GeoSciences PhD thesis and dissertation collection
Recent Submissions
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Understanding wastewater from hydraulic fracturing to minimise environmental risk
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-30)Hydraulic fracturing to extract shale gas is widely regarded to be socially, environmentally, and politically controversial due to the perceived negative impacts of the process. One issue of environmental contention is the ... -
Understanding the components of specific weight in barley grains: opportunities for improving grain quality and processing efficiency.
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-15)Spring barley is the primary cereal crop grown in Scotland, 35% of the crop is used for malting and 55% for animal feed. There is a clear distinction between barley destined for malting or feed, this is a result of the ... -
Simulated cognitive topologies: automatically generating highly contextual maps for complex journeys
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-15)As people traverse complex journeys, they engage in a number of information interactions across spatial scales and levels of abstraction. Journey complexity is characterised by factors including the number of actions ... -
Visions for woodland expansion in 21st Century Scotland: alternative governance strategies and ecosystem service implications
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-13)In order to tackle global challenges including climate change, biodiversity and habitat loss, deforestation and forest degradation, land system research needs to support decision making which helps to develop sustainable ... -
Chipping away at globalisation: transnational labour organising in the semiconductor industry
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-08-03)In an age of globalised, highly competitive, volatile and financialised markets, the question of how to effectively organise workers to win concrete improvements in their working lives is increasingly difficult to answer. ... -
Evaluating the performance of diverse dairy systems
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-08-03)Quantification of technical and environmental measurements from agricultural systems is of interest for both scientific and social reasons, so that types, sources, and amounts of undesirable outputs can be understood, ... -
High-resolution topography: tools and analysis of the life and death of salt marshes
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-08-03)Salt marshes are grassy platforms that develop on sheltered coasts with high sediment supply. They may be found on sub-tropical shores where they often coexist with mangrove swamps, or in temperate climates where they ... -
Neighbourhood effects, local crime and mental health: longitudinal analyses over the life course
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)Mental health conditions are major contributors to global disability and suffering, with a substantial social and economic burden. Besides well-established individuallevel biopsychosocial determinants, emerging literature ... -
Interpreting Earth's top-of-the-atmosphere broadband radiation flux variability using observations and models
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)Observed broadband radiation fluxes at the top-of-the atmosphere (TOA) and at the Earth’s surface are determined by a complex network of atmospheric and surface processes. It is imperative that climate models are able to ... -
Cycling of dissolved and particulate organic matter in the ocean west of the Antarctic Peninsula
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)Dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the oceans stores as much carbon as the atmosphere for thousands of years. However, our understanding of production, transformation and removal processes of DOM is still incomplete. ... -
Influence of climate change communication on cognitive, emotional and behavioural engagement with adaptation among forest owners in Sweden
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)This thesis examines if, and how, climate change communication can promote individual engagement with adaptation. It tests if communication can affect intrapsychic conditions, behavioural intentions and individual action ... -
Efficient probabilistic inversion of geophysical data
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-07-03)Estimation of uncertainties is critical for subsequent decision making in all applications of geosciences such as geological hazard analysis and risk mitigation, management and exploitation of subsurface resources, and ... -
Spatio-temporal patterns of volcano-tectonic seismicity in active continental rifts
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)Active continental rifts occur because of a complex interplay between tectonic and volcanic processes associated with the incipient creation of a new plate boundary. They have high deformation rates associated with large ... -
Reconstruction of coarse sediment recycling in rivers using cosmogenic nuclides in the Great Plains, USA
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)Fluvial systems are regarded as a critical component of earth surface processes because they link the sediment source and the basin. The characteristics of luvial sediments are influenced by tectonic and climatic processes. ... -
Understanding the control of yield formation in two- and six-row winter barley varieties to target disease management
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)To improve the sustainability of cereal production, fungicides should only be applied to crops where they are likely to result in an economic increase in yield or grain quality. In recent times, there has been increased ... -
Bayesian inference in seismic tomography
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)In a variety of scientific applications we require methods to construct three dimensional maps of properties of the interior of solid media, and in the geosciences the medium is usually the Earth's subsurface. For each ... -
Woody plant distributions along an Amazon-to-Andes elevation gradient: evolutionary trends and tendencies
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)With high taxonomic turnover and exceptional levels of endemism, tropical montane forests are one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. The taxa within these forests frequently occupy narrow elevational ranges, ... -
Development and application of diverse modelling methods to evaluate management practices for sustainable beef finishing systems in Scotland
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)In Scotland, cattle production is considered the main agricultural activity, with beef farmers generating the highest proportion of all Scottish agricultural revenue, mainly from the sale of animals for meat production and ... -
Post-caldera eruptions and pyroclastic density current hazard in the Main Ethiopian Rift
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)The eruption of a peralkaline rhyolite magma has never been observed, yet these eruptions are amongst the most common in the Main Ethiopian Rift Valley since 1 Ma and dominate the eruption record of volcanoes that have ... -
Squeezing the sponge: the role of serpentinites in subduction zones
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-03)Subduction zones are the main drivers of global volatile recycling through the supply of water to the mantle wedge which, in turn, triggers arc volcanism. Serpentinites may contribute greatly to this process due to their ...
