UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
The Water on Mars Vanished. This Might Be Where It Went
The water on Mars vanished. This might be where it went. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/the-water-on-mars-vanished-this-might-be-where- it-went-/articleshow/81599751.cms NYT News Service | Mar 20, 2021, 10:32 IST Mars was once wet, with an ocean’s worth of water on its surface. Today, most of Mars is as dry as a desert except for ice deposits in its polar regions. Where did the rest of the water go? Some of it disappeared into space. Water molecules, pummeled by particles of solar wind, broke apart into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and those, especially the lighter hydrogen atoms, sped out of the atmosphere, lost to outer space. A tall outcropping of rock, with layered deposits of sediments in the distance, marking a remnant of an ancient, long-vanished river delta in Jezero Crater, are pictured in this undated image taken by NASA's Mars rover Perseverance. (Reuters) But most of the water, a new study concludes, went down, sucked into the red planet’s rocks. And there it remains, trapped within minerals and salts. Indeed, as much as 99% of the water that once flowed on Mars could still be there, the researchers estimated in a paper published this week in the journal Science. Data from the past two decades of robotic missions to Mars, including NASA ’s Curiosity rover and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, showed a wide distribution of what geologists call hydrated minerals. “It became very, very clear that it was common and not rare to find evidence of water alteration,” said Bethany Ehlmann, a professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology and one of the authors of the paper. -
Concepts and Approaches for Mars Exploration1
June 24, 2012 Concepts and Approaches for Mars Exploration1 ‐ Report of a Workshop at LPI, June 12‐14, 2012 – Stephen Mackwell2 (LPI) Michael Amato (NASA Goddard), Bobby Braun (Georgia Institute of Technology), Steve Clifford (LPI), John Connolly (NASA Johnson), Marcello Coradini (ESA), Bethany Ehlmann (Caltech), Vicky Hamilton (SwRI), John Karcz (NASA Ames), Chris McKay (NASA Ames), Michael Meyer (NASA HQ), Brian Mulac (NASA Marshall), Doug Stetson (SSECG), Dale Thomas (NASA Marshall), and Jorge Vago (ESA) Executive Summary Recent deep cuts in the budget for Mars exploration at NASA necessitate a reconsideration of the Mars robotic exploration program within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD), especially in light of overlapping requirements with future planning for human missions to the Mars environment. As part of that reconsideration, a workshop on “Concepts and Approaches for Mars Exploration” was held at the USRA Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, TX, on June 12‐14, 2012. Details of the meeting, including abstracts, video recordings of all sessions, and plenary presentations, can be found at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/marsconcepts2012/. Participation in the workshop included scientists, engineers, and graduate students from academia, NASA Centers, Federal Laboratories, industry, and international partner organizations. Attendance was limited to 185 participants in order to facilitate open discussion of the critical issues for Mars exploration in the coming decades. As 390 abstracts were submitted by individuals interested in participating in the workshop, the Workshop Planning Team carefully selected a subset of the abstracts for presentation based on their appropriateness to the workshop goals, and ensuring that a broad diverse suite of concepts and ideas was presented. -
Bethany L. Ehlmann California Institute of Technology 1200 E. California Blvd. MC 150-21 Pasadena, CA 91125 USA Ehlmann@Caltech
Bethany L. Ehlmann California Institute of Technology [email protected] 1200 E. California Blvd. Caltech office: +1 626.395.6720 MC 150-21 JPL office: +1 818.354.2027 Pasadena, CA 91125 USA Fax: +1 626.568.0935 EDUCATION Ph.D., 2010; Sc. M., 2008, Brown University, Geological Sciences (advisor, J. Mustard) M.Sc. by research, 2007, University of Oxford, Geography (Geomorphology; advisor, H. Viles) M.Sc. with distinction, 2005, Univ. of Oxford, Environ. Change & Management (advisor, J. Boardman) A.B. summa cum laude, 2004, Washington University in St. Louis (advisor, R. Arvidson) Majors: Earth & Planetary Sciences, Environmental Studies; Minor: Mathematics International Baccalaureate Diploma, Rickards High School, Tallahassee, Florida, 2000 Additional Training: Nordic/NASA Summer School: Water, Ice and the Origin of Life in the Universe, Iceland, 2009 Vatican Observatory Summer School in Astronomy &Astrophysics, Castel Gandolfo, Italy, 2005 Rainforest to Reef Program: Marine Geology, Coastal Sedimentology, James Cook Univ., Australia, 2004 School for International Training, Development and Conservation Program, Panamá, Sept-Dec 2002 PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Professor of Planetary Science, Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Assistant Professor 2011-2017, Professor 2017-present; Associate Director, Keck Institute for Space Studies 2018-present Research Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 2011-2020 Lunar Trailblazer, Principal Investigator, 2019-present MaMISS -
LSAH Newsletter
National Aeronautics and Space Administration THE LIFETIME SURVEILLANCE OF ASTRONAUT HEALTH Newsletter Volume 25, Issue 1 Editor’s Note: We hope you are all doing well during this unprecedented time in our history. This edition of the LSAH Newsletter looks at the most recent updates to the TREAT Astronauts Act, as well as how to make a behavior- al telehealth appointment with the JSC Clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic. We dive into the history of LSAH in the last three decades, and peer into the future of the Artemis program while remembering the great strides taken from the Apollo era. A Message from the JSC Clinic! As a reminder, your routine medical evaluation now includes a dedicated behavioral health session with our Clinical Neuropsychologist, Dr. Carmen Pulido. The initial session will take approximately 1.5 hours, and will include a review of your devel- opmental, occupational, and medical history. In response to COVID-19 and the current limitations Nov. 15, 2019 - NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan waves as on travel, we have this service available virtually! he is photographed during the first spacewalk to repair the For a behavioral telehealth appointment with Dr. Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a cosmic particle detector on Pulido, please contact the JSC Flight Medicine the International Space Station. Clinic at 281-483- 7999 during normal business hours. Making a behavioral telehealth appointment LSAH: Looking Back, Moving Forward will not affect your ability to visit the JSC Clinic Mary Wear, Ph.D. and Jacqueline Charvat, Ph.D. for your routine physical and other health appoint- The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 ments. -
22–25 Oct. GSA 2017 Annual Meeting & Exposition
22–25 Oct. GSA 2017 Annual Meeting & Exposition JULY 2017 | VOL. 27, NO. 7 NO. 27, | VOL. 2017 JULY A PUBLICATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA® JULY 2017 | VOLUME 27, NUMBER 7 SCIENCE 4 Extracting Bulk Rock Properties from Microscale Measurements: Subsampling and Analytical Guidelines M.C. McCanta, M.D. Dyar, and P.A. Dobosh GSA TODAY (ISSN 1052-5173 USPS 0456-530) prints news Cover: Mount Holyoke College astronomy students field-testing a and information for more than 26,000 GSA member readers and subscribing libraries, with 11 monthly issues (March/ Raman BRAVO spectrometer for field mineral identification, examin- April is a combined issue). GSA TODAY is published by The ing pegmatite minerals crosscutting a slightly foliated hornblende Geological Society of America® Inc. (GSA) with offices at quartz monzodiorite and narrow aplite dikes exposed in the spillway 3300 Penrose Place, Boulder, Colorado, USA, and a mail- of the Quabbin Reservoir. All three units are part of the Devonian ing address of P.O. Box 9140, Boulder, CO 80301-9140, USA. GSA provides this and other forums for the presentation Belchertown igneous complex in central Massachusetts, USA. of diverse opinions and positions by scientists worldwide, See related article, p. 4–9. regardless of race, citizenship, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or political viewpoint. Opinions presented in this publication do not reflect official positions of the Society. © 2017 The Geological Society of America Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright not claimed on content prepared GSA 2017 Annual Meeting & Exposition wholly by U.S. government employees within the scope of their employment. Individual scientists are hereby granted 11 Abstracts Deadline permission, without fees or request to GSA, to use a single figure, table, and/or brief paragraph of text in subsequent 12 Education, Careers, and Mentoring work and to make/print unlimited copies of items in GSA TODAY for noncommercial use in classrooms to further 13 Feed Your Brain—Lunchtime Enlightenment education and science. -
Role of Glaciers in Halting Syrtis Major Lava Flows to Preserve and Divert a Fluvial System
ROLE OF GLACIERS IN HALTING SYRTIS MAJOR LAVA FLOWS TO PRESERVE AND DIVERT A FLUVIAL SYSTEM A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Geology in The Department of Geology and Geophysics by Connor Michael Matherne B.S., Louisiana State University, 2017 December 2019 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks to J.R. Skok and Jack Mustard for conceiving the initial ideas behind this project and to Suniti Karunatillake and J.R. Skok for their guidance. Additionally, thank you to my committee members Darrell Henry and Peter Doran for aid in understanding the complex volcanic and climate history for this location. This work has benefited from reviews and discussions with Tim Goudge, Steven Ruff, Jim Head, and Bethany Ehlmann. We thank Caleb Fassett for providing the CTX DEM processing of the outlet fan and Tim Goudge for providing the basin Depression CTX DEM. All data and observations used in this study are publically available from the NASA PDS. Derived products such as produced CTX DEMs can be attained through processing or contacting the primary author. Connor Matherne was supported by the Frank’s Chair funds, W.L. Calvert Memorial Scholarship, NASA-EPSCoR funded LASpace Graduate Student Research Assistantship grant, and Louisiana Board of Regents Research Award Program grant LEQSF-EPS(2017)-RAP-22 awarded to Karunatillake. J.R. Skok was supported with the MDAP award NNX14AR93G. Suniti Karunatillake’s work was supported by NASA- MDAP grant 80NSSC18K1375. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. -
Petrology on Mars†K
American Mineralogist, Volume 100, pages 2380–2395, 2015 INVITED CENTENNIAL ARTICLE REVIEW Petrology on Mars†k HARRY Y. MCSWEEN JR.1,* 1Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Planetary Geoscience Institute, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-1410, U.S.A. ABSTRACT Petrologic investigations of martian rocks have been accomplished by mineralogical, geochemical, and textural analyses from Mars rov- ers (with geologic context provided by orbiters), and by laboratory analyses of martian meteorites. Igneous rocks are primarily lavas and volcaniclastic rocks of basaltic composition, and ultramafic cumulates; alkaline rocks are common in ancient terranes and tholeiitic rocks occur in younger terranes, suggesting global magmatic evolution. Relatively uncommon feldspathic rocks represent the ultimate fractionation prod- ucts, and granitic rocks are unknown. Sedimentary rocks are of both clastic (mudstone, sandstone, conglomerate, all containing significant igneous detritus) and chemical (evaporitic sulfate and less common carbonate) origin. High-silica sediments formed by hydrothermal activity. Sediments on Mars formed from different protoliths and were weathered under different environmental conditions from terrestrial sediments. Metamorphic rocks have only been inferred from orbital remote-sensing measurements. Metabasalt and serpentinite have mineral assemblages consistent with those predicted from low-pressure phase equilibria and likely formed in geothermal systems. Shock effects are com- mon in martian meteorites, and impact breccias are probably widespread in the planet’s crustal rocks. The martian rock cycle during early periods was similar in many respects to that of Earth. However, without plate tectonics Mars did not experience the thermal metamorphism and flux melting associated with subduction, nor deposition in subsided basins and rapid erosion resulting from tectonic uplift. -
Early Mars As a Key to Understanding Planetary Habitability
Early Mars as a Key to Understanding Planetary Habitability Bethany Ehlmann Professor of Planetary Science, Geological & Planetary Sciences Research Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology July 13, 2017 | Midterm Review Planetary Decadal Survey Outline: Early Mars as a Key to Understanding Planetary Habitability • What we have learned and what we can learn about early Mars [15 min] • Suggested exploration plans [5 min] • Questions/Discussion [10 min] Key Discoveries in Mars Science since 2010 *Publication date of last Mars references in V&V • Extent and diversity of potential ancient habitats (lakes, rivers, aquifers, hydrothermal systems, soil formation) • Mafic, Ultramafic, and Felsic igneous rocks • Modern liquid water • Recent Ice Ages and Episodicity of Climates above the Triple Point of Water • Modern active methane, likely with local sources • Modern active surface processes • Modern atmospheric loss rates See also MEPAG report to V&V Decadal Midterm (May 4, 2017): https://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/2017-07/MEPAG_Johnson_MTDS_v04.pdf Key Discoveries in Mars Science since 2010 *Publication date of last Mars references in V&V • Extent and diversity of potential ancient habitats (lakes, Ancient rivers, aquifers, hydrothermal systems, soil formation) • Mafic, Ultramafic, and Felsic igneous rocks • Modern liquid water • Recent Ice Ages and Episodicity of Climates above the Triple Point of Water [see also Byrne talk, next] • Modern active methane, likely with local sources • Modern active surface processes • Modern atmospheric loss rates [see Jakosky talk, next] Modern See also MEPAG report to V&V Decadal Midterm (May 4, 2017): https://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/2017-07/MEPAG_Johnson_MTDS_v04.pdf Key Finding since V&V: Modern Mars is active (methane, geomorphology, ice, water) Bridges et al., 2011; 2012 Mass wasting of the N. -
Issue 117, March 2009
NNASA’sASA’s LunarLunar ScienceScience InstituteInstitute BeginsBegins WorkWork It has been 40 years since humans fi rst set foot upon the Moon, taking that historic “giant step” for mankind. Although interest in our nearest celestial neighbor has waned considerably, it has never disappeared completely and is now enjoying a remarkable resurgence. The Moon was born when our home planet encountered a rogue planet at its birth, and has since recorded the earliest history of the solar system (a record nearly obliterated on Earth). With four spacecraft orbiting the Moon in the past three years (from four separate nation groups) and a fi fth, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, due to arrive this spring, we are about to remake our understanding of this planetary body. To further contribute to the advancement of our knowledge, NASA recently created a Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) to revitalize the lunar science community and train a new generation of scientists. This spring, NASA has selected seven academic and research teams to form the initial core of the NLSI. This virtual institute is designed to support scientifi c research that supplements and extends existing NASA lunar science programs in coordination with U.S. space exploration policy. The new teams that augment NLSI were selected in a competitive evaluation process that began with the release of a cooperative agreement notice in June 2008. NASA received proposals from 33 research teams. L“We are extremely pleased with the response of the science community and the high quality of proposals received,” said David Morrison, the institute’s interim director at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. -
2015-2016 Academic Year
2015–2016 The Bulletin BULLETIN OF TUFTS UNIVERSITY http://uss.tufts.edu/bulletin ARTS, SCIENCES, AND ENGINEERING 2015–2016 BULLETIN Academic Year 2015–2016 SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES College of Liberal Arts Graduate School of Arts and Sciences SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING 7/24/15 9:21 PM Through this bulletin, announcement is made of the general rules, regulations, fees, and schedules in effect as of the date of publication. This bulletin is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a contract between the university and any applicant, student, or other party. The university reserves its right to make changes, without notice, in any course offerings, requirements, policies, regulations, dates, and financial or other information contained in this bulletin. Published by the Trustees of Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155. Printed in the USA. TUFTS UNIVERSITY 2015 43995cvr.indd 2 The Bulletin BULLETIN OF TUFTS UNIVERSITY | 2015–2016 School of Arts and Sciences COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES School of Engineering 43995txt001-082.indd 1 7/24/15 9:27 PM 43995txt001-082.indd 2 7/24/15 9:27 PM Presidents of Tufts University ............................... 4 Contents About Tufts University ......................................... 4 Financial Information Expenses and Policies ...................................... 6 Financial Aid ................................................... 8 School of Arts and Sciences Mission Statement ........................................ 11 College of Liberal Arts -
Curiosity Mars Rover Heads Toward Active Dunes 17 November 2015
Curiosity Mars rover heads toward active dunes 17 November 2015 As of Monday, Nov. 16, Curiosity has about 200 yards or meters remaining to drive before reaching "Dune 1." The rover is already monitoring the area's wind direction and speed each day and taking progressively closer images, as part of the dune research campaign. At the dune, it will use its scoop to collect samples for the rover's internal laboratory instruments, and it will use a wheel to scuff into the dune for comparison of the surface to This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's the interior. Curiosity Mars rover shows a dark sand dune in the middle distance. The rover's examination of dunes on the way toward higher layers of Mount Sharp will be the first in-place study of an active sand dune anywhere other than Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS On its way to higher layers of the mountain where it is investigating how Mars' environment changed billions of years ago, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover will take advantage of a chance to study some modern Martian activity at mobile sand dunes. In the next few days, the rover will get its first close- The dark band in the lower portion of this Martian scene up look at these dark dunes, called the "Bagnold is part of the "Bagnold Dunes" dune field lining the Dunes," which skirt the northwestern flank of northwestern edge of Mount Sharp, inside Gale Crater. Mount Sharp. No Mars rover has previously visited Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS a sand dune, as opposed to smaller sand ripples or drifts. -
Overview Newsletter
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Newsletter Fall 2009 Issue 9 Overview IN THIS ISSUE... Greetings from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Wash- ington University! These are exciting times in the department, as the recent influx of new faculty members and their laboratory equipment are Overview rapidly filling up the new building that we began to occupy in 2004. For Colorado Plateau Trip the first time since at least 1991, we have four assistant professors in the Arvidson Steps Down department (Jeff Catalano, Fred Moynier, David Fike, and Phil Skemer). Wiens New Chairman Fred and Phil are profiled in this issue, and Jeff and David were profiled in the 2007 issue. All of the junior faculty are making excellent progress, Current Research as evidenced by the fact that all have already obtained NSF and/or NASA Virtual Reality Lab funding for their research. Further good news is that Jennifer Smith is no longer an assistant Mineral-Water professor, as she was promoted to associate professor with tenure this summer. Finally, we Interface have also been joined by lecturer Vali Memeti (also profiled inside), who is providing much- needed help in teaching several geology courses. Phoenix Mission As you can see, the department also has a new chairman. Ray Arvidson stepped down EPSc In Action last summer after 17 very successful years leading the department. I agreed to become the Department News new chair, and while it will be impossible to truly replace Ray, I am highly optimistic that we can continue our up- New Faculty ward trajectory in the years E & PS Faculty ahead.