UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones 5-1-2019 Potential Fossil Yield Classification (PFYC) Survey of Nevada Surficial Geology, and a Multi-Sensor, Remote Sensing, Change- Detection Study of Land-Use/Land-Cover Urbanization Impacting the Las Vegas Formation Located in Northwestern Las Vegas Valley John Jayson Medema Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations Part of the Environmental Sciences Commons, Geographic Information Sciences Commons, and the Remote Sensing Commons Repository Citation Medema, John Jayson, "Potential Fossil Yield Classification (PFYC) Survey of Nevada Surficial Geology, and a Multi-Sensor, Remote Sensing, Change-Detection Study of Land-Use/Land-Cover Urbanization Impacting the Las Vegas Formation Located in Northwestern Las Vegas Valley" (2019). 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A POTENTIAL FOSSIL YIELD CLASSIFICATION (PFYC) SURVEY OF NEVADA SURFICIAL GEOLOGY, AND A MULTI-SENSOR, REMOTE SENSING, CHANGE-DETECTION STUDY OF LAND-USE/LAND-COVER URBANIZATIONIMPACTING THE LAS VEGAS FORMATION LOCATED IN NORTHWESTERN LAS VEGAS VALLEY By John Jayson Medema Bachelor of Science Geology University of Nevada, Las Vegas 2015 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science Geoscience Department of Geoscience College of Sciences The Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas May 2019 Thesis Approval The Graduate College The University of Nevada, Las Vegas April 11, 2019 This thesis prepared by John Jayson Medema entitled Potential Fossil Yield Classification (PFYC) Survey of Nevada Surficial Geology, and a Multi-Sensor, Remote Sensing, Change-Detection Study of Land-Use/Land-Cover Urbanization Impacting the Las Vegas Formation Located in Northwestern Las Vegas Valley is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Geoscience Department of Geoscience Stephen Rowland, Ph.D. Kathryn Hausbeck Korgan, Ph.D. Examination Committee Chair Graduate College Dean Lynn Fenstermaker, Ph.D. Examination Committee Member Gabriel Judkins, Ph.D. Examination Committee Member Rebecca Martin, Ph.D. Graduate College Faculty Representative ii Abstract This thesis is a combination of two separate but related projects. The first project is a Potential Fossil Yield Classification (PYFC) survey. The PFYC is a Bureau of Land Management funded survey designed to synthesize paleontologic information into a geographic information system (GIS) as a distributable geodatabase. The database is designed to represent surficial geologic deposits contained in a polygon shapefile. Throughout the State of Nevada each polygon represents a mapped geologic unit at a -5 based on the known fossils within a geologic unit. Fossil type and abundance are considered in the assignment of a PFYC value, 1 being the lowest, and 5 being the highest. The second project consists of a multi-temporal land-use/land-cover change detection analysis designed to measure effects of rapid urbanization within a geologic unit identified to have the highest fossil potential based on the results of the PFYC survey. The Las Vegas Formation (LVfm) is a Pleistocene groundwater discharge deposit that has been shown to contain significant vertebrate fossils, thus being assigned a PFYC value of 5. The proximity of the LVfm to the densely populated city of Las Vegas provides a unique opportunity quantify effects of urbanization to lands rich with fossil resources. This project is designed to utilize remotely sensed imagery and aerial light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point clouds to accurately quantify urbanization effects iii Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ..........................................................................................................iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................. v List of Figures ................................................................................................................vi Chapter 1: A Potential Fossil Yield Classification Survey of Nevada Surficial Geology ........................................................................................................... 1 Abstract .............................................................................................................. 2 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 3 Methodology ....................................................................................................... 7 Results ............................................................................................................. 13 Discussion ........................................................................................................ 19 Chapter 2: A Multi-Temporal Land-use/Land-cover Impact Assessment of The Las Vegas Formation ......................................................................................................... 22 Abstract ............................................................................................................ 23 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 24 Methodology part I: Refining the Las Vegas Formation Boundary for Larger Scale ................................................................................................................ 27 Methodology part II: Change-Detection ............................................................ 31 Results ............................................................................................................. 46 Discussion ........................................................................................................ 50 Appendix A: Bureau of Land Management Standard Scope of Work (PFYC) Project . 53 ............... 78 Appendix C: Las Vegas Formation & Laterally Equivalent Units ................................. 82 References .................................................................................................................. 83 Curriculum Vitae .......................................................................................................... 87 iv List of Tables: Table 1: List of Geologic Maps used to re-define boundary of the LVfm ..................... 28 Table 2: Slope and intercept values described by Vogelmann et al. 2002. ................. 37 Table 3: Coefficients to construct Tasseled Cap brightness, greenness and wetness image data sets ........................................................................................................... 38 Table 4: Image Ratio/Thresholding results for first iteration of change-detection ......................................................................................................... 46 Table 5: Resulting Calculations of the total percentage change within the LVfm boundary compared to LiDAR ground truth percentage of Impacted Area . 47 v List of Figures - ............................................................................. 10 Figure 2: Intersection of base map geologic polygons with 1:250k base map polygons ..................................................................................................... 11 Figure 3: Intersection of new digitized polygons representing 1:100k scale geology .. 11 Figure 4: Completed Nevada PFCY Survey, geology layer ......................................... 14 Figure 5: Completed Nevada PFCY Survey, geologic map layer ................................ 18 Figure 6: Las Vegas Formation Boundary at 1:100k scale .......................................... 29 Figure 7: Las Vegas Formation Boundary refined to 1:24k scale ................................ 30 Figure 8: Google Earth image of the LVfm and surrounding basin fill alluvium ........... 34 . ........... 40 ............. 40 Figure 11: 3-dimensional view of SNWA LiDAR point cloud with default point classifications .............................................................................................................. 42 Figure 12: 3-dimensional view of SNWA LiDAR point cloud with binary Classification ............................................................................................................... 43 Figure 13: Default Density Slice overlay of image ration result ................................... 45 Figure 14: Manual differentiation of density sliced ranges to expose additional variances in pixels ......................................................................................................