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Biological soil crusts in Alberta’s grasslands: increasing our knowledge of their taxonomy, diversity, and sensitivity to drought and defoliation
DownloadFall 2022
Biological soil crusts (BSCs) play a central role in the biodiversity, health, resilience, and function of drylands like Alberta’s grasslands. In Alberta, much of the biocrust cover consists of lichens, and many crusts are dominated by species of Cladonia. Despite the drought-resistant nature of...
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Bioremediation of oil sands process affected water sourced naphthenic acid fraction compounds
DownloadFall 2020
Current development of Alberta’s oil sands region requires large volumes of water, leading to an abundance of oil sands process affected water (OSPW). OSPW contains naphthenic acid fraction compounds (NAFCs) which have been found to contribute extensively to OSPW toxicity. Degradation of this...
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Bitumen Extraction, Indigenous Land Conflicts, and Environmental Change in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region, 1963-1993
DownloadSpring 2021
This dissertation examines the first development phase of the Alberta oil sands industry from the 1960s to the early 1990s. It draws on public and private records from archives in Canada and the United States, the results of collaborative research with the Fort McMurray Métis, and oral history...
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Boxed-in: Comparing Algorithms for Box-flight Mass-Balance Greenhouse Gas Flux Measurements from Mineable and In Situ Oil Sands Developments
DownloadSpring 2022
To combat global warming, Canada has committed to reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) 40-45% below 2005 emission levels by 2025. Monitoring emissions and deriving accurate inventories are essential to reaching these goals. GHGs can be measured at a small scale, often using ground measurements which...
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Fall 2013
The high degree of variability of oil sands ores can be attributed to a mixture of different geological end members, i.e., estuarine sand, estuarine clay, marine sand and marine clay. This study focused on the mineralogy, especially of clay minerals, and toluene insoluble organic matter, referred...
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Characterization of Clay Minerals in the Athabasca Oil Sands in Water Extraction and Nonaqueous Solvent Extraction Processes
DownloadFall 2011
Production of oil from the second largest oil deposit in the world, i.e., the Alberta oil sands containing approximately 13% of total proven oil reserves in the world (169.9 billion barrels), has been shown to be significantly influenced by clay minerals. Clay minerals in particular play a key...
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Clinical, Laboratory and Treatment Outcome Characteristics of Foreign-Born Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients in Alberta by Immigration Status, 2004-2013
DownloadFall 2017
Canada is a low TB incidence country, with a rate of 4.4 per 100,000 in 2014. Despite this low incidence rate, TB affects certain groups disproportionately, most notably foreign-born persons from high incidence countries and Indigenous peoples. This study compares clinical, laboratory, and...
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Colloid Science of Sand Remediation: A Study Motivated by the Non-Aqueous Extraction of Bitumen from Oil Sands
DownloadFall 2014
The current water-based method of bitumen extraction requires withdrawal of fresh water from the Athabasca River — a practice which leads to the continual buildup of tailings ponds and other environmental concerns. As Alberta’s bitumen production is expected to more than double by 2020, there is...
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Community ecology of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in the central sand hills of Alberta, and a key to the ants of Alberta.
DownloadFall 2012
In this study I examined ant biodiversity in Alberta. Over a two-year period, 41,791 ants were captured in pitfall traps on five sand hills in central Alberta and one adjacent aspen parkland community. Using additional collections, I produced a key to the 92 species of ants known from Alberta,...