The Barmer Basin, western India, is a well-known and prospected petroleum system. However, the Lower Cretaceous Ghaggar-Hakra Formation has not been recognised as basin fill and not documented prior to this study. The formation outcrops in rotational fault blocks at the Sarnoo Hills and surrounding areas, on the eastern Barmer Basin margin. The thesis here describes and analyses the nature and evolution of the formation at both outcrop and within the subsurface, producing facies and depositional models. At outcrop, the deposits of the Ghaggar-Hakra Formation contain three dominant fluvial sandstone successions, known as the Darjaniyon-ki Dhani, Sarnoo and Nosar sandstones. The Darjaniyon-ki Dhani Sandstone is a gravel bedload dominated, low sinuosity fluvial system, the Sarnoo Sandstone represents a mixed-load, high sinuosity fluvial system and the Nosar Sandstone is highly erosive well-developed, bedload dominated, low sinuosity fluvial system. The intervening mudrocks represent floodplain deposits. The growth and development of the fluvial system between the Darjaniyon-ki Dhani and Sarnoo sandstones indicates that the climate and tectonics were stable at the time of deposition. However, the Nosar Sandstone represents rejuvenation of the fluvial system as it is suggested that this change in deposition style is due to the activation of the fault network forming the Barmer Basin and West Indian Rift System. The facies models derived from this work are applied to the subsurface to provide interpretations of the Cretaceous succession. This provides significant insights into the sedimentology, geometries of the sediment packages with the net to gross and the petrography, all indicating the reservoir quality of the Ghaggar-Hakra subsurface material.

A systematic series of high-silica fluoride MFI zeolites were efficiently synthesised using a variety of shape and size structure directing agents. The effects of these structure directing agents on the zeolite synthesised have been studied by the complementary use of X-ray diffraction and solid state NMR. These 14N, 13C and 29Si NMR experiments yield information about the orientation of the structure directing agent within zeolite pores. They also identify covalently bonded fluoride in the form of pentacoordinated silicon whereby the first case of static and dynamic ordering of fluoride in the same zeolite is discovered by changing the structure directing agent. A two-dimensional solid state NMR experiment has also been used to study 13C isotopically labelled silicalite-1 synthesised using n-methyltributylammonium iodide. The double cross polarisation (DCP) experiment allows the distance to be determined between the structure directing agent and silicon framework for the first time in a zeolite system using NMR. This experiment has the potential to be replicated for silicalite-1 zeolites synthesised using alternate structure directing agents or for other zeolites systems.

With the large amount of free Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) datasets that have been made available in recent years, wide-scale mapping of land surface displacements with differential SAR interferometry (DInSAR) has become increasingly popular. It can provide a more comprehensive picture of the spatial distribution of vertical surface motion of an entire country and help identify areas of deformation on local and larger spatial scales. The key aim of this thesis is to assess the application of DInSAR for detection and wide-scale monitoring of vertical land motion in Scotland. This is the first attempt to produce a spatially continuous deformation map for the country, providing a nationwide means of investigating land motion due to different causes. The different vertical surface deformation phenomena that can be expected in Scotland are all rather subtle, with slow and low-magnitude motion characteristics. On the one hand, this includes signals from ‘soft’ land surface covers, such as the extensive peatlands that comprise more than 20% of the Scottish landmass. On the other hand, ‘hard’ surfaces, such as urban or exposed rock areas can show motions due to, for example, mining subsidence, neo-tectonic fault displacements or large-scale crustal motion associated with glacio-isostatic uplift. A limited precision of the explored SAR datasets and the presence of residual orbital and atmospheric artefacts, make it difficult to discern actual ground deformation signals from noise. Therefore, this thesis is of exploratory character to assess what can and cannot be detected. This study uses archived L-band ALOS PALSAR and C-band Envisat ASAR data to assess the possibilities of wide-scale mapping of vertical land motion in Scotland. Seven ALOS satellite tracks with 8-12 SAR epochs approximately between 11/12/2006 and 07/03/2011, as well as two Envisat tracks with 15 dates each between 05/11/2002 and 03/04/2007, spanning the country from north to south, were processed to form multi-temporal interferogram stacks. Since most of Scotland is of a rural nature, the Small Baseline InSAR technique (SBAS) is chosen to invert the interferograms into displacement time series and mean velocity maps. Before time series analysis is performed, a general assessment of the applicability of DInSAR in Scotland is made. Geometrical limitations as well as the quality of the SAR data in terms of interferometric coherence in the two frequency bands are evaluated. Foreshortening, layover and shadow do not pose any significant restrictions to large-scale DInSAR mapping across Scotland, especially in the Highlands. A detailed coherence study for L-band and C-band emphasizes the differences in mapping capabilities of both wavelengths. For ALOS, a Scotland-wide good coherence well above 0.2 can be achieved, which delivers a high density of ground measurement points. Even the wide-spread grassy surface covers in Scotland, such as dwarf shrub heath and acid grassland, lead to relatively high interferometric coherence over longer temporal baselines of several months. With the applied Envisat data, C-band is only coherent on surfaces with stable properties, such as urban areas in the Midland Valley and rock platforms in the north of Scotland. Major limiting effects for SAR interferometry are image artefacts that are essentially a by-product of the SAR image acquisition process and subsequent interferometric procedure. Orbital inaccuracies in the repeat-pass geometry, as well as temporally and spatially changing atmospheric conditions, are both well-known and frequently-researched DInSAR problems. Different processing strategies are explored in this study in an attempt to reduce these artefacts and extract the ground deformation signals. For the correction of residual orbital effects, interferogram-based network techniques are tested and an extension proposed that enhances the quality of the corrected interferograms. This extended version introduces additional constraints to the estimation of the orbital planes by employing phase loop triplets. Atmospheric issues are addressed in a twofold manner. Tropospheric artefacts are corrected with High Resolution ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) Zenith Total Delay maps, derived from Newcastle University’s GACOS (Generic Atmospheric Correction Online Service for InSAR) system. The ALOS data over Scotland, but also to a smaller extent the Envisat data, are significantly affected by ionospheric distortions. They are addressed with a statistical correction technique that was devised for this study and applies Principal Component Analysis to subsets of interferograms that share a mutual acquisition date. Five different processing strategies (A-E) are tested, each consisting of a different combination of these various image artefact correction methods. The optimal one is chosen for processing the entire SAR datasets over Scotland. The extensions to the different orbital and atmospheric correction techniques, that were devised here, are implemented into the SBAS time series processing chain within the in-house ‘InSAR TS+AEM’ software package, allowing them to be potentially used by other users in the InSAR community. In the final deformation results, the most obvious surface displacement signal that can be discerned with the evaluated ALOS and Envisat datasets is subsidence (in radar line-of-sight, LOS). This signal is consistent across extensive peatland areas. The detection of surface height changes in Scotland’s widespread peatlands has implications for a more comprehensive assessment of possible peat shrinkage and/or erosion and carbon losses. Within the Midland Valley, peatlands showed average subsidence trends of ca. 2.2 and 3.7 mm/yr for two ALOS scenes. Some time series extracted from peatland sites in that area indicated peat subsidence of 8 to 9 mm/yr. While in the Central Belt of Scotland these peat surfaces are spatially confined, they can make up much larger and continuous areas elsewhere, as in Sutherland and Caithness. Here again, the ALOS DInSAR measurements mostly indicate subsidence in LOS in the low mm-range. With the present datasets, it is not possible at this stage to achieve a precision that is good enough to detect underlying long-wavelength crustal deformation signals on a nationwide scale across the range of Scotland. On a more local scale, however, uplift signals in LOS are evident in the Envisat and ALOS datasets, though without more detailed (in situ) investigations, it is not possible to attribute this uplift definitively to a geophysical process. If it is associated with hard surface covers, such as exposed rock in the Northwest Highlands or man-made structures in the vicinity of some GPS stations, this upwards vertical motion might indicate a glacial rebound signal, if other motion factors can be neglected. On these surfaces, Envisat and ALOS data showed uplift rates in LOS of ca. 1-3.5 mm/yr. The precision of the derived deformation products is limited, i.e. areas that are seemingly reliable are intermixed with areas that contain too abundant remaining noise and artefacts. However, an uncertainty analysis and validation of the DInSAR data with independent adjacent and overlapping satellite tracks, as well as external continuous GPS data across Scotland is promising. Deformation trends between sensors and between independent tracks of the same sensor are mostly consistent and relatively low root mean squared errors between DInSAR deformation measurements and the assumed linear deformation model could be achieved.

Den svenska ön Fårö, belägen norr om Gotland i sydvästra Östersjön, är ett populärt turistmål känt för sitt unika landskap och säregna landformer. Den siluriska kalkstensberggrunden reflekteras i den varierade kustlinjen av alternerande uddar och vikar av olika geomorfologisk karaktär. Glaciala-, fluviala- och kustprocesser har format det pre-glaciala landskapet under expansionen och reträtten av det senaste istäcket och den efterföljande post-glaciala, isostatiska landhöjningen. Ett geomorfologiskt klassificeringssystem har utformats specifikt anpassat för Fårö kust med målet att undersöka, beskriva och analysera de naturliga förhållanden som skapat dess karaktäristiska landskap. Klassificeringssystemet har tillämpats i en GIS-baserad kartläggning som delar in studieområdet i 18 landskapsenheter baserat på unika kombinationer av vågenergiförhållanden, topografi och berggrundsegenskaper, samt förekomst av sediment och erosiva landformer. En analys av skillnader och likheter mellan landskapsenheternas kustprofiler tyder på att lokala förhållanden och variationer i enskilda faktorer spelar en avgörande roll för den resulterande geomorfologin. Detta betonar nödvändigheten och betydelsen av att ta hänsyn till samspelet mellan faktorer på olika skalor för att förstå vilka konsekvenser förändrade klimatförhållanden kan komma att ha på Fårös kustlandskap.

Denna uppsats syfte har varit att studera jordarter och morfologi försöka bestämma om skreden i dagsläget kan betecknas som recenta eller stabiliserade. Detta bla. genom att studera vegetation; ålder och utbredning av denna. beskriva vad människorna i området gjort efteråt.

The timing of the ice margin retreat of the Late Glacial Patagonian ice sheet (PIS) in southern Patagonia has been the object of discussion for many years. In order to resolve questions about the complex response of the PIS to past climate change; geological interpretation and modelling data needs evaluation against absolute chronology. The aim of this project is to re-map the landforms and sediment of the Magellan Strait, to reconstruct the late glacial ice retreat during the deglaciation and to investigate the applicability of OSL dating to glaciofluvial sediment from this region. Unfortunately previous studies have shown that the quartz OSL luminescence characteristics, of this region, are unsuitable for dating. Therefore the potential of K-feldspar IRSL signals are reviewed and examined. Samples were collected from landforms interpreted as being deposited during the deglaciation of the Magellan ice lobe, with an expected age range between 17.5 and 23 ka, and from recently deposited sediments (<1 ka). Small aliquots and single grain distributions were studied by applying a IR50 SAR protocol with IRSL stimulation at 50°C for 100 s and a preheat of 250 °C (held at 60 s) are measured.  Appropriate uncertainties were assigned to the dose distribution data, by quantifying the laboratory over-dispersion (σOD) parameter (22.2% for small aliquots and 17.7 % for single grains) in laboratory bleached and γ-irradiated samples.  Thereafter the possible effects of incomplete bleaching and anomalous fading were examined. For the natural samples environmental over-dispersions between 30–130 % and mean interpreted residual doses between ~30 and 80 Gy were observed. Statistical models were further applied to identify the part of the dose population that was most likely to have been completely bleached. The models are consistent with each other which imply that they successfully identified the fully-bleached grains in the distributions; however observed discrepancies between the small aliquot and single grain data were also discussed. Large g2day values (on average 7.92±0.6%/decade for large aliquots) were observed but nevertheless, comparing our fading corrected ages to the expected age range result in 2 out of 3 ages consistent with geological interpretation and an established radiocarbon and cosmogenic nuclide chronology suggesting that this correction was done successfully. The results of these investigations suggest that small aliquot/single grain fading can be corrected for using an average value and that KF-IRSL dating is applicable in this part of Southern Patagonia. The third age is supported by an alternative geological interpretation while the two consistent ages imply that in the Magellan Strait the hills of the Brunswick peninsula (70-100 m.a.s.l) were deglaciated at around ~21 ka. Finally some recommendations for future research are considered.

No description available.

The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) recommends subsidies are only granted for wooded pastures with less than 100 trees per hectare. This arbitrary guidance exists despite these habitats being among the most biodiverse in rural Europe. To date, most biodiversity research in agricultural landscapes has focused on plants, birds and invertebrates. Bats are also important bio-indicators of agricultural landscapes, but to my knowledge no study has explicitly focused on bat diversity in relation to this policy. In this thesis, I investigate how bat activity, foraging and species richness is affected in twenty-six wooded pastures along a gradient of tree density, from open to dense pastures. In parallel, nearby open fields and deciduous woodlands were sampled, creating a triplet of habitats being surveyed simultaneously. Bat species were divided into feeding guilds to explore how functional diversity affects response to habitat and landscape configuration. The overall contribution of wooded pastures to the species pool of bats within a heterogeneous, low intensity agricultural landscape was also explored. I found a consistent increase in bat activity and species richness within wooded pastures along the tree density gradient and across most feeding guilds. This in combination with shrub density was the strongest predictor of total bat activity and foraging; whilst structural diversity of pastures was most strongly correlated with species richness. Wooded pastures contributed more to total species richness than forested habitats. Interestingly, higher activity levels of forest feeding specialists were observed in pastures compared to forests. At the landscape level, amount of water and deciduous forest were the strongest predictors of bat activity. This study demonstrates that tree density within wooded pastures is not a limiting factor of bat activity and that other habitat and landscape parameters are important. Wooded pastures may also be an important component of current landscapes with little remaining deciduous forest. In conclusion, focusing solely on tree density limits will not help to preserve the ecological requirements for bats within agricultural landscapes.

I Afrika Söder om Sahara är majs idag den viktigaste basfödan för befolkningen. Området är idag också en mycket sårbar region gällande klimatets effekt på jordbruket och de kommande klimatförändringarna förväntas att förvärra situationen. Det finns dock delregioner som kan dra fördel av dessa förändringar. Denna studie jämför vetenskapliga studier och statistik rörande delregionerna Östafrika och Södra Afrika i frågor om majsproduktion, odlingsarealen för majs, klimatologiska förutsättningar och kommande klimatförändringar för att finna orsakssamband mellan majsen och klimatet. Östafrika är en varmare och mer nederbördsrik region än vad Södra Afrika är. Enligt inhämtad statistik har majsproduktionen ökat i båda regionerna mellan åren 1961-2013. I Östafrika haräven den odlade arealen ökat under samma tidsperiod, i Södra Afrika har den däremot reducerats. Båda regionerna har upplevt en temperaturökning under 1900-talet, gällande förändringar i nederbörden går det inte att utläsa några generella förändringsmönster. Trots osäkerheten kring framtidens klimat verkar det sannolikt att temperaturerna i regionerna kommer att fortsätta öka, medan nederbörden förväntas öka i Östafrika och minska i Södra Afrika. Resultatet i denna studie pekar på att Östafrikas idag naturliga klimatologiska förutsättningar är mer fördelaktiga för majsproduktion, och att de förväntade klimatförändringarna möjligtvis påverkar situationen marginellt. Södra Afrika, med lägre temperaturer och nederbörd samt extremare El Niño-förhållanden, är en redan mer sårbar region där de pågående och kommande klimatförändringarna har en större negativ inverkan på majsproduktionen.

The construction of the Dempster Highway, a 736 km long gravel road located in the northern Yukon Territory, is believed to have initiated acid rock drainage nearby Eagle Plains. In this study, the spatio-temporal potential of dendrogeochemistry to understand the impacts of acidity on black spruce is testes and geochemical methods are used to examine the origin of acid rock drainage. The dendrogeochemical results suggest that the construction of the Dempster Highway in the 1970's did not initiate acid rock drainage near Eagle Plains, since elevated concentrations of trace and heavy metals were recorded in the 1940's, comparatively to the control site. However, in the acidified zone, there is an increase in trace metals in the 1970's, suggesting that the construction of the road amplified the release of acidity by exposing fresh pyrite-rich shale to the surface. The acidified stream, which originates from the excavated area, has a pH value averaging 3.1 +/- 0.3 and a solute concentration several orders of magnitude greater than the surface water collected from the adjacent control site. Active layer soluble ions are also characterized by a similar geochemical trend, although their concentration is slightly less. The plot of solute concentrations of the acidified stream and active layer soluble ions versus sulfates give similar slopes, suggesting a recycling of solutes, it is proposed that, after acid rock drainage was initiated, the effect of seasonal freeze-thaw of the active layer played an important rote in maintaining and recycling the acidity in the stream. During the freeze-back of the active layer, Fe sulfate minerals would precipitate, thus producing a large amount of H + that would be stored in the active layer. During the thaw season, this acidity would be released, thus enhancing further dissolution of clays and alumino-silicate minerals. The release of these contaminants by acid rock drainage, not only causes a perturbation of the water quality, but has a negative impact on the sensitive nearby Arctic ecosystem. The vegetation surrounding the acidified stream shows important signs of deterioration, a higher rate of mortality and zones without vegetation. This absence of vegetation has an impact on the depth of seasonal thaw by increasing the depth by twice compared to the adjacent control site.