico como ferramenta de reflexão. Por isso, o objetivo geral desta pesquisa é refletir sobre as potencialidades da reformatação da expografia por meio da pesquisa-ação participativa no Museu de Geociências do Instituto de Geociências da Universidade de São Paulo e os objetivos específicos são refletir sobre a contribuição do plano museológico para a reformatação da expografia, desvelar como transmitir conhecimentos de Geociências para o público não acadêmico a partir do acervo do museu e construir conhecimento a partir de uma práxis. Esperamos, com esta pesquisa, discutir sobre metodologia em museus, particularmente em processos expográficos de museus científicos e aspectos da exposições em termos de comunicação, e problematizar o método de trabalho de concepção de exposições em museus contemporâneos. / This research was structured to reflect upon the design of an expography adopting a participatory approach, particularly the conditions for designing exhibitions on scientific themes that reach non-academic audiences. The locus of this study is the Collection of Minerals and Rocks of the Institute of Geosciences, which undertakes research and runs the geology and geosciences undergraduate and graduate programs of the University of São Paulo. This Collection, built up since 1934 for the hands-on geology and chemical courses, was opened in the 1990s for public visitation and is known as Museum of Geosciences. Although the museum has significantly changed over the years in terms of organization and visitors profile, such changes have not affected the expography, which continues to display academic terminology and classificatory rhetoric of mineralogy. We believe it leads to what Ulpiano Bezerra de Meneses describes as fetish for objects, mystifying them. Aiming at drawing the society closer to this museum, we planned a conceptual expography design process in which the research subjects, that is, the museum staff, has active participation, using the museological plan to encourage reflection. Therefore, this research is mainly aimed at reflecting upon the potentialities of reformatting the expography by conducting a participatory action research in the Museum of Geosciences of the Institute of Geosciences of the University of São Paulo, whereas the specific aims are to reflect upon the contribution of the museological plan to reformat the expography, find out how to introduce Geosciences to non-academic audiences by using the Museum\'s collection, and gain knowledge from a case study. With this research we expect to discuss methodology in museums, particularly in processes of expography of scientific museums, and exhibition aspects in terms of communication, and problematize the working method for designing exhibition in contemporary museums.

Orientador: Gilberto José Garcia / Banca: Sergio dos Anjos Ferreira Pinto / Banca: Arquimedes Peres Filho / Banca: Norberto Morales / Banca: Olavo Raymundo Junior / Resumo: Fotografia aérea NADIR é um conceito usado rotineiramente por geólogos e pesquisadores de vários campos de atividade. Filmagem aérea de baixa altitude, em perspectiva ou ortogonal, é um recurso muito acessível, pela qualidade e relação custo-benefício dos equipamentos digitais disponíveis, pela capacidade de processamento e facilidade de operação dos softwares e hardwares lançados no mercado e pelo custo da hora de vôo em aviões de pequeno porte. A visualização da organização das paisagens através de filmagens aéreas em perspectiva permite a construção de um banco de dados de fácil manuseio e fornece um ponto de vista complementar às informações derivadas de outras fontes. Os estudos e ações efetuados buscaram explorar essa técnica de registro de dados e testar seu potencial para compor material didático e transmitir informações específicas de interesse geológico. / Abstract: Vertical aerial videography is a commonly technique used by geologists and researchers from several fields of knowledge. Aerial videography of low altitude, in oblique viewing, is a resource not spread, but very accessible, by the quality of digital equipment available, by capacity and facility of software and hardware operation and by the low cost of flight hour in small planes. The terrain observation (imaging) and oblique visualization of landscape in TV language allow building data base, to promote discrimination of surface landforms and morphologic patterns with tectonic meanings, and supply an approach that supplement the information derived from other media. In this work the goal was to apply this technique of data register in low cost and complexity of data treatment, test its aptitude to compose the didactic material and transmit specific information from geological interest. / Doutor

Previous studies have suggested that Davis tube (DT) experiment can used to study wet low intensitymagnetic separation (WLIMS) for magnetic iron ores. But DT process has never been used to mapWLIMS process, specifically in a geometallurgical framework. This thesis work is a step towardsfulfilling this gap by studying the Davis tube experiment performed on 13 different samples fromLeveäniemi iron ore deposit. The methodology adapted to map WLIMS concentrate quality includesstudy and analysis of feed, DT and WLIMS. Analyses were made using experimental data, processingdata using some analytical tools, some data-processing tools and post processing tools. For coveringthe geometallurgical aspect the analysis was done for both elements and minerals. The results fromthis study has reviled that DT can be used to predict WLIMS concentrate quality to an acceptablelevel of confidence. Furthermore, results show that a combination of DT and WLIMS informationproduce very accurate and highly reliable models for predicting and mapping WLIMS concentratequality. This work serves as the first step towards studying an unexplored field pertaining to magneticiron ore concentrate and has opened door to possible future work that could take this work a stepfurther. Supplementing this study with more data from different sample is required not only tovalidate the model but also to make it better. A better modal mineralogy of the samples is needed tounlock the full potentials of mineralogical modelling approach used in this work. / <p>I am a graduate from the of Erasmus Mundus masters in Georesource Engineering, 2017.</p> / Primary Resource Efficiency by Enhanced Prediction (PREP)

Essa pesquisa foi estruturada para refletir sobre a construção de uma expografia de forma participativa, particularmente as condições para o desenvolvimento de exposições sobre temas científicos voltados a públicos não acadêmicos. O lócus do estudo é o Acervo de Minerais e Rochas do Instituto de Geociências, dedicado à pesquisa e ao ensino relacionado às Geociências na Universidade de São Paulo. Este Acervo, criado em 1934 para as aulas práticas de geologia e química, foi aberto nos anos 1990 para visitação pública e é conhecido como Museu de Geociências. Embora o museu tenha passado por mudanças consideráveis em termos de vínculo institucional e perfil de visitantes ao longo do tempo, essas mudanças não se refletiram na expografia, que continua a exibir terminologia acadêmica e retórica classificatória de mineralogia. Acreditamos que isso provoque o que Ulpiano Bezerra de Meneses descreve como fetichização dos objetos, mistificando-os. Com a finalidade de aproximar a sociedade deste museu, planejamos um processo de desenvolvimento conceitual da expografia no qual os sujeitos da pesquisa, funcionários do museu, têm participação ativa, usando o plano museológico como ferramenta de reflexão. Por isso, o objetivo geral desta pesquisa é refletir sobre as potencialidades da reformatação da expografia por meio da pesquisa-ação participativa no Museu de Geociências do Instituto de Geociências da Universidade de São Paulo e os objetivos específicos são refletir sobre a contribuição do plano museológico para a reformatação da expografia, desvelar como transmitir conhecimentos de Geociências para o público não acadêmico a partir do acervo do museu e construir conhecimento a partir de uma práxis. Esperamos, com esta pesquisa, discutir sobre metodologia em museus, particularmente em processos expográficos de museus científicos e aspectos da exposições em termos de comunicação, e problematizar o método de trabalho de concepção de exposições em museus contemporâneos. / This research was structured to reflect upon the design of an expography adopting a participatory approach, particularly the conditions for designing exhibitions on scientific themes that reach non-academic audiences. The locus of this study is the Collection of Minerals and Rocks of the Institute of Geosciences, which undertakes research and runs the geology and geosciences undergraduate and graduate programs of the University of São Paulo. This Collection, built up since 1934 for the hands-on geology and chemical courses, was opened in the 1990s for public visitation and is known as Museum of Geosciences. Although the museum has significantly changed over the years in terms of organization and visitors profile, such changes have not affected the expography, which continues to display academic terminology and classificatory rhetoric of mineralogy. We believe it leads to what Ulpiano Bezerra de Meneses describes as fetish for objects, mystifying them. Aiming at drawing the society closer to this museum, we planned a conceptual expography design process in which the research subjects, that is, the museum staff, has active participation, using the museological plan to encourage reflection. Therefore, this research is mainly aimed at reflecting upon the potentialities of reformatting the expography by conducting a participatory action research in the Museum of Geosciences of the Institute of Geosciences of the University of São Paulo, whereas the specific aims are to reflect upon the contribution of the museological plan to reformat the expography, find out how to introduce Geosciences to non-academic audiences by using the Museum\'s collection, and gain knowledge from a case study. With this research we expect to discuss methodology in museums, particularly in processes of expography of scientific museums, and exhibition aspects in terms of communication, and problematize the working method for designing exhibition in contemporary museums.

High plant species diversity depends on a landscape that provides enough habitual space, functional connectivity and heterogeneity. Habitat destruction and land use change is recognized as the biggest threat to biodiversity of today. The Swedish landscape has not only undergone dramatic changes in land-use the last 60 years, it also contains some of the last fragments in Europe of the highly valuable hay-meadows. Many of the Swedish hay-meadows are considered to hold high ecological values and are protected by Natura 2000 regulations. Yet there are no systematic conservation strategies for the hay-meadows and most of the work is done by volunteers. This study aims to further investigate how the surrounding landscape affects the total plant species richness on Swedish hay-meadows. A local scale GIS-analysis on landscapes surrounding 21 hay-meadows across two time steps was carried out. The historical land-use was compared with the present landscapes and with species data from the same areas. Results show that the forest cover has grown almost 12% in 60 years. There is a negative correlation between forest and the plant species richness of both time steps. The total area of arable fields has dropped 19%, although no statistical correlation with the plant species richness of either time step was found. The ex-arable fields of 1950 however, did show a negative impact, both alone and together with open pasture. Open pasture has decreased 17%, although no statistical correlation was found between this land-cover category and plant species richness. The overall results indicate that the historical land-use on the local scale is of greater importance on the current plant species richness than present land-use. This should be considered within landscape planning and when designing conservation strategies. / En hög plantdiversitet är beroende av ett landskap som erbjuder tillräckligt stora habitat, funktionell konnektivitet och heterogenitet. Habitatförlust och förändrad markanvändning utgör det största hotet mot biodiversitet idag. Det svenska landskapet har inte bara förändrats dramatiskt de senaste 60 åren, det innehåller också några av Europas sista fragment av de mycket värdefulla slåtterängarna. Många av de svenska slåtterängarna är upptagna i Natura 2000-områden. Trots detta finns inga systematiska bevarandestrategier för dessa slåtterängar och arbetet hänger mestadels på volontärer. Den här studien ämnar bidra till en ökad förståelse för hur omgivande landskap påverkar plantdiversiteten på svenska slåtterängar. GIS-analyser av lokala landskap som omger 21 svenska slåtterängar har utförts. Nedslag vid två tidpunkter har gjorts; år 1950 och 2015. Genom digitalisering av kartor från 1950-talet har arean av marktyper kunnat beräknas och sedan jämföras med dagens markanvändning och artdata i samma områden. Resultaten visar att den totala skogsarealen har ökat med 12% sedan 1950-talet och det finns negativa samband mellan både den historiska och den nutida skogsarealen och artrikedomen på ängarna. Arean av åkermark har minskat med 19% i de undersökta områdena, men inga samband med artrikedomen kunde finnas. Däremot visade det sig att den före detta åkermark som fanns på 1950-talet påverkar dagens artrikedomen negativ, både som ensam oberoende variabel och tillsammans med öppen mark. Öppen mark har minskat med mellan 17% och 24%, men inga samband mellan denna landskapskategori och plantdiversiteten fanns. De sammanställda resultaten indikerar att den historiska markanvändningen på lokal skala har större påverkan på dagens plantdiversitet än den nutida markanvändningen. Detta bör tas i beaktande vid utformande av bevarandestrategier och vid fysisk planering.

The history of climatic changes in the Asian Summer Monsoon system over the Tibetan Plateau during the Holocene has been the subject of significant research due to the importance of the plateau as the headwaters for many major rivers providing water resources to the surrounding large, populous countries. In general, previous research has concluded that monsoon rainfall and summer temperatures peaked during the early Holocene (9-11 ka BP) in Tibet, coincident with peak Northern Hemisphere summer insolation. Atmospheric teleconnections with upstream Northern Hemisphere westerly circulation patterns influenced by North Atlantic sea surface temperature changes have also been noted at millennial and centennial timescales. However, recent studies have noted that the timing of peak monsoon warmth and wetness during the Holocene are not synchronous across the entirety of the Tibetan Plateau, and studies of modern precipitation indicate several distinct regions of monsoon precipitation variability at interannual scales, suggesting the monsoon response to past and future climate change may be regionally heterogeneous for the plateau. Clear assessment of this regionality within the monsoon climate region is a topic of continuing research, but it has been hindered by lack of climate records in remote areas, dating difficulties, and concerns over the comparability of interpreted climate-proxy relationships between the many different biological, hydrological, and geochemical proxies applied. The first part of this dissertation uses ¹⁴C and U-Th series geochronology, sedimentology, and GIS analysis of exposed lake shoreline sediments surrounding the numerous closed-basin lake systems of the central and western Tibetan Plateau to investigate regional heterogeneity in monsoon rainfall, and to develop a new well-dated lake level record from the Ngangla Ring Tso lake system in the poorly studied southwestern region. The major conclusions are: 1) peak early Holocene monsoon rainfall, recorded by the highest paleoshorelines surrounding 130 lake systems, intensified more relative to today in the western part (west of 86°E longitude) of the Tibetan Plateau when compared to eastern regions, closely following regions of modern rainfall variability; 2) monsoon rainfall in the Ngangla Ring Tso region peaked during the early Holocene insolation maximum, consistent with other records, remained significantly higher than modern until ~6.0 ka BP, but with abrupt reductions in monsoon rainfall associated with North Atlantic ice-rafted debris peaks. The warm and wet period of the early and middle Holocene was also likely coincident with the first major colonization of the Tibetan Plateau by prehistoric humans. Current research suggests early foragers employing stone tools first forayed into the middle elevation areas above 3,000 m elevation on the northeastern fringe of the plateau as early as 14.8 ka BP, and therefore the dominant hypothesis suggests plateau colonization proceeded from this direction, heading westward through the Holocene. However, well studied and dated archaeological sites from the high plateau are exceedingly rare, requiring further investigation. The second part of this dissertation presents new age controls for the Holocene Zhongba microlithic site in the southwestern Tibetan Plateau, using ¹⁴C dating of organic and carbonate-rich paleo-wetlands sediments hosting in situ stone artifacts. The major conclusions of this study are: 1) artifacts at the Zhongba site, which are typologically similar to microlithics across the plateau, can be no older than 6.5 ka BP, consistent with the prevailing east-to-west colonization hypothesis, and 2) microlithic tools continued to be important as late as 1.3 ka BP at the site, even though metal is found in sites of similar age elsewhere in Tibet.

Isolating the climatic mechanisms driving Holocene geomorphic change and deciphering the role of landscape change in prehistoric cultural processes both require well-dated and relatively continuous alluvial chronologies. This study presents a centennial-scale, latest Pleistocene and Holocene chronology based on alluvial fan, floodplain, groundwater-discharge, and volcanic deposits for the Carrizo Wash watershed, a Little Colorado River headwater drainage on the southeastern Colorado Plateau. More than 200 radiocarbon dates provide chronometric control. The age of Zuni Salt Lake volcanic eruptions was re-evaluated using radiocarbon and luminescence dating. Two eruptive phases ~13.3 ka and ~11.8 ka suggest closely spaced, monogenetic events. These terminal Pleistocene ages for the eruptions are significantly younger and substantially more precise than previous argon method ages. Sediment exposed in modern arroyos is dominated by middle Holocene (~7.1–4.9 ka) alluvium in valley contexts, whereas piedmont alluvium dates primarily to the late Holocene (~4.3–2.7 ka). Extensive prehistoric channel entrenchment occurred ~4.9 and 0.8 ka. Localized incision occurred ~1.9 and 1.2 ka, and possibly ~7.5 and 2.7 ka. Extended drought typically preceded arroyo cutting, and entrenchment was associated with increased climate variability, major shifts in precipitation amount or seasonality, and reduced flooding. Accelerated valley and piedmont aggradation appears related to increased flooding and runoff associated with reduced vegetation cover during periods of low effective moisture resulting from enhanced North American Monsoon circulation and weak ENSO conditions. Conversely, slow or stalled deposition appears connected to reduced flooding and runoff fostered by denser vegetation during times of increased effective moisture caused by enhanced El Niños and increased winter precipitation. Ground-water discharge deposits at Cienega Amarilla indicate that spring discharge was greatest and water tables most elevated ~2.3–1.6 ka. Spring discharge appears to reflect variations in El Niño frequency and intensity and the resultant variations in winter precipitation. Study results suggest that predicted increased drought and enhanced or delayed monsoons associated with modern climate change could initiate accelerated erosion of upland areas and increased flooding in southern Colorado Plateau headwater tributaries. Archaeological implications include temporal biases associated with surface site distributions and changing viability of floodwater and water-table farming over time.

Zircon (U-Th)/He (zircon He) dating has become a widely used thermochronologic method in the geosciences. Practitioners have traditionally interpreted (U-Th)/He dates from zircons across a broad spectrum of chemical compositions with a single set of ⁴He diffusion kinetics derived from only a handful of crystals (Reiners et al., 2004). However, it has become increasingly clear that a "one-size-fits-all" approach to these kinetics is inadequate, leading to erroneous conclusions and incongruent data. This dissertation develops a more grain-specific approach by showing the fundamental role that intracrystalline radiation damage plays in determining the He diffusivity in a given zircon. I present three appendices that seek to quantify the radiation damage effect on He diffusion in zircon, explain how this effect manifests in zircon He dates, and show how to exploit such manifestations to better constrain sample thermal histories. Of particular importance, this dissertation represents the first comprehensive study to concentrate on the entire damage spectrum found in natural zircon and also the first to show that two different mechanisms affect He diffusion in zircon in different ways across this spectrum. In the first appendix, I and my fellow co-authors describe results from a series of step-heating experiments that show how the alpha dose of a given zircon, which we interpret to be correlated with accumulated radiation damage, influences its He diffusivity. From 1.2 × 10¹⁶ α/g to 1.4 × 10¹⁸ α/g, He diffusivity at a given temperature decreases by three orders of magnitude, but as alpha dose increases from ~2 × 10¹⁸ α/g to 8.2 × 10¹⁸ α/g, He diffusivity then increases by about nine orders of magnitude. We parameterize both the initial decrease and eventual increase in diffusivity with alpha dose with a function that describes these changes in terms of increasing abundance and size of intracrystalline radiation damage zones and resulting effects on the tortuosity of He migration pathways and dual-domain behavior. This is combined with another equation that describes damage annealing in zircon. The end result is a new model that constrains the coevolution of damage, He diffusivity, and He date in zircon as a function of its actinide content and thermal history. The second and third appendices use this new model to decipher zircon He datasets comprising many single grain dates that are correlated with effective uranium (eU, a proxy for the relative degree of radiation damage among grains from the same sample). The model is critical for proper interpretation of results from igneous settings that show date-eU correlations and were once considered spurious (appendix B). When applied to partially reset sedimentary rocks, other sources of date variability, such as damage and He inheritance, have to be considered as well (appendix C).

In the past few decades, wildfires have increased in size and severity in the Southwest and across the western US. These recent trends in fire behavior are a drastic change in arid, ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests of the Southwest compared with tree-ring records of fire history for the past ~ 400 years. This study presents a late Holocene record (~ 3,000 years) of fire history and related changes in fire regimes with climate variability over annual to multi-decadal time scales. Tree-ring and alluvial-sediment sampling sites were paired in four small, tributary basins located in the western San Juan Mountains of Colorado. In our study sites, tree-ring records show that fire return intervals were longer and fire behavior was more severe on the north-facing slopes with relatively dense mixed conifer stands. Increased fire barriers and steep topography decreased the fire frequency and extent relative to gentle terrain elsewhere in the range and leading to a lack of synchrony among fire years in different parts of the study area. The alluvial-sediment record showed four peaks in high-severity fire activity over the past 3,000 years ranging between 200 - 400 years in length. The timing of peaks coincided with decadal-length drought episodes and were often preceded by multiple decades of above average winter precipitation. The sampling of alluvial-sediment and tree-ring data allowed for site-level comparisons between recent alluvial deposits and specific fire years interpreted from the tree-ring records. We found good correspondence between the type of fire-related sediment deposit (i.e. geomorphic response) in the alluvial record and the extent of mixed and high-severity fire estimated from the tree-ring record, and the correspondence was well-supported by the debris flow probability model results. The two paleofire data tend to represent particular components of the historical fire regime, with alluvial-sediments biased towards infrequent, high-severity events during recent millennia, and the tree-ring record biased toward lower severity fires during recent centuries. The combined analyses of different paleofire proxy types in the same study sites, therefore, can enhance and expand our understanding of fire and climate history beyond what is possible with either proxy alone.

The Guinea Plateau is a shallow-marine, flat-lying bathymetric province situated along the equatorial West African margin, offshore Republic of Guinea. The Guinea Plateau and the conjugate Demerara Plateau hold particular geologic significance, as they represent the final point of separation between the African and South American continents during Gondwana break-up. Recent interpretation of both 2-D and 3-D seismic surveys along the Guinean margin have illuminated subsurface features related to Early Cretaceous crustal extension. Seismic structural investigations on these datasets suggest that the majority of extension is accommodated along large-scale listric normal faults located on a relatively narrow (<50 km) continental slope (up to ~39% extension). Minimal faulting reveals that little upper-crustal extension has occurred on the Guinea Plateau. Additionally, multiple 2-D seismic profiles image the transition from continental crust on the plateau and slope, to oceanic crust in the deeper marine basin. This continent-ocean boundary is the most representative boundary when testing the accuracy of plate reconstructions. Mapping of both the continent-ocean boundary and fracture zones across the equatorial Atlantic suggests that the Demerara Plateau and the South American plate are too far south in previous pre-rift reconstructions. A revised model introduces 20 km of Early Cretaceous NNW-oriented contraction across the Amazon Basin; an area of relative weakness where both geologic and geophysical data support such accommodation. Sea-surface flow models, which used this revised reconstruction and interpreted paleo-bathymetric data, predict upwelling throughout the newly formed equatorial seaway, and later along the West African margin during periods of regional organic-rich black shale deposition. With reduced decomposition of organic matter strongly correlated to upwelling, being able to predict these zones is of particular significance to petroleum companies, who have recently started exploring both the equatorial South American and West African coastlines.