From Craton to Rift: Empirically Based Ground-Truth Criteria for Local Events Recorded on Regional Networks

Region-specific empirically based ground-truth (EBGT) criteria used to estimate the epicentral-location accuracy of seismic events have been developed for the Main Ethiopian Rift and the Tibetan plateau. Explosions recorded during the Ethiopia-Afar Geoscientific Lithospheric Experiment (EAGLE), the International Deep Profiling of Tibet, and the Himalaya (INDEPTH III) experiment provided the necessary GT0 reference events. In each case, the local crustal structure is well known and handpicked arrival times were available, facilitating the establishment of the location accuracy criteria through the stochastic forward modeling of arrival times for epicentral locations. In the vicinity of the Main Ethiopian Rift, a seismic event is required to be recorded on at least 8 stations within the local Pg/Pn crossover distance and to yield a network-quality metric of less than 0.43 in order to be classified as EBGT5(95%) (GT5 with 95% confidence). These criteria were subsequently used to identify 10 new GT5 events with magnitudes greater than 2.1 recorded on the Ethiopian Broadband Seismic Experiment (EBSE) network and 24 events with magnitudes greater than 2.4 recorded on the EAGLE broadband network. The criteria for the Tibetan plateau are similar to the Ethiopia criteria, yet slightly less restrictive as the network-quality metric needs to be less than 0.45. Twenty-seven seismic events with magnitudes greater than 2.5 recorded on the INDEPTH III network were identified as GT5 based on the derived criteria. When considered in conjunction with criteria developed previously for the Kaapvaal craton in southern Africa, it is apparent that increasing restrictions on the network-quality metric mirror increases in the complexity of geologic structure from craton to plateau to rift. Accession Number: WOS:000322569200012

The Evolution of Media Coverage of Historical Sports Controversies

This thesis will cover sports controversies throughout the 20th Century in the context of the media’s newspaper coverage of the events. The 1919 Black Sox Scandal, the debate over American participation in the 1936 Olympics, and Muhammad Ali’s conversion to the Nation of Islam, standing as a notorious public figure, and conscientious objection to the Vietnam War will represent the three sports controversies. The media’s adherence to cultural norms is clear in all three cases. The consistent devotion to the cultural and racial atmosphere of their respective eras was constant and helped to perpetuate accepted, mainstream cultural attitudes. Cultural and racial norms were followed in the coverage of the three discussed controversies. The anti-Semitism and racially intolerant sentiments in America during great waves of immigration in the early 1900s allowed for journalists to freely vilify Jews as corrupters of baseball and the ballplayers who were rumored to have thrown the 1919 World Series. The white ballplayers were supported in the press, who protected their own and blamed outsiders. Jim Crow and the Americanization movement forced African American and Jewish newspapers to limit their journalistic bias on both sides of the debate over American participation in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The white, mainstream press was void of bias as the spirit of isolationism in America triumphed over journalist’s leanings in the Olympic debate. The racial tension created by the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s created an atmosphere that allowed mainstream journalists to heap endless criticism on Muhammad Ali as he gained fame. By portraying him as a villain of society as both a religious radical and traitor to America, journalists created a common enemy in the minds of white America. In all three cases, a pattern of journalists expressing the state of cultural and racial norms of the era is present and significant.