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We present a detailed 1:50,000-scale glacial geomorphological map covering ∼450 km 2 of the Wicklow Mountains, eastern Ireland. The region was glaciated at the Last Glacial Maximum, but little is known about the timing and pattern of deglaciation during the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition or the extent of glacier regrowth during the Younger Dryas. The absence of detailed glacial geomorphological mapping has been a barrier to understanding these outstanding questions before now. Mapping of the area was compiled during field campaigns supported by the assessment of remotely-sensed imagery. Ice-marginal moraines are the most prevalent landform mapped and these have been classified into three groups based on differences in morphology. Other evidence for glaciation includes glacially-transported boulders, ice-moulded bedrock, meltwater channels, terraces, talus and summit blockfields. The map forms an essential basis for future work that will investigate glacial landsystems, deglaciation patterns and timing, and the style and extent of Younger Dryas glaciation.

Rainfall has been shown to be the main cause of elevated nutrient pollution in groundwater beneath landfills. However, groundwater monitoring is often based on predetermined schedules without considering rainfall patterns. This study examined how rainfall patterns afect fluctuations in groundwater quality at the Coastal Park landfill in Cape Town, South Africa, and the relevance of current groundwater sampling schedules. Boreholes upstream and downstream of two large waste cells, one lined and the other unlined, were monitored for 15 weeks during the onset of the rainy season to detect changes in the groundwater level, pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, ammonia, nitrate, and phosphate. Rainfall patterns strongly afected the groundwater parameters, with widely varying fluctuation patterns and lag times. Conductivity peaked downstream of the lined cell 10 weeks later than at the unlined cell, with widely diferent fluctuation patterns (R2 = 0.36). Ammonia peaked downstream of both the unlined and lined cells well before the early rains, with very similar fluctuation patterns ( R2 = 0.97), although it peaked 6 times higher in the unlined cell. Nitrate peaked at Weeks 2 to 4 downstream of the unlined and the lined cell, with a weak correlation (R2 = 0.56). A shorter nitrate peak and a net decrease throughout the rainy season were observed downstream of the lined cell. Phosphate showed a brief, multi-fold increase at Week 3 downstream of both the unlined and lined cells, displaying pH-induced mobilisation and a very strong correlation (R2 = 0.99) between these locations. Lag times and fluctuation patterns varied depending on the presence of liners, and rainfall patterns. Therefore, the low frequency sampling required by many South African landfill waste management permits and licences cannot identify pollutant peak concentrations or describe their trends, and high frequency sampling should be considered.

A combination of multibeam bathymetry and backscatter, LiDAR altimetry and bathymetry, satellite images, and hydrodynamic model outputs were used to map the seafloor and coastline of Galway Bay (western Ireland). This is the first time these multiple datasets have been integrated into a single combined geomorphological and substrate map. The substrate of the bay is predominantly mud and sand with bedrock outcropping extensively around the coastline. The main depositional features are dunes, while the main erosional features are scours and outcropping bedrock. Hydrodynamic model outputs show good correlation between the direction and intensity of prevailing currents and the location and shape of the features in the bay. This indicates that although Galway Bay was shaped glacially through the passage of the British-Irish Ice Sheet across the bay and ensuing glacial and marine sediment deposition, many of the mapped seafloor landforms are modern and current-induced.

A challenge for coastal conservation over the next decades is to predict and then effectively manage the outcomes of ongoing climate change in the context of the Anthropocene. Paraglacial coasts are those on or adjacent to present or formerly glaciated terrain and which are still influenced by glacigenic processes. Ongoing response of paraglacial coasts to the influences of glaciation can give rise to diverse regional-scale coastal responses that may variously amplify or suppress any effects caused by global climate change. Here we provide insight into the richness of landforms and coastal system responses from two contrasting paraglacial environments, in Svalbard where glaciers are still present but are actively retreating, and in Ireland where late Pleistocene glaciers melted away around 14,000 years ago. Svalbard and Ireland exhibit different paraglacial coastal responses which reflect long-term variations in sediment supply from inland source areas to the coast, and variations in sediment residence times and storage areas within the coastal zone. The conservation of paraglacial coasts in the context of Anthropocene global warming requires an understanding of regional glacial history and longer term coastal responses to paraglacial relaxation.

Sediment-cored drumlins are uncommon across the glacially eroded granite bedrock of Connemara (west County alway, western reland). This paper describes the internal sediments from two significant drumlin exposures at rdmore and allyconneely. Both drumlins show a lowermost lithofacies association comprising overconsolidated subglacial diamicton with clast lithology, strong fabrics and overfolds indicative of regional east/southeast to west/northwest late eichselian ice flow. This lithofacies association is overlain at both sites by west-dipping, stratified, graded gravel and diamicton beds that downlap onto laminated silts. These beds reflect episodic debris flows into a leeside cavity developed following creation of relief by deposition and deformation of a subglacial diamicton nucleus located up-ice. Variations in substrate hydrological processes are identified in both drumlins based on the presence of clastic dikes, flame structures and debris flow-deposited gravels which are present at different locations spatially within the drumlin and at different stratigraphic levels. These features reflect the close connection between subglacial hydrological and sedimentary processes and their changes over time as the drumlin form develops.

Recent mapping programmes in Irish territorial waters, such as the Irish National Seabed Survey and the Integrated Mapping for the Sustainable Development of Ireland's Marine Resource programme, have generated high resolution multibeam bathymetry, backscatter and sediment sample datasets at an unprecedented resolution and coverage. Building upon previous mapping of glacial landforms on the northwest Irish continental shelf, a 1:225,000 scale map identifying contemporary bedforms has been produced between 54°40′N/56°10′N and 10°2′W/6°45′W. The analysis of bathymetric derivatives and backscatter interpretation has enabled the classification of several types of depositional feature including six sediment wave assemblages. Erosional features have also been identified across the shelf in the form of surface sediment lineations, as well as more spatially confined formations such as furrows. Based on wave asymmetry, sedimentary composition and orientation, in agreement with published modelled hydrodynamic conditions, these bedforms are assumed to be contemporary features. Data interpretation, particularly of backscatter imagery reveals that these sediments mask the acoustic signatures of an underlying glacial architecture and may alter their apparent morphology due to burying.

The archaeology of caves in Ireland is a ground-breaking and unique study of the enigmatic, unseen and dark silent world of caves. People have engaged with caves for the duration of human occupation of the island, spanning 10,000 years. In prehistory, subterranean landscapes were associated with the dead and the spirit world, with evidence for burials, funerary rituals and votive deposition. The advent of Christianity saw the adaptation of caves as homes and places of storage, yet they also continued to feature in religious practice. Medieval mythology and modern folklore indicate that caves were considered places of the supernatural, being particularly associated with otherworldly women. Through a combination of archaeology, mythology and popular religion, this book takes the reader on a fascinating journey that sheds new light on a hitherto neglected area of research. It encourages us to consider what underground activities might reveal about the lives lived aboveground, and leaves us in no doubt as to the cultural significance of caves in the past. Marion Dowd is Lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology at the Institute of Technology Sligo, Ireland. Her doctoral research examined the role of caves in Irish prehistoric ritual and religion. She has directed excavations in many caves, and has published and lectured widely on the subject.

High-resolution Chirp sub-bottom profiler and side-scan sonar data record the final phases of ice margin activity in the Lower Lough Erne basin at the end of the last cycle of Quaternary glaciations in Ireland. Relative to the terrestrial glacial landforms the features in the Lough are smaller in scale and are considered to represent local ice mass dynamics that followed regional-scale events. Four phases are identified. (1) After the last ice sheet-wide readvance associated with the Killard Point Stadial (between 15.0 and 14.1 14C ka bp), stagnation zone retreat resulted in isolation of a residual ice block in the Lower Lough Erne basin. (2) Proglacial waters developed coeval with retreat of the western margin of the ice block. Drawdown induced localized surging and the generation of push features and lineations. (3) Squeeze-up features, reflecting a heavily crevassed ice margin, mark the quiescent phase of the local surge cycle. (4) Iceberg grounding pits and keel marks record calving and rapid disintegration of the Lough Erne ice margin. The well-preserved glacigenic features observed in the lake basin suggest formation by a succession of mechanisms that were too short lived to obliterate the underlying evidence of ice margin dynamics.

The (statistical) modeling of the behavior of a dependent variate as a function of one or more predictors provides examples of model-fitting which span the development of the earth sciences from the 17th Century to the present. The historical development of these methods and their subsequent application is reviewed. Bond's predictions (c. 1636 and 1668) of change in the magnetic declination at London may be the earliest attempt to fit such models to geophysical data. Following publication of Newton's theory of gravitation in 1726, analysis of data on the length of a 1° meridian arc, and the length of a pendulum beating seconds, as a function of sin2(latitude), was used to determine the ellipticity of the oblate spheroid defining the Figure of the Earth. The pioneering computational methods of Mayer in 1750, Boscovich in 1755, and Lambert in 1765, and the subsequent independent discoveries of the principle of least squares by Gauss in 1799, Legendre in 1805, and Adrain in 1808, and its later substantiation on the basis of probability theory by Gauss in 1809 were all applied to the analysis of such geodetic and geophysical data. Notable later applications include: the geomagnetic survey of Ireland by Lloyd, Sabine, and Ross in 1836, Gauss's model of the terrestrial magnetic field in 1838, and Airy's 1845 analysis of the residuals from a fit to pendulum lengths, from which he recognized the anomalous character of measurements of gravitational force which had been made on islands. In the early 20th Century applications to geological topics proliferated, but the computational burden effectively held back applications of multivariate analysis. Following World War II, the arrival of digital computers in universities in the 1950s facilitated computation, and fitting linear or polynomial models as a function of geographic coordinates, trend surface analysis, became popular during the 1950–60s. The inception of geostatistics in France at this time by Matheron had its roots in meeting the evident need for improved estimators in spatial interpolation. Technical advances in regression analysis during the 1970s embraced the development of regression diagnostics and consequent attention to outliers; the recognition of problems caused by correlated predictors, and the subsequent introduction of ridge regression to overcome them; and techniques for fitting errors-in-variables and mixture models. Improvements in computational power have enabled ever more computer-intensive methods to be applied. These include algorithms which are robust in the presence of outliers, for example Rousseeuw's 1984 Least Median Squares; nonparametric smoothing methods, such as kernel-functions, splines and Cleveland's 1979 LOcally WEighted Scatterplot Smoother (LOWESS); and the Classification and Regression Tree (CART) technique of Breiman and others in 1984. Despite a continuing improvement in the rate of technology-transfer from the statistical to the earth-science community, despite an abrupt drop to a time-lag of about 10 years following the introduction of digital computers, these more recent developments are only just beginning to penetrate beyond the research community of earth scientists. Examples of applications to problem-solving in the earth sciences are given.