Browsing by Author "Mooers, Howard D"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Duct Tape Occlusion Therapy in the Treatment of Plantar Warts
    (2020-09) Mooers, Howard D; Jones, Kathleen A; van Scoy, Michael S
    ABSTRACT Background: Plantar warts are generally unsightly, often painful, and they can resist typical forms of treatment. Generally, these treatments involve a combination of procedures including topical application, excision, and cryotherapy and can require numerous office visits. This paper reports on the efficacy of duct tape occlusion therapy in the treatment of plantar warts that resisted all other forms of treatment over a ten-year period. Methods: At the time the patient began duct tape occlusion therapy he had developed a 2.5 cm diameter verrucous plaque on his right heal with nine additional solitary plantar warts distributed from the head to the ball of the foot. Strips of duct tape 8-10 cm in length were applied over the affected area and changed every 1-3 days. Occasionally the warts were pared down with a razor blade. Results: A two-month treatment of plantar warts by duct-tape occlusion therapy resulted in complete disappearance of a 2.5 cm verrucous plaque and nine solitary plantar warts distributed from the heel to the ball of the foot, including warts that had never been covered by the tape. Conclusion: Duct tape occlusion therapy proved to be an effective therapy for treatment of plantar warts that had resisted repeated treatment by traditional methods.
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    Generation of a heavy-mineral glacial indicator dispersal train from a diabase sill, Nipigon region, northwestern Ontario
    (NRC Research Press, 2005) Larson, Phillip C; Mooers, Howard D
    The heavy clinopyroxene mineral pigeonite forms a glacial indicator dispersal train originating from diabase intrusions in the Nipigon region of northwestern Ontario. Analysis and interpretation of the pigeonite dispersal pattern adjacent to the up-ice portion of the diabase provides a number of insights into the nature of glacial erosion of bedrock and the generation of heavy-mineral dispersal trains. Bedrock erosion and entrainment rates at the time of pigeonite dispersal train formation were high (3–14 mm·a–1), suggesting that bedrock erosion was rapid yet spatially and temporally restricted. Contrasting erosion rates between the diabase and surrounding greenstone lithologies suggests that modern shield topography is not an assemblage of equilibrium bedforms with respect to the ice sheet. This agrees with hypothesized low total erosion of shield bedrock during the Pleistocene. Pigeonite grain size coarsens over the diabase source, indicating that most of the pigeonite was quarried from outcrops as coarse diabase fragments. Down-ice of the diabase source the mean particle size of pigeonite recovered from till decreases, suggesting most of the pigeonite was liberated from bedrock by the comminution of coarse diabase clasts during glacial transport. While the conclusions drawn from this study may not necessarily apply to all heavy-mineral dispersal trains, the interpretive framework provides a foundation for comparative studies.
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    Glacial indicator dispersal processes: a conceptual model
    (Taylor & Francis, 2004) Larson, Phillip C; Mooers, Howard D
    Interpretation of indicator dispersal trains preserved in till sheets is widely used to investigate past glacial processes and to explore for buried bedrock mineralization. We present a conceptual model of erosion and entrainment and transport of indicator material in a glacial system. Indicator concentration in an individual size fraction of till is controlled by dilution and comminution. Dilution is the result of incorporation of additional material to the glacier’s debris load down-ice of the indicator source, and is described in terms of erosivity and erosion length scale. Erosivity describes the amount of bed material eroded along a flowline, and is a function of both bed properties and the erosive power of the glacier. Erosion length scale describes the persistence of an indicator dispersal signal during transport, and controls both the maximum total indicator concentration and the eventual length of apparent dispersal. We adapt a modified batch grinding particle comminution model to describe breakdown of indicator material during transport and modification of the indicator particle size distribution. Indicator dispersal concentrations are the product of dilution and comminution processes.
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    Identification of Karst Features in the Portsdown Chalk Fm. from Aerial Photography, Dorset, UK
    (2020-01-14) Hammer, Morena N; Burley, Paul D; Mooers, Howard D
    Cranborne Chase in south central England contains extensive archaeological evidence supporting a large Neolithic population from approximately 3600-3440 BC. Little to no data exists recording the environment that the Neolithic people were living in and how they influenced the landscape through cultivation and related impacts. Typical data archives that would be used for paleoenvironmental reconstruction, such as lakes or peat fens, do not exist in Cranborne Chase because of the well-drained karst landscape. However, during the summer of 2018 a significant drought enhanced the identification of karst features. These features were mapped with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and aerial photography to assist in the identification of potential paleoenvironmental and archeological archives.
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    MASTODONS (Mammut americanum) AND THE LATE-GLACIAL VEGETATION OF THE EASTERN USA
    (Geological Society of America, 2018-11) Drazan, Jacqueline L; Mooers, Howard D; Moen, Ron; Pastor, John; Larson, Phillip C; Swartz, Jennifer A; David, Mady K; Bopray, Croix K; Jaksa, Michael P; Messer, Blake S
    Numerous studies of tooth plaques and remains of gut contents of have confirmed that mastodon diet was composed of woody browse species, forbs, nuts, and fruits. However, fossil gut contents also suggest that mastodon diet included significant amounts of spruce, even though spruce is a low-quality, chemically-defended food. Most extant large mammals only browse on spruce when all other food sources are exhausted, and mastodon tusk growth increments indicate that mastodons were not food limited as they moved toward extinction (Fisher, 2009). Here we review the vegetation associated with mastodon habitat from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast, USA, over the period 18-10 ka cal BP using pollen assemblage data from 29 sites located near proboscidean fossil remains. Pollen data were acquired from the Neotoma Database and pollen abundance was converted into species biomass abundance using the Landscape Reconstruction Algorithm (LRA) of Sugita (2004a, 2004b). Although spruce was the dominant conifer throughout the Great Lakes Region until ca. 10 ka cal BP, deciduous species such as ash, oak, and elm comprised 50% or more of the vegetation assemblages even at the earliest and northernmost sites, and remained at similar levels until mastodon extinction. Many of these species have been found in mastodon gut contents. These vegetation assemblage reconstructions support the suggestion that mastodons were not food limited as they neared extinction. Moreover, these analyses of landscapes surrounding mastodon sites strongly suggest that the contemporaneous forest, composed of large amounts of spruce intermixed with ash, elm, and oak, was unlike the forests found in much of eastern North America today.
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    Results of Deer Creek, Carlton County, Minnesota, Groundwater Seepage Investigation
    Mooers, Howard D; Wattrus, Nigel J; hmooers@d.umn.edu; Mooers, Howard D
    Deer Creek is a small perennial stream located in Carlton County and is tributary to the Nemadji River. In the early 1990’s beaver constructed a large dam on private property in Sec. 19, T. 47 N., R.16 W. located on the Wrenshall 7.5 minute quadrangle. According to the land owners, groundwater seepage and discharge of sand to the surface began about the time the beaver arrived. The dam was apparently washed out at least twice. On July 4, 1999, the dam was overtopped and washed out during a series of large thunderstorms. The beaver repaired the dam, but apparently during 2001, representatives of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources removed a beaver dam that impounded a large pond a short distance upstream. This dam was destroyed with dynamite and the rapid drainage of the large pond washed out the dam lower in the drainage. Groundwater discharge is occurring around the perimeter of the former pond. The discharge is focused at discrete points that are easily identified by sand volcanoes. The sand volcanoes are located along fault scarps that are the surface expression of rotational slumps. This report summarizes the results of an investigation of groundwater seepage along a reach of Deer Creek, Carlton County, Minnesota. The groundwater seepage is causing excessive turbidity, which affects all aspects of stream ecology and contributes large amounts of sediment to the Nemadji River.
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    Revisiting the Megalithic Yard
    (2020-03-19) Mooers, Howard D; Burley, Paul D
    A long-standing question in British archaeology is whether a standard unit of linear measure was used by Neolithic architects and engineers in the construction of megalithic circles. Well-developed trade networks were established throughout the Near East into northern Europe by 4000 BC and commerce required standardized measure of trade goods. Well before this time, standardized linear measure was in use for surveying in the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile agricultural regions. Growing evidence, such as the Folkton and Lavant chalk drums, suggest that Neolithic construction included standard measurements. We suggest that measurement standards were introduced in Britain with the immigration of Neolithic people about 4000 BC.