Abstract Human emissions of greenhouse gases have caused a predictable rise of 1.2 °C in global temperatures. Over the last 70 years, the rise has occurred at a geologically unprecedented speed and scale. To avoid a worsening situation, most developed nations are turning to renewable sources of power to meet their climate commitments, including the UK, Norway, Denmark and The Netherlands. The North Sea basin offers many advantages in the transition from fossil fuels by virtue of its natural resources, physical setting, offshore infrastructure and skilled workforce. Nonetheless, the magnitude of the up-front costs and the scale required to achieve net zero emissions are rarely acknowledged. In addition, some of the technologies being planned are commercially immature. In particular, the current cost of the capture, transport and disposal of carbon dioxide is problematic as a large-scale solution to industrial emissions. Repurposing the North Sea to meet a low-carbon future will require substantial collaboration between governments and industrial sectors. There are nonetheless significant opportunities for companies prepared to switch from the traditional oil and gas business to renewable energy production and other sustainable activities.

Abstract Long-term volcanic activity at Soufrière Hills Volcano (SHV), Montserrat (1995–ongoing) has created challenges for society and the resilience of the essential services (infrastructure) that support it. This paper explores the consequences, adaptations and resilience of essential services through interviews with their staff. We find that quick fixes for essential service reinstatement in the north of Montserrat have prevailed. Yet, the legacy of this approach inhibits functionality through inadequate facilities and the perception of sites as temporary, stalling investment. Emigration resulted in staff shortages, retraining requirements and challenges for the viability of specialist services. Low-impact hazards exacerbate shortcomings in essential services, causing power cuts, corrosion, and temporary closures of schools, clinics and the airport. Adaptations developed over time include changes to roofing materials, the addition of back-up systems, collaborative working and the development of contingency plans. Resilience of essential services has improved through decentralization, adaptations, and via strong community networks and tolerance of disruptions. Barriers to increasing resilience include the expense of some adaptations and the current reluctance to invest in essential services, hindering development. We offer some lessons for policy and practice to guide post-crisis redevelopment, through engagement with the community and by complementing community-level adaptations with investment to address long-term needs.

Abstract The (Mid–) Late Devonian to Early Carboniferous was a time of widespread rifting on the East European Craton (EEC) and its margins. The most prominent basin among these and, accordingly, the best documented is the Dniepr–Donets Basin (DDB) in Ukraine and southern Russia. The DDB is associated with voluminous rift-related magmatism and broad basement uplift. Two other large, extensional, basin systems developed along the margins of the EEC at the same time: the East Barents Basin (EEB) and its onshore prolongation the Timan–Pechora Basin (TPB), and the Peri-Caspian Basin (PCB). Rifting, associated magmatism, and possible domal basement uplift are also reported elsewhere within the EEC, suggesting a common, ‘active’, rifting process, involving a cluster of thermal instabilities (or generalized thermal instability) at the base of the lithosphere beneath widely separated parts of the EEC by Mid–Late Devonian times. The DDB is an intracratonic rift basin, cutting across the Archaean–Palaeoproterozoic structural grain of its basement and, as such, differs from the EBB–TPB and PCB, which are pericratonic rift basins developed on reworked and juvenile crystalline basement accreted to the EEC during the Neoproterozoic. The DDB opened into a deep basin, possibly having oceanic lithospheric affinity, to the SE, in the area where it adjoins the southern PCB, suggesting the possibility that rifting led to (limited?) continental break-up in this area at this time. Post-rift compressional tectonic reactivations and basin inversion in the DDB, leading to the formation of its prominent Donbas Foldbelt segment, are related to Tethyan events (Cimmerian and Alpine orogenies) occurring on the nearby southern margin of the EEC. Post-rift compressional inversions in the PCB and TPB, which lie closer to the Urals margin of the EEC, are related to Uralian tectonics.

Abstract During the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian an extensive magmatic province developed within northern Europe, intimately associated with extensional tectonics, in an area stretching from southern Scandinavia, through the North Sea, into northern Germany. Within this area magmatism was unevenly distributed, concentrated mainly in the Oslo Graben and its offshore continuation in the Skagerrak, Scania in southern Sweden, the island of Bornholm, the North Sea and northern Germany. Available geochemical (major- and trace-element, and Sr–Nd isotope, data) and geophysical data are reviewed to provide a basis for understanding the geodynamic setting of the magmatism in these areas. Peak magmatic activity was concentrated in a narrow time-span from c . 300 to 280 Ma. The magmatic provinces developed within a collage of basement terranes of different ages and lithospheric characteristics (including thicknesses), brought together during the preceding Variscan orogeny. This suggests that the magmatism in this area may represent the local expression of a common tectono-magmatic event with a common causal mechanism. Available geochemical (major and trace element and Sr–Nd isotope data) and geophysical data are reviewed to provide a basis for understanding the geodynamic setting of the magmatism in these areas. The magmatism covers a wide range in rock types both on a regional and a local scale (from highly alkaline to tholeiitic basalts, to trachytes and rhyolites). The most intensive magmatism took place in the Oslo Graben (ca. 120000 km 3 ) and in the NE German Basin (ca. 48 000 km 3 ). In both these areas a large proportion of the magmatic rocks are highly evolved (trachytes-rhyolites). The dominant mantle source componet for the mildly alkali basalts to subalkaline magmatism in the Oslo Graben and Scania (probably also Bornholm and the North Sea) is geochemically similar to the Prevalent Mantle (PREMA) component. Rifting and magmatism in the area is likely to be due to local decompression and thinning of highly asymmetric lithosphere in responses to regional stretching north of the Variscan Front, implying that the PREMA source is located in the lithospheric mantle. However, as PREMA sources are widely accepted to be plume-related, the possibility of a plume located beneath the area cannot be disregarded. Locally, there is also evidence of other sources. The oldest, highly alkaline basaltic lavas in the southernmost part of the Oslo Graben show HIMU trace element affinity, and initial Sr–Nd isotopic compositions different from that of the PREMA-type magmatism. These magmas are interpreted as the results of partial melting of enriched, metasomatised domains within the mantle lithosphere beneath the southern Olso Graben; this source enrichment can be linked to migration of carbonatite magmas in the earliest Paleozoic (ca. 580 Ma). Within northern Germany, mantle lithosphere modified by subduction-related fluids from Variscan subduction systems have provided an important magma source components.

Abstract In the early Carboniferous, final subduction of the Rhenohercynian Ocean, accretion of a magmatic arc and docking of microcontinents caused fault reactivation, extension and fault-controlled basin formation in the foreland of the Variscan Orogen. Lithospheric stretching resulted in generally mildly alkaline basaltic volcanism that peaked in the Visean. In the internal Variscides, rapid uplift and granitoid plutonism shortly followed collision and was probably due to slab detachment(s) or removal of orogenic root material. A regional-scale, E-W-oriented stress field was superimposed on a collapsing orogen and its foreland from the Westphalian onwards. In the Stephanian-Early Permian, a combination of outward-propagating collapse, mantle or slab detachment and the regional stress field resulted in widespread formation of fault-controlled basins and extensive magmatism dated at 290–305 Ma. In the foreland, large amounts of felsic volcanic rocks erupted in northern Germany, accompanied by mafic-felsic volcanics and intrusions in the Oslo Rift, and dolerite sills and dyke swarms in Britain and Sweden. In the internal Variscides, mafic rocks are rare and felsic-intermediate compositions predominate. Their apparent subduction-related signature may have been inherited from metasomatized mantle sources or caused by extensive assimilation of continental crust.

Abstract The Carboniferous-Permian evolution of NW Europe has recently been the focus of an EC-funded Training and Mobility of Researchers (TMR) project ‘Permo-Carboniferous-Rifting in Europe’ (PCR). One of the main goals of this project was to produce a new map for this time period showing the distribution of Late Carboniferous-Early Permian (Lower Rotliegend) volcanics, dykes and sills, and the extent of the tectonic structures of the Early-Late Permian (Upper Rotliegend) sedimentary basins (better known as the Southern and Northern Permian Basins). In order to produce this map, an overview of all the available literature was made. The new map was completed based on our own interpretations from seismic and borehole data. Unpublished data were available through industrial partners associated with the PCR project.