Abstract
Current methods employed in the textile industry are unsustainable because they use an abundance of water in the dying process, and discharge the waste into the environment, causing adverse health effect on aquatic life and local communities. The technology that is in place to remove dye from textile effluents...
Methane derived authigenic carbonate (MDAC) precipitation occurs within marine sediments as a byproduct of the microbial anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM). While these carbonates form in chemical and isotopic equilibrium with the fluids from which they precipitate, burial diagenesis and recrystallization can overprint these signals. Plane polarized light (PPL) and...
The marine environment is under increasing pressure from human activities worldwide, particularly in coastal waters, creating a need to better understand fine-scale distributions of highly mobile species that occur in the area, as they are frequently most threatened. Harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) occur frequently in Oregon’s nearshore habitat, but due...
Anthropogenic activities have posed many threats to the oceans and marine life. Understanding how individuals are affected and physiologically respond to these threats is crucial and allows for management and conservation applications. I evaluated the overall health condition of a subpopulation of gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) along the Oregon coast,...
The rare earth elements (REEs) have been established as powerful tracers for a range of physiochemical processes occurring in the natural environment. They also hold significant economic importance as many technological advancements are reliant upon the REEs for their unique magnetic, luminescent, and electrochemical characteristics. In sedimentary settings, understanding the...
Species conservation depends on robust population assessment. Data on population abundance, distribution, and connectivity are critical for effective management, especially as baseline information for newly documented populations. I describe a pygmy blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda) population in New Zealand waters with year-round presence that overlaps with industrial activities. This...
The distribution of mobile marine predators often reflects underlying dynamic ecological processes. The geographical focus of this PhD is the South Taranaki Bight (STB) of New Zealand, where wind-driven coastal upwelling generates productivity and prey to support a blue whale foraging ground. The STB is also New Zealand’s most industrial...
Quantifying the mass transport through marine sediments, and the geochemical response to such flow with numerical models has become a common and powerful approach for geochemical data interpretation. In this dissertation, I developed and applied transport-reaction models to unravel complex and interdependent reactions involving carbon, sulfur and silica transformations in...
This thesis examines notions of social unintelligibility produced within queer spaces in two primary texts: Justin Torres' We the Animals and Mario Bellatín's Beauty Salon. Chapter One discusses the racial and queer marginalization of the unnamed narrator and explores his turn towards an "animal language" in his moment of exposure...