Seniors complete an independent research project that applies understanding gained from the core curriculum and from the area of concentration toward an environmental topic of interest. Students work closely with faculty advisors on this original research. This is a list of recent theses completed at Union.

• A 1000 Year Paleoclimate Record of Laguna Yuraicocha: Analyses of Stable Isotopes ¹⁸O and ¹³C in Lake Core Sediments

• A Mid-Late Holocene climate record from a carbonate lake in the Tropical Andes

• Calibrating recent sedimentary sequences form the proximal basin of a large glacially fed lake with hydroclimate data, Skilak Lake, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska

• Comparison of 100 years of environmental change in the Adirondacks revealed from photographs

• Evaluation of the hydraulic relationship between the Great Flats Aquifer and the Mohawk River, Schenectady County

• Flood severity and change in floodplain area along urban sections of the Mohawk River through the 20th century

• Holocene proxy records of hydrologic variability from two carbonate lakes, Cordillera, Huayhuash, Peru

• Hurricane frequency and societal perception of storm damage, Barbados, West Indies

• Living on the Mohawk; A chronology of the geology, glaciers, bridges and history that shaped the river

• Major floods on the Mohawk River: 1832-2000

• Multiple episodes of magmatism, deformation, and metamorphism in the Green Mountaiin Massif at Stratton Mountain, Vermont

• Petrographic and geochemical evidence for multiple eruptive episodes of Volcan Tepetiltic, Nayarit, Mexico

• Reconstruction of Sitka Alaska temperatures (1569-1991) based on eight Gulf of Alaska tree-ring chronologies

• Risk assessment and the distribution of tephra deposits from Volcan Tepetiltic, Nayarit, Mexico

• Sorption of UV Filter chemicals to natural sediments

• Study of 20th century trends in stream flow for West Canada and Schoharie Creeks of the Mohawk-Hudson River watershed

• The Economics of disease ecology: Lyme Disease, habitat management and cost/benefit analysis in the Albany Pine Bush

• The evolution of the Cordillera Blanca normal fault, Peru, and its relationship to exhumation rates based on zircon fission-track analysis

• The Role of Pqt1 during embryonic neural development in Drosophila melanogaster and the environmental health Implications of lead and mercury deposition

• The use of Side Scan Sonar for bottom mapping of artifacts and natural features, Ballston Lake, New York

• Thermal history of the Potsdam Formation in the eastern Adirondacks determined by fission track dating of detrital zircons

• Thermal history of the Upper Cambrian Mosherville Sandstone Member of the Galway Formation in eastern New York

• Thermohaline Circulation: Climatic Implications in the past, present and future

• Tropical glacial extent and retreat based on sedimentation rates from the Cordillera Huavhuash, Peru

• (U-Th)/He systematics in rutile through empirical calibration from examples in the Western Gneiss Region (Norway)

• Water security in the Schoharie Valley, New York

• Zircon fission track ages of rocks of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD)

• A low resolution paleoclimatic record, interpreted by stable isotope ratios, Laguna Yuraicocha, Peru