Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

Geology and its tangential studies, collectively known and referred to in this thesis as geosciences, have been paramount to the transformation and advancement of society, fundamentally changing the way we view, interact and live with the surrounding natural and built environment. It is important to recognize the value and importance of this interdisciplinary scientific field while reconciling its ties to imperial and colonizing extractive systems which have led to harmful and invasive endeavors. This intersection among geosciences, (environmental) justice studies, and decolonization is intended to promote inclusive pedagogical models through just and equitable methodologies and frameworks as to prevent further injustices and promote recognition and healing of old wounds. By utilizing decolonial frameworks and highlighting the voices of peoples from colonized and exploited landscapes, this annotated syllabus tackles the issues previously described while proposing solutions involving place-based education and the recentering of land within geoscience pedagogical models. (abstract)

This research endeavor explores the 1964 reasoning of Irish physicist John Bell and how it pertains to the provoking Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox. It is necessary to establish the machinations of formalisms ranging from conservation laws to quantum mechanical principles. The notion that locality is unable to be reconciled with the quantum paradigm is upheld through analysis and the subsequent Aspect experiments in the years 1980-1982. No matter the complexity, any local hidden variable theory is incompatible with the formulation of standard quantum mechanics. A number of strikingly ambiguous and abstract concepts are addressed in this pursuit to deduce quantum's validity, including separability and reality. `Elements of reality' characteristic of unique spaces are defined using basis terminology and logic from EPR. The discussion draws directly from Bell's succinct 1964 Physics 1 paper as well as numerous other useful sources. The fundamental principle and insight gleaned is that quantum physics is indeed nonlocal; the door into its metaphysical and philosophical implications has long since been opened. Yet the nexus of information pertaining to Bell's inequality and EPR logic does nothing but assert the impeccable success of quantum physics' ability to describe nature.

Over the last few decades, sustainability has become a great focus for individuals as well as businesses globally. The focus of this study was to understand why businesses purchase certain office supplies and why they may not be choosing to purchase the most sustainable options. The research question asked, “why are certain businesses reluctant to make positive, sustainable changes to their usage of office materials in their workplace environments?” Most companies do not look for alternatives that would benefit the environment when purchasing products for their office space. The reasons behind this hesitancy to change was studied through current literature on the topic as well as interviews conducted with Office Managers of several different businesses. Comparisons were made between each businesses’ decision patterns in order to find the root cause or causes of why companies do not choose more sustainable options when purchasing products for their workspaces. The interviews revealed that cost and quality are the most important factors these businesses take into consideration when purchasing office supplies. While some companies have looked into alternative products for their supplies, they ultimately choose to still purchase the less sustainable option. This is because the less sustainable option is often cheaper, and the company knows what quality to expect for the item. Overall, all of the Office Managers who were interviewed acknowledged some sort of sustainable practice that their company was taking part in, even if it did not directly relate to the types of office supplies that they purchase. This inclusion of general sustainable practices demonstrates how businesses are making efforts one way or another towards a more sustainable future. Therefore, this awareness to sustainability suggests that most, if not all businesses will eventually end up purchasing sustainable alternatives for their office supplies. However, the timeframe for which this occurs for each company will likely vary.

The goal of Hubble Space Telescope Cycle 27–29 Archival Legacy project “SKYSURF” is to measure the panchromatic sky surface brightness and source catalogs from all archival HST ACS and WFC3 images since the launch of these instruments by the Space Shuttle—more than 57,000 images in total since 2002. All SKYSURF images together will measure the panchromatic Zodiacal brightness, the Diffuse Galactic Light, and the Extragalactic Background Light. SKYSURF will significantly constrain the various amounts of diffuse light in the universe with major ramifications for cosmic star formation and planet formation.<br/><br/>Several sky background measurement algorithms are capable of measuring the background levels of images in the SKYSURF database. To test the fidelity of these sky background measurement algorithms, images with known sky background and noise levels were necessary to determine quantitatively how far a sky measurement algorithm strays from the true value. For this purpose, I developed an algorithm that could create simulated images for filter F125W of the WFC3/IR instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Filter F125W was selected because the Extragalactic Background Light is brightest in this wavelength band; moreover, the COBE Zodiacal light measurement is also at 1.25 microns. The simulated images created contain stars, galaxies, cosmic rays, and light gradients. We discuss here how these simulated images were made and the different kinds of simulated images that were produced.

Spacebound is a mobile application that helps people understand astronomical distances by converting their distances walked on Earth to an interstellar scale. To better navigate outer space, the app presents predefined distance scales and journeys with various objects (planets, asteroids, stars) to explore. Spacebound hopes to be a gamified approach for exploring outer space and also an educational app where the user can learn more about objects as they visit them.

The reionization of the Universe is thought to have completed by redshift z~5.5. To probe this era, galaxy observations in the Subaru Deep Field (SDF) have identified more than 100 galaxies at z~6, many spectroscopically confirmed through follow-up observations. Using available optical/IR data, we model with CIGALE the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of 43 SDF galaxies, including newly acquired data from the UKIRT WFCAM K-band for seven previously studied objects. In particular, modeling deep IR photometry is sensitive to the galaxy's Lyman continuum (LyC) escape fraction (fesc). We find the median implied fesc value as ~0.4+/-0.1 (mean error). Significant uncertainties in data and fitting result in a large range of fesc for individual objects, but analysis suggests that fesc is likely high enough for galaxies to finish reionization by z~6. More importantly, we find trends between the CIGALE UV slope b, fesc, and dust extinction E(B-V): for a given E(B-V), b appear steeper by ~0.4 than at z=0. Lower fesc values appear to be associated with bluer b and lower E(B-V), but only weakly. This suggests that LyC could have escaped through holes with sufficiently wide opening angles surrounding the ISM from outflows of supernovae and/or weak AGN to escape, but resulting in a large range of implied fesc values depending on the orientation of each galaxy. The current HST, Spitzer and ground-based photometric and model errors for the 43 galaxies are large, so IR spectroscopic observations with the James Webb Space Telescope are needed to better constrain this possibility.

In this study, the influence of fluid mixing on temperature and geochemistry of hot spring fluids is investigated. Yellowstone National Park (YNP) is home to a diverse range of hot springs with varying temperature and chemistry. The mixing zone of interest in this paper, located in Geyser Creek, YNP, has been a point of interest since at least the 1960’s (Raymahashay, 1968). Two springs, one basic (~pH 7) and one acidic (~pH 3) mix together down an outflow channel. There are visual bands of different photosynthetic pigments which suggests the creation of temperature and chemical gradients due to the fluids mixing. In this study, to determine if fluid mixing is driving these changes of temperature and chemistry in the system, a model that factors in evaporation and cooling was developed and compared to measured temperature and chemical data collected downstream. Comparison of the modeled temperature and chemistry to the measured values at the downstream mixture shows that many of the ions, such as Cl⁻, F⁻, and Li⁺, behave conservatively with respect to mixing. This indicates that the influence of mixing accounts for a large proportion of variation in the chemical composition of the system. However, there are some chemical constituents like CH₄, H₂, and NO₃⁻, that were not conserved, and the concentrations were either depleted or increased in the downstream mixture. Some of these constituents are known to be used by microorganisms. The development of this mixing model can be used as a tool for predicting biological activity as well as building the framework for future geochemical and computational models that can be used to understand the energy availability and the microbial communities that are present.

Stellar mass loss has a high impact on the overall evolution of a star. The amount<br/>of mass lost during a star’s lifetime dictates which remnant will be left behind and how<br/>the circumstellar environment will be affected. Several rates of mass loss have been<br/>proposed for use in stellar evolution codes, yielding discrepant results from codes using<br/>different rates. In this paper, I compare the effect of varying the mass loss rate in the<br/>stellar evolution code TYCHO on the initial-final mass relation. I computed four sets of<br/>models with varying mass loss rates and metallicities. Due to a large number of models<br/>reaching the luminous blue variable stage, only the two lower metallicity groups were<br/>considered. Their mass loss was analyzed using Python. Luminosity, temperature, and<br/>radius were also compared. The initial-final mass relation plots showed that in the 1/10<br/>solar metallicity case, reducing the mass loss rate tended to increase the dependence of final mass on initial mass. The limited nature of these results implies a need for further study into the effects of using different mass loss rates in the code TYCHO.

Drylands, though one of the largest biomes, are also one of the most understudied biomes on the planet. This leaves scientists with limited understanding of unique life forms that have adapted to live in these arid environments. One such life form is the hypolithic microbial community; these are autotrophic cyanobacteria colonies that can be found on the underside of translucent rocks in deserts. With the light that filters through the rock above them, the microbes can photosynthesize and fix carbon from the atmosphere into the soil. In this study I looked at hypolith-like rock distribution in the Namib Desert by using image recognition software. I trained a Mask R-CNN network to detect quartz rock in images from the Gobabeb site. When the method was analyzed using the entire data set, the distribution of rock sizes between the manual annotations and the network predictions was not similar. When evaluating rock sizes smaller than 0.56 cm2 the method showed statistical significance in support of being a promising data collection method. With more training and corrective effort on the network, this method shows promise to be an accurate and novel way to collect data efficiently in dryland research.

Fatigue damage accumulation under multiaxial loading conditions is an important practical problem for which there is a need to collect additional experimental data to calibrate and validate models. In this work, a sample with a special geometry capable of producing biaxial stresses while undergoing uniaxial load was fabricated and tested successfully and used, along with standard dogbone samples, to monitor the evolution of surface roughness development under cyclic loading using optical microscopy. In addition, a Michelson interferometer was successfully designed, built and tested that can be used to monitor surface roughness for lower levels of load than those used in this work. Results of testing and characterization in 2024-T3 samples tested at a maximum stress slightly below their yield strength and load ratio ~ 0.1 indicate that most of the surface roughness development under cyclic loads occurs on the second half of the fatigue, with the bulk of it close to failure. However, samples with load axes perpendicular to the rolling direction showed earlier development of roughness, which correlated with shorter fatigue lives and the expected anisotropy of strength in the material.