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Thesis advisor: Gail Kineke / Thesis advisor: Noah Snyder / Salt marshes are some of the world’s richest ecosystems and provide a plethora of benefits to coastlines and bays in terms of storm protection and chemistry. To ensure salt marsh survival under increasing rates of sea level rise, management practices have been trending towards natural sustainability measures to increase marsh resilience. To benefit these efforts, it is necessary to understand how natural salt marshes respond to environmental change in terms of sediment deposition and evolution of vegetation and open water. This study uses aerial image digitization to understand how Nauset Marsh in Cape Cod MA, a protected salt marsh on Cape Cod National Seashore, has responded to sea level rise and half a century of inlet migration. Digitized images from 1974-2019 were used to track changes to vegetation extent and open water features during study periods of different inlet migration stages. Observed changes were used to ascertain trends of marsh loss or adaptation based on previous research on ponding cycles and vegetation extent. Results indicate that Nauset Marsh has been relatively stable over the last half century, with the most significant change observed in Vegetated Marsh loss of 6.71% ± 3.19 primarily due to edge erosion near the present-day inlet. Despite net feature stability, significant differences in feature evolution trends were observed during different stages of inlet migration. Most notably, inlet breaching and migration correlated with dynamic feature changes throughout the marsh, while the static inlet period correlated with expansion of open water features near the inlet location. The evolution of Nauset Marsh suggests that inlet migration improves marsh resilience through periodic increases in sediment deposition in a natural salt marsh with sufficient sediment supply. / Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Kennecott copper mine is one of the largest producers of pollution in the United States: it has contaminated over 72 square miles in the Salt Lake Valley. In 1998 alone, Kennecott, which is located only 25 miles southwest of downtown Salt Lake City, released 439 million pounds of toxic material into the Salt Lake Valley. Kennecott was proposed as a Superfund site by the EPA in 1994. Today it is the largest manmade excavation in the world. When mining operations began in 1863 at what is now Kennecott, Salt Lake City was a small city of just over 8,000 (Census, 1860). In recent years, the city has expanded toward Kennecott, so that once distant hazards are now literally in Salt Lake City’s residents’ backyards. According to the basic patterns commonly identified in the academic literatures on environmental justice and urban growth, as the Salt Lake City metropolitan area grows towards Kennecott the assumptions would be (1) Kennecott’s mining activities would be severely hindered by the influence of the EPA or would be forced to close due to the proximity of residents. (2) Those living/moving nearest to the area would most likely be low income people with no other options. (3) Arousal of community opposition to Kennecott as residents continue to move closer, which in this paper is referred to as “reverse” NIMBYism. However, none of the assumptions are the case. Why is it that Kennecott continues to function at full capacity without direct influence by the EPA and those residents encroaching upon it are not of low income and are not in opposition? This study of social, urban and historical geography will address these questions by exploring the spatial, economic and political history of Kennecott, Salt Lake City and the EPA, with a focus on the recent and ongoing development of 20,000 new homes in the area called Daybreak. The analysis will draw on analytical and theoretical approaches common to geographical analyses of urban growth and sprawl, environmental perception and environmental justice in relation to the nexus of spatial, economic and political circumstances which have led to the development of a new housing area on previously polluted land.

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Under Gause's principle two species cannot indefinitely occupy the same niche. The north and south arms of Great Salt Lake are separated by a rail causeway, resulting in salinity differences and color variation between the arms. Farmington Bay is also separated from the south arm by a vehicular causeway to Antelope Island. These causeways allow examination of competitive exclusion of cyanobacteria in the hypersaline environment of the Great Salt Lake. Cyanobacterial distributions partially map salinity, with Aphanothece halophytica proliferating in the north arm, and Nodularia spumigena in the south arm. I hypothesized that cyanobacterial species abundant north of the railway causeway are competitively excluded from the south by other species, and that cyanobacterial species that thrive and bloom south of the Antelope Island causeway cannot grow in the high salinity of the north. To test these hypotheses, 129 flasks of autoclaved water from the north and south sides of each causeway were inoculated with Great Salt Lake water samples from the north and south sides of the causeways. Four genera of cyanobacteria, Aphanothece, Oscillatoria, Phormidium, and Nodularia were identified and counted from the culture flasks using comparative differential interference contrast, fluorescence, and scanning electron microscopy. Counts of the cyanobacteria found in each flask were totaled and two way Analysis of Variance tests as well as exact tests were performed. Rankings of median abundances were also calculated. These data support the first hypothesis because Aphanothece halophytica was found in all inocula, but appears to be suppressed by the presence of Nodularia spumigena, which periodically blooms. The second hypothesis is also supported by the data because N. spumigena was found only in inocula from the less saline waters south of Antelope Island causeway, and apparently cannot survive the high saline waters north of the railway causeway.

Ooids of Great Salt Lake, Utah (GSL) have been studied periodically by geologists since the 1960's. These studies have documented the locations of ooid deposits, bulk composition, mineralogy, and internal structural variations of GSL ooids. Ooids have also been identified in sediment cores from lakes predating the Great Salt Lake, but similar descriptions have not been made for these ooids. Samples of ooids from cores in Pilot Valley, UT/NV and Knolls, UT have been obtained, along with samples from the Great Salt Lake at Bridger Bay and Rozel Point. The cortical fabrics and crystal morphologies of these ooids were studied in thin section and under scanning electron microscopy. Examples of cortex morphologies previously documented in GSL ooids were observed, to some degree, in ooids from Pilot Valley and Knolls. Knolls ooids had unique cortical layers that were resistive to acid and appeared to be dominantly comprised of clays. Bulk dissolution ages were obtained for ooids from each location. Ooids form both Pilot Valley and Knolls had average ages that pre-date Lake Bonneville, whereas GSL ooids from Bridger Bay had an average age of roughly 3,500 years before present (yr BP) and Rozel Point ooids had an average age of 500 yr BP. Along with a bulk age, ooids from Bridger Bay at the Great Salt Lake were subjected to serial dissolutions during which a split of gas was taken from each stage and an age was obtained. Ages spanned 7,000 years with the final dissolution stage delivering an average age of 9,000 yr BP. Based on this data it is likely that GSL ooids at Bridger Bay have been forming since the cessation of Lake Bonneville and that many of the nuclei in Bridger Bay ooids are remnant peloids from the Gilbert level of Lake Bonneville.

Utah salt makers have extracted salt from three sources, the principal of these being brine from Great Salt Lake. Other sources are saline beds in Great Salt Lake Desert and subterranean halite formations in central Utah.This study traces the development of methods used to recover and refine salt by the industry, in general, and by specific companies. It provides brief, historical sketches of the major corporations and the economic, legal, and environmental factors affecting their growth.Utah produces about 1 per cent of the nation's salt, exporting over half of it from the state. The major factors limiting the growth of the local industry are the lack of population and industrial development in Utah's market area. Transportation rates for a product with low intrinsic value but high in weight determine this area.

The purpose of this study was two fold: (1) to determine if there was a significant difference in attitude toward the church and certain of its teachings and practices between those who were pressured into taking seminary and those who enrolled because they wanted to and (2) to compare the change in attitude of the students who were pressured into seminary with the change in attitude of the students who were not pressured into seminary after completing their first year.