The Cooperative Institute for Oceanographic Satellite Studies
(CIOSS) partners with The Science and Math Investigative Learning
Experiences (SMILE) Program to bring ocean sciences and satellite
oceanography to high school students and teachers around the
state of Oregon. This study was conducted as a formative program
assessment during the third year...
This study reports on the creation and testing of a model concept-mapping process that will aid the development and documentation of ocean science educational content of The Science and Math Investigative Learning Experiences (SMILE) Program, a pre-college science and math enrichment program based at Oregon State University. The project uses...
Many trace elements (e.g., Zn, Cd, Mo) are essential phytoplankton micronutrients, making them crucial to the marine ecosystem and ultimately the carbon cycle. Because of this association trace metals are also utilized in paleoceanographic studies (e.g., Mo, Cd). However, not much is known about what controls the cycling of these...
To assist with risk-assessment with deepwater and ultra-deepwater prospects for offshore energy extraction as well as provide a useful tool for oil spill response, a spatially-explicit model was developed for comprehensive simulations of a blowout event from the wellhead to final fate and degradation. The Blowout and Spill Occurrence Model...
Silicic volcanism in the central Oregon Cascade range has decreased in both the size and frequency of eruptions from its initiation at ~40 Ma to present. The reasons for this reduction in silicic volcanism are poorly constrained. Studies of the petrogenesis of these magmas have the potential for addressing this...
With an ever-growing urban population there is a continued interest in urban agriculture as a viable option to improve access to fresh produce and enhance food security in an increasingly urbanized world. As the primary method of urban agriculture in the United States, community gardens also provide a range of...
Aquatic and riparian systems in the western United States have been highly modified by anthropogenic impacts since Euro-American settlement. Ecological restoration is a practice that has been widely conducted around the world to mitigate the degradation of these systems. The majority of stream restoration efforts have focused on improving in-stream...
Biogeochemical mechanisms employed by key organisms, or symbiotic associations of organisms, transform the function and structure of their environment through processes recognized as ecosystem engineering. This dissertation seeks to investigate organism-ecosystem interactions that serve globally significant ecological functions in marine systems and impact how systems respond to environmental change. Using...
Despite more than two centuries of exploration, including more than six million deep wellbores with depths exceeding 40,000 feet in some parts of the world, our ability to constrain subsurface processes and properties remains limited. Characteristics of the subsurface vary and can be analyzed on a variety of spatial scales....
While water scarcity and energy demand are continuously increasing in the world, alternative sources are needed to meet the requirement of a growing population. Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) is a sustainable technology that converts organic matter in wastewater into electricity, thus it can be a potential alternative source for water...
The overall purpose of this research is to assess the Oregon public's capacity to address water resources disturbances through civil society. According to scientists and resource managers, Oregon's water resources are over taxed and at risk, with future projections placing additional stress from climate change and population growth. Oregon's 2009...
In this thesis I present the results of a comprehensive assessment of the Pacific-North American (PNA) teleconnection pattern in general circulation models (GCMs) and a regional climate model (RCM). The PNA teleconnection pattern is a quasi-stationary wave field over the North Pacific and North America that has long been recognized...
The working hypothesis for this study is that the introduction of GIS technology into the ancient procedures of map-making has changed the map-making context sufficiently to require a revision of the way we think about, learn from, and use maps, specifically in the public involvement process in natural resource management....
Marine sediments contain an abundance of methane that is biologically produced
and plays a significant role in the global carbon cycle. Microbes responsible for the
carbon cycle in marine sediments, and the processes that they carry out, need to be
characterized in order to fully understand the role of this...
Brooks Island, located in central San Francisco Bay, California, currently supports the largest breeding colony of Caspian terns (Hydroprogne caspia) in the Bay Area, and is one of several proposed relocation sites for some Caspian terns from the world's largest colony in the Columbia River estuary of Oregon. Juvenile salmonids...
This thesis develops a manual for interpreters at six National Park Service areas established to preserve and interpret fossils of the Cenozoic Era: Fossil Butte National Monument (Wyoming), John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (Oregon), Badlands National Park (South Dakota), Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (Colorado), Agate Fossil Beds National...
Nares Strait is one of three main passages of the Canadian Archipelago that
channels freshwater from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic. There are very few
observations regarding the role of this region on the present day Arctic freshwater budget,
and even less regarding the changes in freshwater fluxes...
Marine sediments are vast sources and reservoirs of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Most of this methane is anaerobically oxidized by archaea before it can reach the overlying ocean, though the efficiency of this process often depends on methane fluxes and mechanisms of fluid transport. Anaerobic methanotrophic archaea, or ANME,...
The extensive reduction in adult Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus) counts at many hydroelectric dams in the northwestern USA signals a substantial decline in lamprey numbers across the entire region in the past 40 to 50 years. Among the many potential causes of this decline, obstruction of migration routes has likely...