A dearth of reliably-dated paleolake records from the southern Basin and Range has limited knowledge of past water balance changes there, precluding a more complete understanding of late Pleistocene atmospheric circulation across western North America. Paleoshorelines in closed basins throughout the region can provide accurately dated records of local effective moisture variations, representing a largely untapped source of paleohydrologic information. This dissertation presents paleohydrologic reconstructions from depositional successions in two basins at 32°N, approximately 100 km apart: Willcox basin, in southeastern Arizona, and Playas Valley, in southwestern New Mexico. Also presented are the results of ¹⁴C dating of charcoal samples from the El Fin del Mundo Clovis archaeological site, in northwestern Sonora, Mexico. In depth analysis of these results allowed constraint of the "small sample effect" on the charcoal ages, found to be smaller than 1σ of analytical uncertainty. The magnitude of the problem in ages from miniscule shell samples in the Willcox and Playas chronologies was found to be similar. The successions record moist pluvial conditions from ~20-13 ka in Playas, and>37-11 ka in Willcox, with most dates younger than 19 ka--before which there is no solid evidence for lake transgressions. There is clear evidence for overlapping highstands between ~18.3 and 17.9 ka and a brief highstand of Cochise at ~12.9 ka, coinciding with Heinrich events H1b and H0, respectively. Temporal concordance between wet periods and perturbations in the North Atlantic ocean and/or southern Laurentide ice sheet supports the idea that abrupt paleoclimatic changes in the southwestern U.S. occurred in response to large-scale atmospheric linkages to the northern high latitudes. The H1b highstands fill a hiatus in ¹⁴C dates compiled from paleoshorelines throughout the western U.S., and correspond to the first part of a lowstand in paleo-Lake Estancia (35°N), in north-central New Mexico. Anti-phasing within New Mexico suggests that the newly documented highstands resulted from an increase in southerly-sourced precipitation. This is consistent with paleoenvironmental evidence from southern Arizona and New Mexico that points toward periodic intensification of the summer monsoon during the late Pleistocene.

This study quantifies spatial and temporal patterns in snow water equivalent (SWE), chemistry, and water isotopes associated with snowpack shading due to aspect and vegetation in the Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico. Depth, density, stratigraphy, temperature, and snow chemistry, isotope, and biogeochemical nutrient samples were collected and analyzed from five snowpit locations on approximate monthly intervals between January-April 2007. SWE showed little variability between sites in January (~10mm) but differences expanded to 84mm (30%) by max accumulation in open sites and 153mm (45%) between all sites. Sulfate varied by 22% (10.6-13.5 microeq/L), Cl- by 35% (17.4-26.9 microeq/L), and d18O by 17% (-16.3 to -13.5), with SWE exhibiting inverse correlations with d18O (r2=0.96), SO42- (r2=0.75), and Cl- (r2=0.60) at max accumulation. Regression relationships suggest variability in SWE and solutes/water isotopes are primarily driven by sublimation. Mass balance techniques estimate sublimation ranges from 1-16% between topographically- and non-shaded open sites.

This study uses multiple isotopic (2H, 18O, 13C, 15NNO3, 18ONO3, 87Sr/86Sr) and age tracers (3H, 14C, CFCs), in conjunction with elemental chemistry, to address the following research question: How have present day anthropogenic activities (i.e. surface water irrigation and fertilizer application) and past climatic events (i.e. cataclysmic flooding from glacial Lake Missoula and other modes of discharge from Cordilleran Ice Sheet) impacted the hydrology and geochemistry of the Columbia River Basalt Aquifers (CRBAs) in central Washington? Large-scale irrigated agriculture over the past ~60 years has resulted in the transport of high NO3- irrigation waters moving downward in the oxic CRBAs at rates of several meters per decade with a lack of denitrification. Deeper pristine regional groundwater in the CRBAs is Late Pleistocene in age and likely remnant Cordilleran Ice Sheet-related recharge waters (i.e. glacial Lake Missoula floodwaters).

This study is the geochemical examination of mineral weathering and its path from hinterland, through sediment deposition and pedogenesis, to its dissolution and eventual uptake into plants or precipitation as carbonate minerals. The three papers examine the rate and character of carbonate and silicate mineral weathering over a wide range of climatic and tectonic regimes, time periods, and lithologies, and focus on very different questions. Examination of the 87Sr/86Sr ratios of architectural ponderosa pine in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico confirms a societally complex style of timber procurement from the 10th to the 12th centuries. In El Malpais National Monument, New Mexico, we measured the 87Sr/86Sr ratios in local bedrock and soils and compared them to the leaf/wood cellulose of four conifers (Pinus ponderosa, Pinus edulis, Juniperus monosperma, Juniperus scopulorum), a deciduous tree (Populus tremuloides), three shrubs (Chrysothamus nauseosus, Fallugia paradoxa, Rhus trilobata), and an annual grass (Bouteloua gracilis) and a lichen (Xanthoparmelia lineola). We found that plant 87Sr/86Sr ratios covaried with variations in plant physiognomy, life history, and rooting depth. In addition, the proportion of atmospheric dust and bedrock mineral contributions to soil water 87Sr/86Sr ratios varied predictably with landscape age and bedrock lithology. On the Himalayan floodplain, soils and paleosol silicate weathering intensities were measured along a climatic transect and through time. Overall, carbonate weathering dominates floodplain weathering. But, periods of more intense silicate weathering between 9 - 2 Ma, identified in soil profile and in the 87Sr/86Sr ratios of pedogenic carbonates, appear to be driven by changes in tectonic, rather than climatic, regime. All three papers are good examples of how 87Sr/86Sr isotopic tracer studies can shed light on pedogenic formation rates and internal processes. The complexity of each system warns against generalizations based on just one locale, one species or lithology, or a few isotopic ratios.

The main objective of this dissertation is to improve the knowledge of glacial chronology and paleoclimate of Turkey during the Late Quaternary. The 36Cl cosmogenic exposure ages of moraines show that Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) glaciers were the most extensive ones in Turkey in the last 22 ka (ka=thousands years), and they were closely correlated with the global LGM chron (between 19±23 ka). LGM glaciers started retreating 21.3±0.9 ka (1σ) ago on Mount Erciyes, central Turkey, and 20.4±1.3 ka ago on Mount Sandiras, southwest Turkey. Glaciers readvanced and retreated by 14.6±1.2 ka ago (Late Glacial) on Mount Erciyes and 16.2±0.5 ka ago on Mount Sandiras. Large Early Holocene glaciers were active in Aladaglar, south-central Turkey, where they culminated at 10.2±0.2 ka and retreated by 8.6±0.3 ka, and on Mount Erciyes, where they retreated by 9.3±0.5 ka. The latest glacial advance took place 3.8±0.4 ka ago on Mount Erciyes. Using glacier modeling together with paleoclimate proxy data from the region, I reconstructed the paleoclimate at these four discrete times. The results show that LGM climate was 8-11oC colder than today (obtained from paleotemperature proxies) and wetter (up to 2 times) on the southwestern mountains, drier (by ~60%) on the northeastern ones and approximately the same as today in the interior regions. The intense LGM precipitation over the mountains along the northern Mediterranean coast was produced by unstable atmospheric conditions due to the anomalously steep vertical temperature gradients on the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. In contrast, drier conditions along the southern Black Sea coast were produced by the partially ceased moisture take-up from the cold or frozen Black Sea and prevailing periglacial conditions due to the cold air carried from northern hemisphere's ice sheets. Relatively warmer and moister air from the south and overlying cold and dry air pooled over the northern and interior uplands created a boundary between the wet and dry LGM climates somewhere on the Anatolian Plateau. The analysis of Late Glacial advances suggests that the climate was colder by 4.5-6.4oC based on up to 1.5 times wetter conditions. The Early Holocene was 2.1oC to 4.9oC colder on Mount Erciyes and up to 9oC colder on Aladaglar, based on twice as wet as today's conditions. The Late Holocene was 2.4-3oC colder than today and the precipitation amounts approached the modern levels. Glaciers present on Turkish mountains today are retreating at accelerating rates and historical observations of the retreat are consistent with the behavior of other glaciers around the world.

Precipitation, more than any other environmental factor, controls patterns of ecosystem production and biogeochemical cycling in arid and semiarid environments. Growing-season rains in these regions are highly unpredictable as they come in intermittent pulses varying in size, frequency and spatial extent, thereby producing unique hydrological patterns that constrain the location and residence time of soil water available for biological activity. In order to understand how arid and semiarid ecosystems respond to inputs of precipitation within the context of ecosystem science and global change studies, knowledge is needed on how plants and other organisms respond as an integrated system to such environmental control. The focus of my research was to understand how the distribution of precipitation events influences the dynamics of carbon cycling in semiarid ecosystems. At a semiarid riparian woodland, measurements of CO2 exchange and evapotranspiration revealed that following precipitation events occurring soon after prolonged dry periods the efficiency of rain-use (amount of carbon gain per unit of precipitation over a specific period time) was low. Precipitation did not readily stimulate primary productivity, water was mainly lost as soil evaporation and large respiratory CO2 effluxes were observed. This commonly observed features in seasonally dry ecosystems might have profound consequences for the seasonal and annual carbon balance. In this woodland, 47% of the precipitation within a single growing season (May-October) was returned to atmosphere as soil evaporation and the CO2 efflux observed just during the first rainy month (July) was equivalent to almost 50% of the net carbon gain observed over the six-month growing season. Results from experimental irrigations in understory plots of riparian mesquite woodland revealed that the magnitude and duration of the large CO2 fluxes occurring soon after rainfall was higher in plots located under tree canopies where, relative to intercanopy plots, the amount of plant litter was higher, soil evaporation and plant photosynthetic rates were lower. Efficiency of rain-use in semiarid ecosystems during the growing season apparently was determined by the degree of coupling between gross photosynthesis and ecosystem respiration, by the fraction of precipitation lost as soil evaporation and by the water-use efficiency of the component vegetation.

The Saint-Urbain and Big Island rutile-bearing ilmenite Fe-Ti oxide deposits are located in the composite 450 km² Saint-Urbain anorthosite (1055-1046 Ma, U-Pb zircon) and in the Lac Allard intrusion (1057-1062 Ma, U-Pb zircon) of the 11,000 km² Havre-Saint Pierre anorthosite suite, respectively, in the Grenville Province of Eastern Canada. Slow cooling rates of 3-4°C/m.y. are estimated for both anorthosites, based on combined U-Pb zircon/rutile/apatite and ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹ Ar biotite/plagioclase geochronology, and resulted from emplacement during the active Ottawan Orogeny. Slow cooling facilitated (1) diffusion of Zr from ilmenite and rutile, producing thin (10-100 microns) zircon rims on these minerals, and (2) formation of sapphirine via sub-so lidus reactions of the type: spinel + orthopyroxene + rutile ± corundum → sapphirine + ilmenite. New chemical and analytical methods were developed to determine the trace element concentrations and Hf isotopic compositions of Ti-based oxides. Rutile is a magmatic phase in the deposits with minimum crystallization temperatures of 781°C to 1016°C, calculated by Zr-in rutile thermometry. Ilmenite present in rutile-free samples has higher Xhem (hematite proportion in ilmenite), higher high field strength element concentrations (Xhem = 30-17; Nb = 16.1-30.5 ppm; Ta 1.28-1.70 ppm), and crystallized at higher temperatures than ilmenite with more fractionated compositions (Xhem = 21-11; Nb = 1.36-3.11 ppm; Ta = <0.18 ppm) from rutile-bearing rocks. The oxide deposits formed by density segregation and accumulation at the bottom of magma reservoirs, in conditions closed to oxygen, from magmas enriched in Fe and Ti. The initial ¹⁷⁶Hf/¹⁷⁷ Hf of rutile and ilmenite (Saint Urbain [SU] = 0.28219-0.28227, Big Island [BI] = 0.28218-0.28222), and the initial Pb isotopic ratios (e.g.²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴ Pb: SU = 17.134-17.164, BI = 17.012-17.036) and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶ Sr (SU = 0.70399-0.70532, BI = 0.70412-0.70427) of plagioclase from the deposits overlap with the initial isotopic ratios of ilmenite and plagioclase from each host anorthosite, which indicates that they have common parent magmas and sources. The parent magmas were derived from a relatively depleted mantle reservoir that appears to be the primary source of all Grenvillian anorthosite massifs and existed for --600 m.y. along the margin of Laurentia during the Proterozoic.

Afforestation and reforestation programs utilizing available fields for biofuel production, carbon sequestration, and other uses linked to climate change are looking to tree physiologists to identify species and genotypes best-suited to their purposes. The ideal poplar genotype for use in Canadian programs would be drought-resistant, cold-climate adapted, and fast-growing, thus requiring an understanding of links between a variety of physiological traits linked to growth and productivity. This study examined the basis for variations in water-use efficiency within four selected populations of Populus trichocarpa and Populus balsamifera (2 provenances each). Each species included both a northern and a southern provenance. Correlations between water-use efficiency, nitrogen-use efficiency, ¹³C/¹²C isotope ratio, stomatal conductance, and overall productivity were evaluated. Gas exchange variables measured included net photosynthesis, transpiration rate, stomatal conductance, and intercellular CO₂ content. Water-use efficiency and ¹³C content across all genotypes were highly correlated. Results suggested that variation in water-use efficiency was primarily related to variation in stomatal conductance across all genotypes. Whereas differences in net photosynthesis in this study were not significant between species, P. balsamifera did reveal a higher average stem volume overall. Although variation in stomatal conductance was the major determinant of differences in water-use efficiency, positive correlations were found between ¹³C isotope abundance and net photosynthesis in both P. balsamifera provenances. In this regard, results for the northern P. balsamifera provenance are the most consistent across all gas-exchange and growth trait correlations, in terms of meeting expectations for sink-driven water-use efficiency. The findings in this study suggest the possibility of identifying poplar genotypes with an absence of trade-off between water-use efficiency and nitrogen-use efficiency, notably among genotypes from the northern P. balsamifera provenance, near Gillam.

The Mt. Milligan deposit is a tilted (~45°) Cu-Au alkalic porphyry located 155 km northwest of Prince George, B.C., Canada. It is the youngest of the BC alkalic porphyry deposits, all of which formed between 210 to 180 Ma in an extensive belt of K-enriched rocks related to the accretion of the Quesnellia-Stikinia superterrane to ancestral North America. Mt. Milligan has a measured and indicated resource of 205.9 million tonnes at 0.60 g/t Au and 0.25% Cu containing 3.7 million oz. gold, and 1.12 billion lb. copper. Shoshonitic volcanic and volcaniclastic andesites host mineralization. These have been intruded by a composite monzonitic stock (MBX stock), and associated sill (Rainbow Dike). Early disseminated chalcopyrite-magnetite and accessory quartz veins are associated with K-feldspar alteration in the MBX stock. A halo of biotite alteration with less extensive magnetite replaces host rocks within a ~150 m zone surrounding the stock, while K-feldpsar alteration extends along the Rainbow Dike and permeable epiclastic horizons. Peripheral albite-actinolite-epidote assemblages surround the K-silicate zone. Albite-actinolite occurs at depth, and epidote dominates laterally. Copper and Au grade are maximal where the albite-actinolite assemblage overprints biotite alteration. Gold grade is moderate in association with epidote, whereas Cu is depleted. The post-mineral Rainbow Fault separates the core Cu-rich zone from a downthrown Au-rich zone. A similar zonation of metals occurs in the hanging-wall (66 zone), where a Cu-bearing, potassically-altered trachytic horizon transitions to a funnel-shaped zone of pyrite-dolomite-sericite-chlorite alteration with elevated gold. Sulfide S-isotope compositions range from -4.79 δ34S in the central Cu-Au orebody to near-zero values at the system periphery, typical of alkalic porphyries. Sulfur isotope contours reflect the magmatic-hydrothermal fluid evolution, and indicate late-stage ingress of peripheral fluids into the Cu-Au zone. Carbonate C- and O-isotope compositions corroborate the magmatic fluid path from the Cu-Au rich zone to Au-rich zone with decreasing depth. Strontium isotopic compositions of peripheral alteration minerals indicate a laterally increasing meteoric fluid component. Changes in major- and trace element composition of epidote and pyrite across the deposit are also systematic. These provide additional vectors to ore, and confirm the kinematics of the Rainbow Fault.

Chlorine stable isotope analysis (?37Cl ) means of stream water (- 0.95 ‰, n = 22), rainwater (- 1.51 ‰, n = 12), fog water (- 1.08 ‰, n = 7) and silicate mineral bound chloride (+ 0.13 ‰, n = 3) are used in an isotope mass balance approach to estimate sources of stream chloride. During summer-baseflow conditions, the chloride budget of two catchments in southwestern Nova Scotia is approximately 39 % from rainfall, 37 % from fog water and 24 % from rock/water interactions. The results of a significant source of geological chloride suggest the use of chloride in stream water as a proxy for marine derived sulphate may not be valid. This conclusion implies that anthropogenic sources of sulphate to acid sensitive ecosystems of southwestern Nova Scotia have been underestimated when chloride is assumed to be a conservative ion in the hydrological cycle.