A wee bit about me:
I’ve always been interested in the flow of water and heat underground; my MSc dissertation was modelling a heat plume in the Sherwood Sandstone. Since then I’ve worked as a hydrogeologist in consultancy and the public sector for around 10 years. Most recently while working at the Coal Authority I began to understand the importance of mine water hydrogeology and was interested in how the abandoned flooded mine workings in the UK could be utilised as a renewable energy resource.
I started my PhD in 2017 investigating the flow of heat in mine workings and more importantly trying to understand the geo-mechanical implications of using mines as a heat source or store.
Here I am at the Scottish Mining Museum at Newton Grange. Behind me you can see an example of a shearing machine which came into use around the 1940s allowing mining to move from manual stoop-and-room (pillar-and-stall) methods to the mechanical longwall mining.
