Publications

No abstract available.

In this paper, I present a summary of the Pliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping (PRISM) palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, with emphasis on its historical development and range of boundary condition datasets. Sea-surface temperature (SST), sea level, sea ice, land cover (vegetation and ice) and topography are discussed as well as many of the assumptions required to...

Understanding relative sea level (RSL) rise during periods of rapid climatic change is critical for evaluating modern sea level rise given the vulnerability of Antarctic ice shelves to collapse [Hodgson et al, 2006], the retreat of the world's glaciers [Oerlemans, 2005], and mass balance trends of the Greenland ice sheet [Rignot and Kanagaratnam, 2006]. The first-order pattern of global...

The goal of this study was to assess the effect that the Late Eocene Chesapeake Bay bolide impact had on local patterns of calcareous nannofossil species composition, richness and preservation. Although calcareous nannofossil assemblages have been described from a handful of coreholes drilled within the impact structure, this is the first study to examine the calcareous nannofossils from...

Examination of benthic foraminifera from six vibracores collected from a relict flood tidal delta near the Virginia/North Carolina border documents the assemblages associated with a former inlet and provides geologic evidence of this former inlet that once defined the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina along the Outer Banks. Three distinct foraminiferal assemblages were...

No abstract available.

A fundamental problem in the simulation of karst ground-water flow and solute transport is how best to represent aquifer heterogeneity as defined by the spatial distribution of porosity, permeability, and storage. Combined analyses of cyclostratigraphy, including lithofacies and depositional environments, and borehole-geophysical logs, has improved the conceptualization of porosity...

Although intense rainfall and localized flooding occurred as Hurricane Isabel tracked inland northwestardly across the Blue Ridge Mountains of central Virginia on September 18–19, 2003, few landslides occurred. However, the hurricane reactivated a dormant landslide along a bluff of an incised alluvial fan along Meadow Run on the western flanks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Subsequent...

Sediments deposited on the western slope of the Guaymas Basin in the central Gulf of California are composed predominantly of detrital clastic material and biogenic silica (biopal), with minor organic material (average of 2.8% organic carbon) and calcium carbonate. The CaCO3 is derived from calcareous plankton and is highly variable ranging from 0% to 16%. In general, the CaCO3 content...

Many of the parks within the National Park System owe their uniqueness to their geologic framework. Their scenery is the result of diverse natural processes acting upon a variety of rocks that were deposited in varied environments in the geologic past. The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (DEWA) contains a rich geologic and cultural history within its 68,714 acre boundary...

The Culpeper basin is part of a much larger system of ancient depressions or troughs, that lie inboard of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, and largely within the Applachian Piedmont Geologic Province of eastern North America, and the transition region with the neighboring Blue Ridge Geologic Province. This basin system formed during an abortive attempt to make a great ocean basin during the...

The surficial geologic map shows the distribution of nonlithified earth materials at land surface in an area of 16 7.5-minute quadrangles (total 658 mi2) in northeast Massachusetts. The geologic map differentiates surficial materials of Quaternary age on the basis of their lithologic characteristics (grain size, sedimentary structures, mineral and rock-particle composition)...