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This study utilises a range of techniques to investigate the feasibility of the geological storage of carbon dioxide. Three specific themes were addressed. Saline aquifers have been proposed as an attractive geological storage medium due to the theoretical storage capacity offered, despite the poor quality and quantity of date available to appraise them. Published methodologies are numerous, which attempt to refine the uncertainty by the introduction of capacity coefficients producing estimates with a variance of up to five orders of magnitude. The source of this uncertainty is investigated using Monte Carlo based sensitivity on a North Sea case study site. This shows the limitations and sources of error inherent in the application of such method. A new method is proposed to account for the limited available input data. Injectivity of geological reservoirs has been highlighted as a potential setback for CO₂ storage. Reservoir hosted compartmentalising membrane seals are shown to permit CO₂ migration without compromising storage integrity in three North Sea examples. The presence of oil as a wetting fluid in the substrate significantly reduces the capillary entry pressure of a membrane seal as a product of CO₂ water contact angle of cos 85° to cos 90°. Cross fault flow rates are shown to be on operational timescales. CO₂ storage projects have been cancelled as a consequence of public objection. Public Engagement has been proven to affect the public’s perception of CCS in both positive and negative directions by facilitating informed decision making. The perception of trust and impartiality are demonstrated to outdo the perception of knowledge and experience. Furthermore the perceived benefits of CCS are evidenced to be tempered by person’s preordained perception either of the technology, or those who advocate it.

Debates around climate change and resource security are reshaping the way cities conceive and develop their infrastructures. Electricity systems play a key role in this transformation, as cities across the world set out to implement local energy strategies via decentralised and low carbon energy systems. Such transformation is of particular relevance for cities in the global South, where rapid economic growth and an increase in energy consumption coexist with acute social needs and unmet infrastructure provision. Through a comparative study of two cities (Thane, in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, India, and São Paulo, in Brazil) this thesis evaluates the way in which public and private stakeholders are implementing a new form of local energy generation through the use of domestic solar hot water (SHW) systems as a mechanism for reducing electricity consumption. By focusing on the governing mechanisms involved in scaling-up solar technologies and the ways by which these are mobilised to serve contrasting interests in the city, the thesis examines the emerging local governance of energy in the global South. The thesis uses Foucault’s analytics of governmentality as a conceptual tool aimed at unpacking the different ways by which energy in the city, in its material and socio-political formations, is thought of, mobilised, and transformed. Through a combination of interviews, site visits, and ethnographic techniques, it examines how this transformation in urban infrastructures is changing the manner in which energy is governed, the spatial and socio-political implications of this transformation, and the way in which the material dimensions of SHW systems influence the transformation process. The thesis discusses the governmental rationales involved in the making of a local governance of energy, the key governmental techniques involved in operationalizing a solar energy regime, and the multiple ways in which energy subjects are imagined within this process.

Meltwater drainage beneath glaciers and ice sheets is intimately linked to their dynamics. Meltwater may increase ice velocity if it acts to lubricate the bed; conversely, an efficient subglacial meltwater drainage system may preclude meltwater induced ice acceleration by limiting the amount of water available to facilitate sliding. Thus, understanding the nature of meltwater flow beneath ice masses is crucial for predicting how ice sheets and glaciers will react to increased meltwater input. However, direct observation of subglacial meltwater drainage systems is extremely difficult, meaning that indirect methods such as remote sensing, numerical modelling, dye tracing and geophysical survey are the only way to observe this environment. These methods often suffer from excessive uncertainty and poor spatial and, particularly, temporal resolution. This thesis presents the results of an alternative approach, using the geomorphological record of eskers to understand the former behaviour of meltwater beneath the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) in Canada, and at Breiðamerkurjӧkull in Iceland. Eskers are elongate, sinuous ridges of glaciofluvial sand and gravel deposited in glacial drainage channels. Despite a large body of research on eskers, no systematic analysis of the large-scale properties of eskers, or the implications this may have for understanding subglacial meltwater, has yet been undertaken. Eskers are mapped at the ice sheet (continental) scale in Canada from 678 Landsat ETM+ images and at high resolution (~30 cm) from 407 aerial photographs of the Breiðamerkurjӧkull foreland, in order to address three outstanding questions: (i) What controls the pattern and morphology of eskers? (ii) How did subglacial drainage systems evolve during ice sheet deglaciation? (iii) How can eskers be used to further our understanding of subglacial hydrology? Over 20,000 eskers are mapped in Canada, revealing that esker systems are up to 760 km long, and are surprisingly straight. The spacing between eskers is relatively uniform and they exhibit little change in elevation from one end to another. As the LIS deglaciated between 13 cal ka and 7 cal ka, eskers increased in frequency, which is interpreted to represent an increase in meltwater drainage in channelized, rather than distributed, systems. Eskers are abundant over the resistant rocks of the Canadian Shield and also show a strong preference for formation in areas covered with till. Esker length, sinuosity and spacing appear to be unrelated to the underlying geology. Finally, two types of complex esker systems are proposed: esker fan complexes and topographically constrained esker complexes. The formation of esker complexes is dependent on sediment and meltwater supply and the pre-existing topography controls the overall shape of the esker systems.

With empirically-grounded and theoretically-inferred consideration in this thesis, I bring into focus a vast ‘collection’ of components entailed in lived experiences of pregnancy losses and, in particular, foreground the ways in which spaces and places are intimately involved. This includes, for example, attending to medical settings such as hospitals, workplaces, homes and gardens, online support communities, cemeteries and other memorial locations in addition to bodies which are simultaneously material and emotional. Since pregnancy losses are inter-personal, I also discuss social relations between women, their embryos, foetuses, babies and/or children, medical staff, partners, family members, friends, work colleagues, online group users and ‘wider society’. The multiplicity of components within, and across, participants’ experiences serves to simultaneously break apart and reassemble the label I selected for the research of ‘pregnancy losses’. I utilise several sub-disciplines across the thesis, finding a particularly significant and tricky tension between two particular areas I wish to engage: feminist geographies and the geographies of death and dying. My research weaves together feminist, embodied, emotional geographies through which I seek to understand experiences of pregnancy losses. In doing so, I foreground the richness, depth and complexity of lived experiences by developing understandings of pregnancy losses which embrace, rather than sanitise or marginalise, bodily materiality and social relations as well as emotional dynamics. My thesis serves to bring together and explore the recollections of pregnancy loss experiences, organised around a number of spatial contexts and activities. These are reflected in the focus of each chapter in terms of interior bodies, social relations, bodily fluids, online sites, external skins and practices of memorialisation. My discussions work to ‘collect’ together understandings about the somewhat paradoxical fullness and variety of accumulated meanings that can be held about pregnancy loss experiences.

This thesis examines the role of cultural creativity in urban belonging. It explores some of the people, places and organisations involved in producing and consuming Bristol as a creative city, to show that this performance is a contingent achievement. Drawing on the performance practices of spoken word, scripted theatre and Carnival in Bristol, the thesis argues that this instability of cultural creativity is played out through a dynamic of order and disorder. This is illustrated through the manner in which four elements of creative practice take place in Bristol. Firstly, ‘making’ is shown to occur through an emergent order that produces and maintains unstable spaces for creativity in the city. Secondly, such spaces for creativity are worked through by ‘circulating’ pasts that can be both a constraining and a productive force in contemporary belongings. Thirdly, this ambiguity of attachments is played out through acts of ‘expressing’ that both constitute and upset the subject. Fourthly, the ‘fragmenting’ of cultural activity is shown to be both product and producer of such precarious belonging. Taken together these creative movements point to the way culture is vital to building a social world from an individual one, but this is always a fragile construction. The ongoing necessity to belong, however fleetingly, must be balanced with the creative process of culture that is never straightforwardly affirmative. Culture’s tendency towards disorder might be productive but it also results in uncertainty. Without the stability of roles or the continuity of practices, a recurring implication of the order/disorder tension is the attempt to govern culture, to limit the scope of its creativity. The thesis draws out the potential and the constraints of such contingency to work towards a cultural politics of creativity. The creative tension in culture illustrates how people continue to work to belong, how they maintain attachments in the face of uncertainty.

Occupational exposure to dust generated by quarrying siliceous rocks (i.e. sandstone, coal) is a well documented respiratory hazard. Hazard of volcanic ash inhalation is also routinely studied (although less well understood), but the specific respiratory hazard of quarried volcanic deposits is entirely under-researched and is the focus of this study. The two main factors potentially implicated in respiratory toxicity of volcanic quarry dust are: i) crystalline silica content implicated in silicosis and lung cancer; and ii) iron-catalysed hydroxyl radical generation, implicated in inflammation and carcinogenesis. Twelve sites (in New Zealand, Montserrat and Greece), quarrying a range of volcanic deposits, were investigated and compared with volcanic ash samples (to test suitability as an analogue) and dust from non-volcanic quarries (greywacke and sandstone) in an investigation of the physicochemical characteristics which may influence particle surface reactivity. Samples of deposited dust (<1mm size fraction) were collected and 11 of these separated to ≤10μm for further analyses. Compositional analyses (XRF) showed the samples spanned the range of magmatic compositions from mafic to felsic (44-76 wt.% SiO2). The finest material was generated by drilling lava flows (8.3-27.5 cu.vol% <10 μm diameter particles in <1mm fraction), however, several other sample types (i.e. dust on processor) contained high levels of respirable material, akin to volcanic ash from equivalent eruption settings. SEM analyses confirmed particles to be blocky and angular, having aspect ratios between 0.59-0.70 (<10μm fraction). Crystalline silica content was highest (up to 28 wt. %) in dusts from intermediate and felsic quarries where lava domes (or collapse deposits) are mined. Similar levels were observed for dome-collapse ash and greywacke quarry dusts; however, the sandstone quarry dust was 99 wt.% crystalline silica. Hydroxyl radical generation was lower for quarried volcanic samples than for either volcanic ash or sandstone (significant to p≤0.01 for mafic ash/quarry dust). Haemolysis (erythrocyte membrane rupture, an indicator of quartz reactivity) was exhibited by six samples from three quarries, and comparable to the DQ12 quartz positive standard, when adjusted for surface area. These findings may be influenced by the presence of clays, however, as haemolytic samples included those with little crystalline silica. Airborne dust levels (both role-specific and ambient) were measured in the quarries and were mostly within international exposure limits, however, interpretations were limited by the duration of measurements so further work is required. Some workers’ shifts were longer than 8 hours, and workers on Montserrat may also be simultaneously exposed to volcanic ashfall, which should be considered with respect to adherence to regulations in those quarries. Mitigation measures were variable and workers would benefit from better awareness regarding use of non-mandatory respiratory protection. Volcanic quarries pose a hazard distinct from volcanic ash and from non-volcanic quarries. Overall, hazard may be lower than for quarrying other rock types, but further research is needed to better constrain the potential hazards. Until then, a precautionary approach might be taken in quarries where respirable dust levels are high and deposits may contain crystalline silica or iron.

This study addresses the question of post-collisional magmatism and its production mechanisms, addressing especially the mantle processes involved. Numerical experiments are conducted to examine the effects of viscosity weakening by subduction related water content increase in the upper mantle and the resulting sub-lithospheric small-scale convection. The models presented incorporate parameterized and thermodynamic melting models, and take into account variable relationships between mantle water content, mantle strength, water extraction by partial melting and related depletion stiffening. The results demonstrate the possible importance of so called ”hydrous activation” of the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary: The post-collisional loss of the lithospheric mantle can be initiated and augmented by the elevated upper mantle water contents that enhances the sub-lithospheric small-scale convection, increases heat flow into the lithosphere, and produces localized lithosphere thin- ning. The irregular spatial and temporal melting patterns and the mantle melt volumes correspond to typical post-collisional mantle-derived magmatism. The small-scale convection can be localized into an edge-driven convection by significant lithosphere thickness gradients, e.g. craton edges. This helps to understand the uplift and volcanism observed in intraplate orogenic settings and implies the importance of these processes at other locations of lithosphere thickness gradients, e.g. recent collision zones. The lithospheric thinning produced by small-scale convection can initiate whole lithosphere mantle loss via positive feedback mechanisms: gradual thinning of the lithosphere causes partial melting in the lowermost crust, weakening the crust-mantle boundary and providing a detachment mechanism for the lithospheric mantle, leading to stronger lithosphere thinning and, finally, exposure of the lower crust to the hot asthenosphere. Small-scale convection and processes related to or initiated by it offer new insight and future research possibilities in studies of continental collision magmatism.

This research investigates housing-led regeneration in the post-industrial area of East Durham to examine whether a gap exists between policy expectation and regeneration, on-the-ground. By engaging with the themes of uneven development and stigma and marginality, the thesis argues that housing-led regeneration policies have exacerbated already existing unevenness and marginality, in their bid to regenerate areas and promote sustainability. This process is played out in the face of shifting economic and political issues. The housing and wider economic market boom of the early to mid 2000’s witnessed a shift in the emphasis placed on housing as a driver to renewal in East Durham; an approach which was sharply hit by the housing market slump, credit crunch and accompanying austerity measures. These funding cuts placed a greater emphasis on the private sector to fund (amongst other things) housing. In addition a rescaling of governing structures from regional and local authority to sub-regional has, the research contends, further influenced and shaped uneven development and marginality. Through the lens of post-political theory, this thesis engages with the relationships between those involved in housing-led regeneration to examine conflict within the process, to show how consensus is managed. Empirical data was gathered using the case study of East Durham. This involved the examination of secondary data in the form of government publications, official statistics, and media reports. The data is derived from extensive, in-depth interviewing of a sample of representatives from County Durham Unitary Council; builders and developers; private surveyors and planners; private landlords; social housing providers; property managers; central government agents; and third sector representatives. A range of county, local and community meetings and forums were attended to provide an ethnographic insight into the process of governing and the relationships which exist within the area.

The timing and extent of former ice sheet fluctuations can demonstrate leads and lags during periods of climatic change and the forcing factors responsible, but this requires robust glacial chronologies. Patagonia, in southern South America, offers a well preserved record of glacial geomorphology over a large latitudinal range that is affected by key climatic systems in the Southern Hemisphere, but establishing the timing of ice advances has proven problematic. This thesis targets five southernmost ice lobes that extended from the former Patagonian Ice Sheet during the Quaternary; from north to south: the Río Gallegos, Skyring, Otway, Magellan and Bahía Inútil – San Sebastián (BI-SSb) ice lobes. The region is chosen because there is ambiguity over the age of glacial limits, which have been hypothesised to relate to different glacial cycles over hundreds of thousands of years but yield cosmogenic nuclide exposure data dominantly < 50 ka. This contradiction is the focus of the thesis: was the sequence of glacial limits deposited over multiple glacial cycles, or during the last glacial cycle? A new geomorphological map is used to reconstruct glacial limits and to help target new dating. Cosmogenic nuclide depth-profiles through glacial outwash are used to date glacial limits whilst accounting for post-depositional processes. These reveal that limits of the BI-SSb lobe hypothesized to date from MIS 12 (ca. 450 ka) and 10 (ca. 350 ka) were actually deposited during the last glacial cycle, with the best-dated profile giving an MIS 3 age of ca. 30 ka, indicating an extensive advance prior to the global Last Glacial Maximum (gLGM). A glacial reconstruction indicates that this may not have been unique to the BI-SSb lobe, and a compilation of published dates reveals that similar advances during the last glacial cycle indicate related forcing factors operating across Patagonia and New Zealand.