Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 92 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-75).

Revised; Originally Published: 2002 / 6 pp.

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A thermal model is developed to find the distribution of stable near-surface ground ice on Mars that is in diffusive contact with the atmosphere for past and present epochs. Variations in the orbit of Mars are able to drive climate changes that affect both surface temperatures and atmospheric water content so the distribution of ground ice will vary significantly in past epochs. A technique is developed to correct the average water vapor density above the surface for depletion due to diurnal frost formation. Also presented is a simple model to estimate the atmospheric water content, based on the water vapor carrying capacity of the atmosphere over water ice on the martian surface.Maps of the distribution of ground ice are generated for the present epoch of Mars with varying amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere. The water vapor depletion scheme restricts the extent of stable ground ice as more water is put into the atmosphere so that ice never becomes stable at low latitudes. As the position of the perihelion varies, the extent of ground ice changes several degrees in the latitudinal extent, primarily in the northern hemisphere. The extent of ground ice is sensitive to the obliquity of Mars, however high obliquities are still not able to make ground ice stable at low latitudes. Finding ice is never stable at low latitudes is consistent with the lack of terrain softening at low latitudes and models that indicate Mars had high obliquities for much of its history.Also presented is the first L-band spectrum of an irregular satellite from the outer Solar System. Spectra of Himalia were obtained with the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer onboard the Cassini spacecraft. The Himalia spectrum is essentially featureless, showing a slight red slope and a suggestion of an absorption feature at 3 microns that would indicate the presence of water. Better measurements of the spectrum of Himalia, particularly in the region of the apparent 3-micron band, could help determine whether water is present, and if so, in what form.

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This thesis focuses on exploring figure-ground within the amorphous suburban green space of Calgary, Alberta. It is an edgeless prairie city, flooded with unused space and tethered by freeways that stretch toward the infinite horizon beyond the mountains. The incessant need to own and parcel nature has created a landscape of excess where both city and nature are a blur at the edge of our distracted vision. Using expanded defi nitions of figure-ground as a design methodology, this thesis attempts to better understand this paradox and to act in its middle ground. Articulating a heterotopia between the ideal with the real, the public and the private, the natural and the artificial, this thesis explores a new imaginative space, delicately but firmly tethered to suburban ground and its elusive horizon. The results manifest in unexpected geometries on a thin strip of park between a backyard and a freeway in Calgary.

I studied free-living Richardson's ground squirrels (Spermophilus richardsonii) using telemetry and total body electrical conductivity (TOBEC) to evaluate overwinter energy utilization and the impact of seed caching on body composition of males. I excavated 51 hibernation systems and found that 66% of 35 males cached 1 to 4 species of seed in the hivernaculum. Pre-emergent euthermy was shorter for 3 non-caching (0.7 = 0.2 days) than for 13 caching males (4.0 = 2.8 days), and metabolic predictions of overwinter mass loss approximated actual loss for non-caching males, but over-estimated mass loss for caching males. I concluded that caching males recouped some of the mass lost during hibernation by eating the cache during the longer period of pre-emergence euthermy. Based on TOBEC, the recouped mass included both fat and lean tissue. I suggest that caching in one year is a cost of reproduction that offsets the energetic demands of mating the following year. / xii, 139 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm.