Here are all the latest EarthByte news posts. See News Archive for recent years.
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Abstract Continental rifting precedes the breakup of continents, leading to the formation of passive margins and oceanic lithosphere. Although rifting dynamics is classically described in terms of either active rifting caused by active mantle upwelling, or passive rifting caused by far-field extensional stresses, it was proposed that a transition from passive to active rifting can … Read more…
Another powerful aftershock hit Papua New Guinea this weekend as the recovery effort continues following February’s deadly magnitude 7.5 earthquake, with many thousands of people dependent on humanitarian aid. Aid organisations such as CARE Australia and UNICEF are still seeking donations. The Australian government has sent medical staff and other support to help. Some have criticised the PNG government’s efforts as “too slow”. But the … Read more…
Climatic variability like precipitation changes or increase in extreme events such as storms and tropical cyclones is known to significantly modify the Earth’s surface. Yet, our understanding of how sediment dynamics and reef evolution might respond to these changes is still limited. In a recent study, a team of researchers from the University of Sydney’s … Read more…
Citation: Cao, W., Williams, S., Flament, N., Zahirovic, S., Scotese, C., and Müller, R. D., 2018. Paleolatitudinal distribution of lithologic indicators of climate in a paleogeographic framework. Geological Magazine, 1-24. Abstract: Whether the latitudinal distribution of climate-sensitive lithologies is stable through greenhouse and icehouse regimes remains unclear. Previous studies suggest that the palaeolatitudinal distribution of palaeoclimate … Read more…
Author List: Nicky M. Wright , Howie D. Scher , Maria Seton , Claire E. Huck , and Brian D. Duggan Citation: Wright, N. M., Scher, H. D., Seton, M., Huck, C. E., & Duggan, B. D. (2018). No change in Southern Ocean circulation in the Indian Ocean from the Eocene through late Oligocene. Paleoceanography … Read more…
Congratulations to EarthByters Maria Seton (applicant) and Simon Williams, Jo Whittaker (Chief Scientist, UTas) and the rest of the team for their successful application for ship time on Australia’s national marine vessel, the RV Investigator! The 28 day voyage will set sail in August 2019 to investigate hotspot dynamics in the Coral Sea. One of … Read more…
A previously unknown connection between geological atmospheric carbon dioxide cycles and the fluctuating capacity of the ocean crust to store carbon dioxide has been uncovered by two geoscientists from the University of Sydney. Prof Dietmar Müller and Dr Adriana Dutkiewicz from the Sydney Informatics Hub and the School of Geosciences report their discovery in the … Read more…
In a recent paper in JGR-Solid Earth, EarthByter Ömer Faruk Bodur and colleagues show that mantle lithosphere rheology has a primary control on the subduction style (i.e., one-sided vs. double-sided subduction) and strongly affects the pressure-temperature conditions of metamorphic rocks that can be buried >100 km depth and exhume to the surface! This long journey … Read more…
The EarthByte group has been awarded 5.3 million computing hours, representing the equivalent of k$AU212, to carry out research for the Basin GENESIS Hub on the supercomputers Raijin (National Computational Infrastructure) and Magnus (Pawsey Supercomputing Centre) for 2018 through the National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme (4.7 MSUs) and the Intersect HPC Resource Allocation Round (600 kSUs).
By Alison Snyder, AXIOS We have a more accurate map of the surface of Mars than we do for Earth’s ocean floor. Right now, researchers have a blurry, indirect picture of the seabed from satellite imaging, some sonar data and samples collected from ships. Yes, but: There’s an avalanche of data about the chemical, physical and … Read more…
Author List: Wenchao Cao, Sabin Zahirovic, Nicolas Flament, Simon Williams, Jan Golonka, Dietmar Müller Citation: Cao, W., Zahirovic, S., Flament, N., Williams, S., Golonka, J., and Müller, R. D., 2017, Improving global paleogeography since the late Paleozoic using paleobiology: Biogeosciences, v. 14, no. 23, p. 5425-5439. Paleogeographic maps, linked to plate tectonic reconstructions, are key components required for climate models … Read more…
As a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has played a major role in regulating Earth’s climate throughout its history. There are vast stores of carbon in the subsurface, but the global carbon cycle controls how much of that carbon enters the atmosphere. As methods for monitoring and tracking the carbon dioxide that moves … Read more…
Congratulations to the EarthByte students who recently represented the School of Geosciences, University of Sydney at the student-run GSA Earth Sciences Student Symposium (GESSS) NSW conference. The event aims to bring together Honours, Masters and PhD students from across NSW to present and discuss their research in a relaxed, supportive environment; a primary goal of GESSS is … Read more…
Currently, human activity is the primary driver of elevating atmospheric CO2, but the Earth fluctuated from greenhouse to icehouse conditions and back long before humans existed. The question is: what triggered these long-term climate cycles? Now research at the University of Sydney’s EarthByte Group, in collaboration with the German Research Centre for Geosciences, reveals how … Read more…
Congratulations to Sara Moron-Polanco on receiving the 2018 Early Career Researcher Grant Scheme, an internal grant of the University of Melbourne. The funds will be used to obtain thermochronological information to better understand the onshore tectonic and denudation history of the NWS, which will ultimately help to link the onshore and offshore geological history of the … Read more…
Congratulations to Amy l’Anson on receiving the 2017 PESA Postgraduate Student Scholarship. The aim of the scholarship is to promote and encourage petroleum-related research and education in Australia. This format of sponsorship is designed to provide continual engagement of the recipient with PESA over the period of their research.
Lauren Harington from School of Geoscience and EarthByte Group gives presentation a Seminar on her Honours project “Modelling the evolution of the Eromanga Sea in the context of tectonics, geodynamics and surface processes” Watch full presentation here: Link ABSTRACT: The Eromanga Sea is an epeiric, epicontinental seaway that dominated the eastern Australian landscape during the Cretaceous. Previous … Read more…
Deep Carbon Observatory member, Sabin Zahirovic explains why the Earth is like a giant, spherical lava lamp. The intense heat at the core drives plumes of mantle material up to the cooler surface where it solidifies as part of tectonic plates. Over geologic timescales, the edges of those plates eventually sink back into the mantle in … Read more…
The University of Sydney has committed to transformational investments in our research infrastructure resulting in a rapidly increasing demand for new and innovative software to capture, create, and analyse data. We have partnered with GitHub to build a site-wide code repository for all researchers and students, and to leverage Github.com to deliver on the University’s … Read more…
The Mapping Sciences Institute of Australia (NSW Division) recently hosted its Annual MSIA Seminar at the Aspire Hotel in Ultimo, celebrating its 65th year promoting mapping. Prof. Dietmar Müller gave a presentation on “Using big data analytics to reveal what controls seabed geology”. World’s ocean basins contain a rich and nearly continuous record of environmental fluctuations … Read more…
Sydney Informatics Hub provides free repository service for code development and management. Sydney is the first university in Australia to offer staff and students access to GitHub Enterprise, a code development and management system that allows collaborators to work together to develop, test and distribute code. The platform is operated by Sydney Informatics Hub and is part of the … Read more…
Interested in cutting-edge geo- and data-science? This Ph.D. project will connect the Basin GENESIS Hub approaches and objectives of modeling basin evolution, with the statistical and data science advancements made by the Centre for Translational Data Science. See the link below for more information. Ph.D. opportunity in data science with application to geoscience and solid Earth evolution: http://sydney.edu.au/resea…/opportunities/opportunities/2254
Every 8 weeks we turn our attention to a Remarkable Region that deserves a spot in the scientific limelight. Following from the first entry which showcased the Eastern Mediterranean, we move further east, and back in time, to the realm of the Tethys. The southern and southeastern region of Eurasia represents one of the most tectonically complex areas in … Read more…
EarthByte has now released a list of Honours/Masters projects to be offered in 2018. These projects are outlined below. Project Title Supervisor(s) Dynamic Earth models, landscape dynamics and basin evolution in Australasia Dietmar Müller, Sabin Zahirovic, Tristan Salles, Rohit Chandra, Sally Cripps (Centre for Translational Data Science) Incorporating modern plate tectonic reconstructions into box models of the deep-time deep-Earth … Read more…
Author List: Patrice Rey, Luke Mondy, Guillaume Duclaux, Christian Teyssier, Donna Whitney, Marie Bocher, cécile Prigent. Citation: Rey, Patrice & Mondy, L & Duclaux, G & Teyssier, Christian & Whitney, Donna & Bocher, Marie & Prigent, cécile. (2017). The origin of contractional structures in extensional gneiss domes. 45. 263-266. 10.1130/G38595. Abstract: The juxtaposition of domains of shortening and extension at different … Read more…
Presented by Professor Dietmar Müller School of Geosciences, University of Sydney What makes our planet habitable? Rapid global environmental change compels us to better understand what makes Earth suitable for life. Find out how the Experimental Planet being developed by the EarthByte Group in the University of Sydney’s School of Geosciences, is exploring different pathways … Read more…
EarthByte’s seafloor age grid was recently featured on NOAA’s Science On a Sphere . Age of the Seafloor: The surface of the Earth is a mosaic of tectonic plates that move. New sea floor is created in areas where the plates pull apart, allowing new crustal material to be formed from the molten magma below … Read more…
Underworld’s new release! Check out Underworld 2.3.0b – available via Docker & GitHub. Check out Underworlds’s blog for change details. http://www.underworldcode.org/posts/StableRelease https://hub.docker.com/r/underworldcode/underworld2/ https://github.com/underworldcode/underworld2 Enhancements: Improved swarm reload times for parallel simulations. Efficiency improvements for large proc count (>128) parallel simulations. Faster algorithms for swarms with deformed mesh. Many updates to visualisation routines. Compressible Stokes general … Read more…
EarthByte welcomes Proffessor Gregory Houseman.
A recent trip to Iceland piqued Sylvia’s curiosity about nearly every geological feature she saw. Back in Sydney, she explored those features – volcanoes, geysers, earthquakes, tectonic plates – with Dietmar Muller, Professor of Geophysics at the University of Sydney. That conversation went to air on Arts Wednesday 16 August 2017 and you can listen … Read more…