Dietmar Müller

Remote Sensing: A Comparative Study of Convolutional Neural Networks and Conventional Machine Learning Models for Lithological Mapping Using Remote Sensing Data

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Lithological mapping is a critical aspect of geological mapping that can be useful in studying the mineralization potential of a region and has implications for mineral prospectivity mapping. This is a challenging task if performed manually, particularly in highly remote areas that require a large number of participants and resources. The combination of machine learning … Read more…

Journal of Asian Earth Sciences: The roles and seismic expressions of turbidites and mass transport deposits using stratigraphic forward modeling and seismic forward modeling

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Turbidity currents and mass transport are two principal processes in deepwater settings. However, their roles in shaping deepwater depositional systems and interpreting their deposits in seismic profiles have not been fully settled due to the lack of extensive well data and high-quality seismic data in comparison with onshore oil fields. Therefore, this study integrated stratigraphic … Read more…

Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded to Behnam Sadeghi

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Geologic Map of the Moon from (USGS) Astrogeology Science Center A Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship has been awarded to EarthByter Behnam Sadeghi. He will complete his Fulbright project at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Earth and Planets Laboratory (EPL) in Washington which has close collaborations with NASA, as well as at Stanford University. His research project, focused … Read more…

GPlates mobile app developer wanted

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The EarthByte Group is looking for a student with experience in app development to work as part of an AuScope funded GPlates-in-Schools project. The position will be covered by a casual contract of 20-30 hours per week, depending on the time commitment of the candidate. The successful applicant can complete these hours through a regular … Read more…

Geomorphology: Combining stratigraphic forward modeling and susceptibility mapping to investigate the origin and evolution of submarine canyons

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The debate on the submarine canyon origin between the upslope erosion model dominated by retrogressive mass failures and the downslope erosion model controlled by gravity flows has not been fully settled. However, this debate is critical for explaining submarine canyon evolution. This study combines susceptibility mapping and stratigraphic forward modeling (SFM) to examine the origin … Read more…

Elements: Carbonatites and global tectonics

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Carbonatites have formed for at least the past three billion years. But over the past 700 My the incidence of carbonatites have significantly increased. We compile an updated list of 609 carbonatite occurrences and plot 387 of known age on plate tectonic reconstructions. Plate reconstructions from Devonian to present show that 75% of carbonatites are … Read more…

Terra Nova: The Louisiade ophiolite: A missing link in the western Pacific

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Recent dredging of a 100 km long ridge along the northernmost part of the Louisiade Plateau (LP) recovered serpentinized peridotites, MORB (mid-ocean-ridge basalt) and volcaniclastic breccia–conglomerates. Clinopyroxene, Cr-spinel and bulk rocks show that the serpentinites are harzburgites to dunites, whereas hornblende phenocrysts from volcaniclastic rocks reflect hydrous, andesitic volcanism. The association of MORB, depleted mantle rocks … Read more…

Nature Geoscience: Dynamics of the abrupt change in Pacific Plate motion around 50 million years ago

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A drastic change in plate tectonics and mantle convection occurred around 50 Ma as exemplified by the prominent Hawaiian– Emperor Bend. Both an abrupt Pacific Plate motion change and a change in mantle plume dynamics have been proposed to account for the Hawaiian–Emperor Bend, but debates surround the relative contribution of the two mechanisms. Here … Read more…

PhD scholarship in Deep-Sea Sediments and Paleoclimate

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This PhD project with Dr. Adriana Dutkiewicz in the Univ. of Sydney EarthByte Group is aimed at reconstructing the evolution of the deep-sea carbon reservoir and its impact on the long-term global carbon cycle as part of an ARC-funded Future Fellowship. It includes a stipend allowance of $28,854 per annum for three years (with an … Read more…

Scientific Reports: The evolution of basal mantle structure in response to supercontinent aggregation and dispersal

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Seismic studies have revealed two Large Low-Shear Velocity Provinces (LLSVPs) in the lowermost mantle. Whether these structures remain stable over time or evolve through supercontinent cycles is debated. Here we analyze a recently published mantle flow model constrained by a synthetic plate motion model extending back to one billion years ago, to investigate how the … Read more…

PNAS: High 3He/4He in central Panama reveals a distal connection to the Galapagos plume

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Significance We report the discovery of anomalously high 3He/4He in “cold” geothermal fluids of central Panama, far from any active volcanoes. Combined with independent constraints from lava geochemistry, mantle source geochemical anomalies in Central America require a Galapagos plume contribution that is not derived from hotspot track recycling. Instead, these signals likely originate from large-scale … Read more…

Communications Earth & Environment: Quaternary landscape dynamics boosted species dispersal across Southeast Asia

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Sundaland, the inundated shelf separating Java, Sumatra and Borneo from the Malay Peninsula, is of exceptional interest to biogeographers for its species richness and its position at the junction between the Australasian and Indomalay biogeographic provinces. Owing to its low elevation and relief, its physiography is contingent on relative sea-level change, which drove Quaternary species … Read more…

Remote Sensing of the Enivronment: A review of machine learning in processing remote sensing data for mineral exploration

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The decline of the number of newly discovered mineral deposits and increase in demand for different minerals in recent years has led exploration geologists to look for more efficient and innovative methods for processing different data types at each stage of mineral exploration. As a primary step, various features, such as lithological units, alteration types, … Read more…

Earth Surface Dynamics: Tectonically and climatically driven mountain-hopping erosion in central Guatemala from detrital 10Be and river profile analysis

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The rise of a mountain range affects moisture circulation in the atmosphere and water runoff across the land surface, modifying the distribution of precipitation and drainage patterns in its vicinity. Water routing in turn affects erosion on hillslopes and incision in river channels on surrounding mountain ranges. In central Guatemala, two parallel, closely spaced mountain … Read more…

Geosphere: Fast Pliocene integration of the Central Anatolian Plateau drainage: Evidence, processes, and driving forces

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Continental sedimentation was widespread across the Central Anatolian Plateau in Miocene– Pliocene time, during the early stages of plateau uplift. Today, however, most sediment produced on the plateau is dispersed by a well-integrated drainage and released into surrounding marine depocenters. Residual long-term (106–107 yr) sediment storage on the plateau is now restricted to a few … Read more…

Marine and Petroleum Geology: Single-phase vs two-phase rifting: Numerical perspectives on the accommodation of extension during continental break-up

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How continental lithosphere responds to extension is a function of the dynamic interaction between layers of differing rheological properties, including the shallow crust, deep crust, lithospheric mantle, and asthenosphere. We investigate the first-order controls on the modes of extension and timing of transition from continental rifting to development of continental margins via a suite of … Read more…

Basin Research: Modelling the role of dynamic topography and eustasy in the evolution of the Great Artesian Basin

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Widespread flooding of the Australian continent during the Early Cretaceous, referred to as the Eromanga Sea, deposited extensive shallow marine sediments throughout the Great Artesian Basin (GAB). This event had been considered ‘out of sync’ with eustatic sea level and was instead solely attributed to dynamic subsidence associated with Australia’s passage over eastern Gondwanan subducted … Read more…

Modelling global precipitation since 250 million years ago

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We have developed a novel data-driven approach to reconstruct precipitation patterns through geological time, since the supercontinent Pangea was in existence. Our approach involves linking climate-sensitive sedimentary deposits such as coal, evaporites and glacial deposits to a global plate model, reconstructed paleo-elevation maps and high-resolution General Circulation Models via Bayesian machine learning. We model the … Read more…

5.8 magnitude Mansfield earthquake reflects compressive intraplate stress reactivating deep faults

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Forces acting along the edges of tectonic plates, particularly compressive forces caused by plate convergence and orogeny, propagate into the interior of plates and cause deformation within continents. Forces acting on the edges of plates include compressive forces due to plate collisions and mountain building, so-called “ridge push” forces caused by the excess gravitational potential … Read more…

G-Cubed: Papanin Ridge and Ojin Rise Seamounts (Northwest Pacific): Dual Hotspot Tracks Formed by the Shatsky Plume

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The origin of Shatsky Rise, a large igneous plateau in the NW Pacific, has long been debated. It could have either formed by shallow mantle melting due to its confirmed creation along a mid-ocean ridge or with additional contribution of deeper mantle material that upwelled as so-called mantle plume beneath the spreading ridge (“plume-ridge interaction”). … Read more…

Basin Genesis Hub completed

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The Basin Genesis Hub (BGH), completed in mid-2021, was an ARC and industry-supported research centre for developing technologies to better understand basin geodynamics and the evolution of sedimentary systems. Most of Australia is covered by sedimentary basins and there are nearly a thousand basins worldwide. Many of the resources that are essential for life and … Read more…

Volcanoes acted as a safety valve for Earth’s long-term climate

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Volcanoes acted as a safety valve for Earth’s long-term climate The natural weathering of rocks on Earth’s surface over time is a crucial process for removing CO2 from the atmosphere Researchers have now used artificial intelligence to study interactions between land, sea and the atmosphere to determine the biggest drivers of this process over the … Read more…

Continental arcs dominate global chemical weathering

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Earth’s plate-tectonic activity regulates the carbon cycle and, hence, climate, via volcanic outgassing and silicate-rock weather- ing. Mountain building, arc–continent collisions and clustering of continents in the tropics have all been invoked as controlling the weathering flux, with arcs also acting as a major contributor of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. However, these processes have … Read more…

World Economic Forum: Watch how today’s continents were formed over one billion years – in just 40 seconds

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The plate tectonic theory says that Earth’s surface is made up of slabs of rock that are slowly shifting right under our feet. Because of this constant movement, today’s Earth looks a lot different from what it did millions of years ago. In 1912, German scientist Alfred Wegener proposed that Earth’s continents once formed a … Read more…

The Conversation: Travelling through deep time to find copper for a clean energy future

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More than 100 countries, including the United States and members of the European Union, have committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The world is going to need a lot of metal, particularly copper. Recently, the International Energy Agency sounded the warning bell on the global supply of copper as the most widely used metal in renewable … Read more…

Kinematics and extent of the Piemont–Liguria Basin – implications for subduction processes in the Alps

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Assessing the size of a former ocean of which only remnants are found in mountain belts is challenging but crucial to understanding subduction and exhumation processes. Here we present new constraints on the opening and width of the Piemont–Liguria (PL) Ocean, known as the Alpine Tethys together with the Valais Basin. We use a regional … Read more…

Predicting the emplacement of Cordilleran porphyry copper systems using a spatio-temporal machine learning model

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Porphyry copper (Cu) systems occur along magmatic belts derived in subduction zones. Our current under- standing of their formation is restricted to observations from the overriding plate, resulting in a knowledge gap in terms of processes occurring in convergence zones through time. An association between key tectonic processes and the timing and location of porphyry … Read more…