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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...