Cities urgently need clean, reliable and affordable heat, but geothermal energy is often held back by uncertainty about what lies beneath the ground. In urban areas, this uncertainty is particularly difficult to reduce; conventional geophysical surveys can be expensive, disruptive or incomplete, while drilling decisions require confidence in the depth, structure and properties of the subsurface. This PhD will test whether dense urban seismic arrays can transform everyday city noise into useful subsurface images for geothermal heat exploration.

Using Aberdeen as a natural laboratory, the project will develop a transferable workflow for dense-array ambient-noise seismology in urban geothermal settings. The student will work with seismic node deployments, broadband seismic stations, borehole observations and geological constraints linked to the Aberdeen Geothermal Feasibility Pilot. They will investigate how traffic, coastline, weather, infrastructure and city rhythms influence the urban noise field; extract Rayleigh and Love wave information from ambient-noise cross-correlations; build shallow-to-mid-depth seismic velocity models; and test how these models reduce geological uncertainty relevant to geothermal targeting and heat-network planning.

The project is designed as a publication-led PhD. The first paper will focus on urban noise-field characterisation, array design and frequency-band selection. The second will develop dense-array surface-wave tomography for an urban geothermal prospect. The third will integrate seismic, borehole and geological evidence to produce an uncertainty-aware geothermal de-risking framework transferable to other cities.

The student will receive training in field seismology, nodal array deployment, Python-based seismic processing, ambient-noise cross-correlation, surface-wave dispersion analysis, tomography, uncertainty testing, borehole/geological integration, reproducible research, scientific writing and stakeholder communication.

Cities urgently need clean, reliable and affordable heat, but geothermal energy is often held back by uncertainty about what lies beneath the ground. In urban areas, this uncertainty is particularly difficult to reduce; conventional geophysical surveys can be expensive, disruptive or incomplete, while drilling decisions require confidence in the depth, structure and properties of the subsurface. This PhD will test whether dense urban seismic arrays can transform everyday city noise into useful subsurface images for geothermal heat exploration.

Using Aberdeen as a natural laboratory, the project will develop a transferable workflow for dense-array ambient-noise seismology in urban geothermal settings. The student will work with seismic node deployments, broadband seismic stations, borehole observations and geological constraints linked to the Aberdeen Geothermal Feasibility Pilot. They will investigate how traffic, coastline, weather, infrastructure and city rhythms influence the urban noise field; extract Rayleigh and Love wave information from ambient-noise cross-correlations; build shallow-to-mid-depth seismic velocity models; and test how these models reduce geological uncertainty relevant to geothermal targeting and heat-network planning.

The project is designed as a publication-led PhD. The first paper will focus on urban noise-field characterisation, array design and frequency-band selection. The second will develop dense-array surface-wave tomography for an urban geothermal prospect. The third will integrate seismic, borehole and geological evidence to produce an uncertainty-aware geothermal de-risking framework transferable to other cities.

The student will receive training in field seismology, nodal array deployment, Python-based seismic processing, ambient-noise cross-correlation, surface-wave dispersion analysis, tomography, uncertainty testing, borehole/geological integration, reproducible research, scientific writing and stakeholder communication.