Geomorphological map of the Sutlej and Yamuna fans, northwestern India. Grant abstract: India is the largest agricultural user of groundwater in the world. The last 40 years has seen a revolutionary shift from large-scale surface water management to widespread groundwater abstraction, particularly in the northwestern states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. As a result of this, northwestern India is now a hotspot of groundwater depletion, with 'the largest rate of groundwater loss in any comparable-sized region on Earth' (Tiwari et al., 2009). This unsustainable use of groundwater becomes even more challenging when set increasing demands from a burgeoning population and industrialisation, together with potential but poorly understood effects of climate-driven changes in the water cycle. There are a number of innovative socio-economic strategies that can address this issue, including enhanced recharge and subsurface water storage, but their implementation and success depend on solid regional understanding of the geology and hydrogeology of the aquifer systems, and of the patterns and rates of groundwater flow and recharge. What we know about regional groundwater resources comes largely from either low-resolution studies based on satellite data, or from local investigations; there has been no large-scale, cross-state integrated study of the groundwater system. Groundwater in northwestern India is thought to be largely hosted within buried, sandy former river channels, which extend from the Himalayas toward the southwest and are separated by fine-grained muds. Only a few channels are visible at the surface; most are buried and their existence must be inferred. Our approach is founded on the premise that we must first understand the geology and geometry of the aquifer system before we can hope to estimate the way it will respond to a complex set of future stresses. This means that we must be able to describe the locations, sizes, and characteristics of these channels as well as their age and three-dimensional pattern. Once these characteristics are determined, we can forecast the likely future behaviour of the system. In this proposal, we will provide, for the first time, a regional assessment of the aquifer system in northwestern India, along with models for its evolution under changes in the water cycle and in the way in which groundwater is used. Our project will combine expertise in sedimentology, stratigraphy, sediment routing and basin evolution, hydrology, and isotope geochemistry to understand the geological framework of the aquifer system, the ages of the groundwaters within it, and the ways in which groundwater levels are likely to evolve over the next 50 years. The outcomes of the proposal will include (1) a comprehensive data base that covers the northwestern Indian aquifer system, (2) much better understanding of regional sources, ages, and flow rates of groundwater, and (3) a suite of predictions for how the groundwater system will respond to a range of different future scenarios.

The dataset contains on-average monthly terrestrial LiDAR surveys conducted on the Lincolnshire coastline following the 2013 storm surge, collected between December 2013 and April 2015. The approximate coordinate locations of the surveys are given as follows: -EmbryoDunes (ED) 53°22'03"N 0°14'54"E -MablethorpeNorthEnd (MNE) 53°21'43"N 0°15'03"E The data were collected to record the rate and nature of recovery of the geomorphology of the back-beach and foredune zones following a storm surge in December 2013. Users interested in nearshore coastal geomorphology dynamics will find the data useful.

The measurements and data contained here were obtained to study the chemical weathering of sedimentary rocks, and more specifically the oxidation of rock organic carbon and the associated release of CO2. The primary aim was to better understand the production and mobility of the trace element rhenium during weathering, because this element has been proposed as a proxy for rock organic carbon oxidation. The study focused on three Alpine catchments that drain sedimentary rocks, which all experience moderate to high erosion rates where oxidative weathering rates are thought to operate faster. Two catchments were located in Switzerland - the Erlenbach and Vogelbach, and one catchment in Colorado, USA - the East River. To study chemical weathering and the production and mobility of rhenium, a suite of samples were collected to capture the source and products of weathering reactions. These focused on stream and river water, river sediments and weathering profiles collected on sedimentary rocks. The Swiss catchments, water samples were collected from 2011 and 2012 to capture changes in river flow and seasonal changes in hydro-climate. Samples were collected from a gauging station operated by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research - WSL. In the East River, samples were collected from the gauging station operated by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area from 2015 and 2016. Additional samples included snow samples collected from the Erlenbach. All water samples were analysed for their major dissolved ion content by Ion Chromatography. Dissolved rhenium concentrations were determined by High Resolution and Quadrupole Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry. Solid samples were digested and analysed for Re content by ICP-MS. These geochemical measurements were paired with water discharge data to quantify the flux of dissolved elements, using rating curves and flux-weighted average methods, and interpret the hydrological context of ion production and mobility through the landscape. This new data acquisition was funded by a European Research Council Starting Grant to Robert Hilton (ROC-CO2 project, grant 678779) and a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK, Standard Grant (NE/I001719/1). Further details of subsequent data analysis and interpretation can be found in Hilton, R.G., et al., 2021, Concentration-discharge relationships of dissolved rhenium in Alpine catchments reveal its use as a tracer of oxidative weathering, Water Resources Research

The BGS Seabed Geology 10k: Anglesey digital map portrays the distribution of the different types of bedrock and sediments that are interpreted to represent the dominant geology within to the top 1-2 metres of the seabed to the north-west of Anglesey, at a scale of 1:10 000. It also includes the distribution of the main seabed morphological and geomorphological features (e.g. drumlins, sandwaves) and the principal structural features observed at rockhead (fractures). This digital map is the result of the interpretation of two high-resolution, multibeam echo-sounder (MBES) bathymetry datasets: (i) the Off Skerries HI1420 survey, collected by Net Survey in 2013 as part of the Civil Hydrography Programme (CHP) surveys managed by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) for the UK Hydrographic Office; and (ii) the North St George’s Channel candidate Marine Conservation Zone (rMCZ) survey, collected jointly by JNCC and Cefas in 2012 for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). MBES backscatter, physical samples (e.g. grabs, cores, and boreholes), academic papers and previous BGS geological interpretations at broader scales (250k and 50k scales) were used to further inform this geological interpretation. The bedrock is divided into three units: (i) Neoproterozoic to Palaeozoic age metamudstones and metasandstones of the Monian Supergroup; (ii) undifferentiated Lower Palaeozoic age rocks (mudstone, volcaniclastics, siltstone, slate); and (iii) limestone and sandstone of the Carboniferous Limestone Supergroup. The superficial deposits are composed of various types of glacial sediments (e.g. glacial till and morainic deposits) that were deposited underneath and around the margins of the last British-Irish Ice Sheet in the area, and also more recently deposited marine sediments.