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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Primary Sediment Production from Granitic Rocks in Southeastern Arizona

Acaba, Joseph Michael January 1992 (has links)
Isolated granitic rock bodies (granites, granodiorites, quartz monzonites) in the vicinity of Benson in southeastern Arizona were studied to trace the behavior of rock weathering. Thin sections of fresh granites were examined to characterize the original mineralogy which consisted mainly of quartz, feldspars, and micas. The weathering products show up on the granites as grus and soil profiles as well as down slope in the basin deposits. X -ray diffraction studies of the < 2 micrometers fraction of the weathering products proved illite, smectite, illite-smectite mixed layer, and kaolinite to be the dominant clays; quartz and feldspar also persisted into this size fraction. Silt sized material produced similar results. The quartz monzonite of Texas Canyon afforded a special study of the initial weathering stages of feldspars and micas. In the < 2 micrometers fraction obtained from granitic material placed in an ultra sonic bath, the feldspars weathered to a Na-montmorillinite while biotite weathered to vermiculite.
2

Fire Frequency, Nutrient Concentrations and Distributions, and δ13C of Soil Organic Matter and Plants in Southeastern Arizona Grassland

Biggs, Thomas January 1997 (has links)
Over the past century, woody plants and shrubs have increased in abundance at the expense of grasslands in many semiarid regions. The availability and concentrations of nutrients influence the relative success of plants, but the effects of fire frequency on soil nutrients is unknown for semiarid grasslands. On the gunnery ranges of Fort Huachuca in southeastern Arizona, study sites were established to examine the effects of fire frequency on soil biogeochemistry, plant biochemistry, and δ¹³C values in soil organic matter (SOM). The sites were on homogeneous granitic alluvium where wildfire frequency history is known from 1973 to present and no cattle grazing has occurred in recent decades. Subplots represent fire frequencies of no burns, 3 fires per decade, and 5 fires per decade. The "no burn" plot has abundant C₃ Prosopis veleruina (mesquite) trees, whereas the burned plots are open C₄-dominated grasslands with scattered mesquite trees. Prosopis trees have altered SOM pools by the concentration of plant nutrients and the addition of isotopically light shrub litter. Frequent fires have altered the basic geochemistry and nutrient availabilities of the soil, and the changes appear to be significant enough to affect plant growth. Soil pH increases with burning frequency, and TOC, total nitrogen, and plant -available phosphorus show significant increases on the infrequently burned plot. Burning is advantageous for preservation or restoration of grasslands, as total living grass biomass is greater on the two burned plots. Root biomass is significantly lower on the "frequently burned" plot. Concentrations of the key nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus are reduced in plants on the burned sites compared to plants on the unburned site. Fires help re-distribute nutrients but evidence of nutrient concentrations and δ¹³C values are retained in SOM for many decades. Estimates of bulk carbon turnover rates range from 112 to 504 years. Evidence for modern C₃ shrub expansion is found in the shift of SOM δ¹³C values from values characteristic of C₄ grasses to C₃ shrubs in surface soil layers. δ¹³C(SOM) values indicate that the Holocene and Late Pleistocene were dominated by C₄ grasslands, and the pre-Late Pleistocene vegetation was a C₄-grass savanna with abundant C₃ plants.
3

Stratigraphy and Sedimentology of the Bisbee Group in the Whetstone Mountains, Pima and Cochise Counties, Southeastern Arizona

Archibald, Lawrence Eben January 1982 (has links)
The Aptian-Santonian(?) Bisbee Group in the Whetstone Mountains comprises 2375 m of clastic sedimentary rocks and limestones. The basal Glance Conglomerate unconformably overlies the Pennsylvanian-Permian Naco Group. It consists of limestone conglomerates which were deposited in proximal alluvial fan environments. The superadjacent Willow Canyon Formation contains finer grained rocks which were deposited in the distal portions of alluvial fans. The lacustrine limestones in the Apache Canyon Formation interfinger with and overlie these alluvial fan facies. The overlying Shellenberger Canyon Formation is composed mostly of terrigenous rocks derived from westerly terranes. This formation contains thick sequences of fluvio-deltaic facies as well as a thin interval of estuarine deposits which mark a northwestern extension of the marine transgression in the Bisbee -Chihuahua Embayment. The youngest formation (Upper Cretaceous?) in the Bisbee Group, the Turney Ranch Formation, consists of interbedded sandstones and marls which were deposited by fluvial and marine(?) processes.

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