We report on the early stages of submonolayer Ag island coarsening on the Ag(111) surface carried out using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations for several temperatures. Our simulations were performed using a very large database of processes identified by their local environment and whose activation barriers were calculated using the semi-empirical interaction potentials based on the embedded-atom ...

Physical processes driving barrier island change during storms are important to understand mitigate coastal hazards and evaluate conceptual models for evolution. Spatial variations in topography, landcover characteristics, nearshore back-barrier hydrodynamics can yield complex morphological that requires of increasing resolution physical complexity predict. Using the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere-Wa...

Barrier islands are complex and dynamic systems that provide critical ecosystem services to coastal populations. Stability of these systems is threatened by rising sea level and the potential for coastal storms to increase in frequency and intensity. Recovery of dune-building grasses following storms is an important process that promotes topographic heterogeneity and long-term stability of barr...

AVIAN SEED DISPERSAL ON VIRGINIA BARRIER ISLANDS: POTENTIAL INFLUENCE ON VEGETATION COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND PATCH DYNAMICS. By Sheri A. Shiflett, Master of Science A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Biology at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2008 Thesis Director, Dr. Donald R. Young, Department...

Barrier islands on the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico are an internationally important coastal resource. Each spring hundreds of thousands of Nearctic-Neotropical songbirds crossing the Gulf of Mexico during spring migration use these islands because they provide the first landfall for individuals following a trans-Gulf migratory route. The effects of climate change, particularly sea level r...

from UCLA and was formerly a professor at the University of Wyoming. His research focuses on the adaptations of plants living in harsh and extreme environments, with a current focus on global change impacts. Current projects include studies of the global occurrence of the alpine treelines and the impacts of episodic, extreme events (e.g. hurricanes) on barrier island ecosystems. Based on the ad...

This study was designed to examine the forest composition, structure and species richness of vegetation among undeveloped back-barrier islands near Sapelo Island, Georgia. Known colloquially as “marsh hammocks,” back-barrier islands are completely or partially encircled by estuarine salt marsh. There are upwards of 1200 hammocks along the Georgia coast, comprising approximately 6900 ha. In the ...

Increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other gases are expected to cause a global warming that could raise sea level a few feet in the next century. This paper examines four options by which barrier-island communities could respond, focussing on Long Beach Island, New Jersey. For the next few decades, the most common response will probably be to raise the islands in place b...

We have demonstrated that the island nucleation in the initial stage of epitaxial thin film growth can be tuned by substrate surface charge doping. This charge effect was investigated using spin density functional theory calculation in Fe-deposition on graphene substrate as an example. It was found that hole-doping can noticeably increase both Fe-adatom diffusion barrier and Fe interadatom repu...

We present a first-principles analysis of the strain renormalization of the cation diffusivity on the GaAs(001) surface. For the example of In/GaAs(001)-c(4 × 4) it is shown that the binding of In is increased when the substrate lattice is expanded. The diffusion barrier ∆E(ε) has a non-monotonic strain dependence with a maximum at compressive strain values (ε < 0), while being a decreasing fun...