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In 2014, the British Geological Survey (BGS) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) were tasked with developing new centres for research into the sub-surface environment to aid the responsible development of new low-carbon energy technologies in the United Kingdom (UK) and internationally. Under the United Kingdom Geoenergy Observatories (UKGEOS) project, two sites were chosen, including the Glasgow Geothermal Energy Research Field Site (GGERFS) in the Cuningar Loop-Dalmarnock area in the east of Glasgow (Figure 1). The aims of the GGERFS facility include de-risking technical aspects of mine water geothermal to assess the feasibility of extracting/storing heat energy in an urbanised former coal mine setting (Monaghan 2019; Monaghan et al. 2017; Monaghan et al. 2018). The initial phase of the GGERFS project entails installing a network of boreholes into the superficial deposits and bedrock in the Cuningar Loop-Dalmarnock area of Glasgow to characterise the geological and hydrogeological setting and assess the potential for shallow geothermal energy. The borehole network is also designed for baseline monitoring to assess the environmental status before and during the lifetime of the project. A ground gas baseline is considered important at the GGERFS site to enable us to determine if there are significant ongoing ground gas contributions from sources such as (i) leakage from mine workings/features related to legacy mine workings (ii) gas generated from components of the made ground (building rubble, mine water, other waste) and (iii) natural soil processes. The made ground at Cuningar Loop is known to have been formed from a range of prior land uses (see Ramboll 2018 a, b) and is commonly around 10 m thick. Ground gas measurement is an important tool for monitoring geoenergy sites since sensitive measurements of, for example, CO2, CH4 and associated gases can be made directly within the biosphere in which we live. Monitoring of ground gas in the vadose zo

Geochemical and related studies have been made of near-surface sediments from the River Clyde estuary and adjoining areas, extending from Glasgow to the N, and W as far as the Holy Loch on the W coast of Scotland, UK. Multibeam echosounder, sidescan sonar and shallow seismic data, taken with core information, indicate that a shallow layer of modern sediment, often less than a metre thick, rests on earlier glacial and post-glacial sediments. The offshore Quaternary history can be aligned with onshore sequences, with the recognition of buried drumlins, settlement of muds from quieter water, probably behind an ice dam, and later tidal delta deposits. The geochemistry of contaminants within the cores also indicates shallow contaminated sediments, often resting on pristine pre-industrial deposits at depths less than 1 m. The distribution of different contaminants with depth in the sediment, such as Pb (and Pb isotopes), organics and radionuclides, allow chronologies of contamination from different sources to be suggested. Dating was also attempted using microfossils, radiocarbon and 210Pb, but with limited success. Some of the spatial distribution of contaminants in the surface sediments can be related to grain-size variations. Contaminants are highest, both in absolute terms and in enrichment relative to the natural background, in the urban and inner estuary and in the Holy Loch, reflecting the concentration of industrial activity.

The curriculum guide presents activity suggestions for teachers to use with autistic students in grades K-12. Brief remarks are offered on placement criteria, student characteristics, and parent participation. Goals, objectives, procedures, materials, domain areas, and evaluation approaches are listed for eight skill areas: (1) pre-vocational (measuring weight, height, liquid, and telling time); (2) vocational (housekeeping, sheltered workshop); (3) recreation (individual and group sports, Special Olympics); (4) academic (money and time concepts, survival sight vocabulary, reading comprehension); (5) language/communication (functional language and communication skills); (6) behavioral; (7) sexual/social (body parts, menstruation); and (8) activities of daily living (meal preparation, food purchase, clothing skills, independent bathroom skills, basic personal first aid skills). (CL)

The requirements for quantitative data in geological surveillance are ever increasing; traditional geological maps and 3D models are evolving into quantitative conceptual models based on a broad range of analytical measurements of surface and subsurface properties. The British Geological Survey's Geochemical Baseline Survey of the Environment (G-BASE) project provides one such source of data: national coverage of stream sediment, stream water and soil geochemistry. While this geochemical data is of obvious benefit to our understanding of the present day surface environment, the rich geological diversity of south west England provides an ideal setting in which to showcase the potential of such data to enhance our understanding of the underlying bedrock. In this paper we use compositional data analysis to extract lithostratigraphic information from G-BASE stream sediment data. We find that variations in G-BASE stream sediment geochemistry correspond very closely to mapped variations in bedrock geology. Geochemical variations between the 16 lithostratigraphic domains into which we classify the region provide insight into the distinct geological histories of the lithologies within each domain, particularly in relation to depositional environments and sediment provenance.

Recently, the British Geological Survey’s (BGS) Geochemical Baseline Survey of the Environment (G-BASE) project carried out extensive surveys of rural and urban soil quality in the River Clyde catchment (Clyde basin) on the west coast of Scotland. The Clyde basin is interesting as it extends from a rural upland environment in the south, to the River Clyde estuary in the north. The catchment contains an historic lead mining area known as Leadhills that was active until the mid 20th century. In addition, the estuary and lower reaches of the river formed the transport and shipping links that drove the development of Scotland’s main conurbation – the city of Glasgow, which is centred on the River Clyde. Although heavy industry and mining have now declined, the newly available G-BASE soil datasets demonstrate the impacts of urbanisation and the post-industrial legacy of the Glasgow conurbation as well as of historical mining activities on environmental quality.

Geological mapping, the classification of bedrock into distinct identifiable units, has traditionally been conducted at the discretion of the field geologist on the basis of human-observable properties such as those of mineralogical composition and texture. In recent years technological developments have allowed the collection and analysis of ever more advanced quantitative geoscientific datasets. We are now approaching a point where migration of traditional mapping procedures to the digital domain is a feasible reality, with such benefits as consistency, transferability and transparency. One issue that we encounter is that the most geologically informative measurements, such as those of chemical composition, tend to have their sampling density limited by their high cost. Meanwhile, remote sensed data will tend towards extremely high sampling density, but may lack stand-alone geological significance. Nonparametric regression techniques have the potential to negate this issue by modelling the most geologically informative measurements as complex interactions of multiple remote sensed covariates. In this poster we present the use of random forest regression to model soil geochemistry in south west England using remote sensed data, and demonstrate how clustering of the predicted high resolution soil geochemistry is able to differentiate geological units – a process that can be trained to match pre-existing rock classifications. We find that random forest regression based on remote sensed data is capable of predicting element concentrations in soils with superior accuracy to that of ordinary kriging of sparsely sampled point data. Crucially the random forest predictions incorporate the high resolution structure of the remote sensed covariates. This allows geological units, in this case defined purely on the basis of the geochemical composition of their soils, to be mapped with sharp boundaries limited only by the resolution of the remote sensed covariates. It seems like

The British Geological Survey, in partnership with the Universities of Sussex and Bonn, is investigating and seeking to prove a new technology concept for the non-invasive volumetric imaging and routine temporal monitoring of the thermal state of permafrost (Figure 1), a key indicator of global climate change. Capacitive Resistivity Imaging (CRI), a technique based upon a low-frequency, capacitively-coupled measurement approach (Kuras et al., 2006) is applied in order to emulate Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) methodology, but without the need for galvanic contact on frozen soils or rocks. Recent work has shown that temperature-calibrated ERT using galvanic sensors (Figure 2) is capable of imaging recession and re-advance of rock permafrost in response to the ambient temperature regime. However, the use of galvanic sensors can lead to significant practical limitations on field measurements due to high levels of and large variations in contact resistances between sensors and the host material as it freezes and thaws Figure 3). The capacitive technology developed here overcomes this problem and provides a more robust means of making high-quality resistance measurements with permanently installed sensors over time. Reducing the uncertainty associated with uncontrolled noise from galvanic sensors increases the value of time-lapse ERT datasets in the context of monitoring permafrost.

The soil geochemical survey of the Greater London (UK) area, comprising over 6400 sample sites, is the most detailed and comprehensive urban mapping project carried out to date. In order to give insight into the environmental impacts of urbanisation and industrialisation, as well as to characterise the geochemical baseline of the UK’s most populous city, samples were collected at a density of 4 sites per km2. The <2 mm fraction from the topsoil samples (5 – 20 cm) was analysed by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRFS). Resulting data for over 50 elements were subject to rigorous quality control procedures to ensure accurate and inter-comparable data. Anthropogenic modification to soil baseline concentrations is evident across the urban area. A notable feature is the ‘central zone’ of higher concentrations of, for example, Pb, Sb, Ca, Zn, Cu, Sn and As in the oldest, most intensely urbanised parts of the city. In the cases of Pb and Sb in particular, high-density traffic is a likely source. Local ‘hotspots’ of elevated concentrations, related to particular anthropogenic activities, can also be identified. For example Se, Cd, Ni, Cu and Zn show particularly elevated concentrations in the vicinity of an industrial area on the banks of the river Lee in north London, whilst Cr and Cd also display high concentrations around Heathrow airport in the west. Despite these anthropogenic controls, a strong geological control on soil chemistry is observed for many elements. This is particularly evident in south London where high baseline concentrations of, for example, Ca, Ce, I, La, Mn, Nd, P, Sr, Y and Zr, relate to the influence of the Cretaceous chalk bedrock. In the north-western quadrant of London and along the northern boundary of the project area, high baseline concentrations for a number of elements (Al, Fe, Mg, K, Cr, La, Ti, Ga, Rb and Ni) are associated with the outcrop of Palaeogene clays. Elevated levels of Hf and Zr correspond to areas of Eocene marine and Quaterna

Principal component analysis of high-density, regional soil geochemical data was used to reveal element associations within Mid-Pleistocene glacigenic till deposits across Central and Eastern England. Results have helped to characterise tills by their geochemical composition at a regional scale, leading to a better understanding of, (i) which parent materials tills have been derived from, (ii) sediment transportation paths and flow trajectories of the British Ice Sheet, and (iii) the evolution of the British Ice Sheet during the Mid-Pleistocene.

Data conditioning procedures involve the verification, quality control and data levelling processes that are necessary to make data fit for the purpose for which it is to be used. It is something that has to be planned at the outset of any project generating geochemical data. Whether it is in the sampling phase, for example, determining how sites and samples should have a unique identity, or through to the data presentation phase in which disparate data sets may have to be joined to form a seamless map. This account describes the methods currently used by the British Geological Survey’s regional geochemical mapping project that has been generating geochemical data for various sample media for nearly 40 years. It is important that users of the data are given information that will help them ascertain whether the provided environmental data is suitable for the purpose of its intended use.

Compilation of GBASE England & Wales stream sediment data for a specific enquiry by an academic client, but which will now be used as an e-data resource for range of enquiry requests.

Compilation of GBASE England & Wales stream sediment data for a specific enquiry by an academic client, but which will now be used as an e-data resource for range of enquiry requests.