Media

See below for all the latest EarthByte news items and media releases that have picked up media attention. See Media Archive for a breakdown by year.

The Conversation: Witness 1.8 billion years of tectonic plates dance across Earth’s surface in a new animation

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Two tectonic plates meet in Thingvellir National Park, Iceland. VisualProduction/Shutterstock Alan Collins, Univ of Adelaide Using information from inside the rocks on Earth’s surface, we have reconstructed the plate tectonics of the planet over the last 1.8 billion years. It is the first time Earth’s geological record has been used like this, looking so far back … Read more…

Space News: Surprising connections between Earth and Mars

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Space Connect reported how EarthByters discovered that Earth’s interactions with Mars can drive deep sea circulation here on Earth. The podcast covers how geological records of the deep sea were used to discover a link between the orbits of the two planets and past global warming patterns, talking through the research and their collaboration with Sorbonne … Read more…

Quirks and Quarks: EarthByte on Canadian National Radio with a story on Earth, Mars and ocean mixing

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Mars has more influence on Earth than non-astrologers might have thought. Mars is, on average, about 225 million kilometres from Earth, which would suggest that it has little impact on our planet. Which is true, but as they say, a little goes a long way. In our recent paper in Nature Communications, we studied the history of deep … Read more…

Mars attracts: how Earth’s planetary interactions drive deep-sea circulation

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12 March 2024, The University of Sydney Media Release Giant whirlpools in warming oceans could mitigate Gulf Stream stagnation Geoscientists at Sydney and Sorbonne have identified a 2.4-million-year cycle in the geological record that show the energy of deep-sea currents wax and wane as oceans cool and warm. Earth’s distance to Mars varies between 55 … Read more…

Nature Communications: Deep-sea hiatus record reveals orbital pacing by 2.4 Myr eccentricity grand cycles

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Astronomical forcing of Earth’s climate is embedded in the rhythms of stratigraphic records, most famously as short-period (10^4–10^5 year) Milankovitch cycles. Astronomical grand cycles with periods of millions of years also modulate climate variability but have been detected in relatively few proxy records. Here, we apply spectral analysis to a dataset of Cenozoic deep-sea hiatuses … Read more…

AuScope News: EarthByters unveil Ice Age secrets

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Notebook resting on an Ice Age or the transition from the Tonian Skillogallee and Myrtle Springs Formations to the overlying Cryogenian Sturt Formation (Sturt Glaciation, marked by the notebook) in the Willouran Ranges, Adnyamathanha Country, South Australia. Image: Alan Collins ARC Future Fellow Dr Adriana Dutkiewicz from the EarthByte Group and colleagues have used NCRIS … Read more…

A new explanation for the Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth episodes

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Reposted from Earth Logs by Steve Drury The Cryogenian Period that lasted from 860 to 635 million years ago is aptly named, for it encompassed two maybe three episodes of glaciation. Each left a mark on every modern continent and extended from the poles to the Equator. In some way, this series of long, frigid … Read more…

What made Earth a giant snowball 700m years ago? Scientists have an answer

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8 February 2024, University of Sydney Media release Historically low volcanic emissions and weathering events seem likely cause Dr Adriana Dutkiewicz was inspired during a field trip to the Flinders Ranges to find out how volcanic activity turned our blue dot to an ice covered planet. Together with Professor Dietmar Muller and the EarthByte group, … Read more…

Nature: Landscape dynamics and the Phanerozoic diversification of the biosphere

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The long-term diversification of the biosphere responds to changes in the physical environment. Yet, over the continents, the nearly monotonic expansion of life started later in the early part of the Phanerozoic eon1 than the expansion in the marine realm, where instead the number of genera waxed and waned over time2. A comprehensive evaluation of … Read more…

EOS: Shifts in Tectonic Plates Change Biodiversity

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For the past 250 million years, species have diversified and died out while Earth’s tectonic plate movements and sea level changes have operated in the background. They’re linked, according to new research that found that processes altering the lithosphere affect ocean levels and, in turn, the availability of shallow marine environments in which life thrives. “Why we … Read more…

GPlates finalist in Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Excellence in Research Software

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GPlates has been shortlisted for one of the 18 Australian Museum Eureka Prizes in 2023 – the Australian Research Data Commons Eureka Prize for Excellence in Research Software thanks to over 15 years of support by the AuScope National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy.  

Scientists discover 36-million-year geological cycle that drives biodiversity

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11 July 2023 Tectonic changes alter sea levels that can create breeding grounds for life Movement in the Earth’s tectonic plates indirectly triggers bursts of biodiversity in 36-million-year cycles by forcing sea levels to rise and fall, new research has shown. Dinosaur Stampede exhibit at Dinosaur Canyon, located in Queensland’s Winton Formation which was formed … Read more…

Science: Hundred million years of landscape dynamics from catchment to global scale

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Our capability to reconstruct past landscapes and the processes that shape them underpins our understanding of paleo-Earth. We take advantage of a global-scale landscape evolution model assimilating paleoelevation and paleoclimate reconstructions over the past 100 million years. This model provides continuous quantifications of metrics critical to the understanding of the Earth system, from global physiography … Read more…

Software Is Unlocking The Mystery Of Why Rivers Change

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Colombian geologist Sara Polanco uses a computer-game-like river modelling software to understand the processes that make and connect river networks, hopefully providing the tools to help better manage water resources in the future. “That software allows me to simulate how rivers change under different scenarios,” Polanco says, “In a sense, it is like a computer game where … Read more…

Future Mining: Travelling through geological time to find copper deposits

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Travel through geological time to find copper deposits via our article in the inaugural issue of the Future Mining Magazine. https://future-mining.partica.online/future-mining/vol-1-no-1/flipbook/60/ Plate reconstructions at 1000, 400, 300, 200, 100 million years ago and at present-day. Ancient ocean basins are shown in white with continents in grey, and coloured arrows showing plate speed and direction. Mid-ocean … Read more…

Environmental stability on Earth allowed marine biodiversity to flourish

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Modern ocean biodiversity, which is at its highest level ever, was achieved through long-term stability of the location of so-called biodiversity hotspots, regions of especially high numbers of species, scientists have found. The findings, published in Nature, were reached through a pioneering model that reconstructs the diversity of marine animals from their origin – some … Read more…

Plate tectonic carbon cycle explains how Earth maintains a Goldilocks climate

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Earth’s hot and cold climates driven by tectonic plate speeds A new study has revealed how the plate tectonic carbon cycle maintains a “Goldilocks climate” on Earth that is neither too hot nor too cold. It is now established that CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels are driving atmospheric CO2 above 400 parts per million … Read more…

Groundwater ‘superhighway’ modelled along Australia’s east coast

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When floodwaters recede, where do they go? By Loren Smith University of Sydney researchers have modelled water-storing aquifers that perform a natural balancing act: they absorb water during floods and supply water during drought. Yet human intervention is limiting their function. University of Sydney researchers have identified a groundwater ‘superhighway’ along Australia’s east coast. Stretching from … Read more…

A journey across the Atlantic seafloor

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A journey across the Atlantic seafloor More than two thirds of our planet are covered by water. What lies underneath is a mystery – only 20 percent of the sea floor has been explored in detail. But hasn’t it always appealed to you, this underwater world with all its mysteries? Then join us for a … Read more…

When the Earth warms, the ocean speeds up

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Sixty-six million years of geological data suggests that heating makes ocean currents stronger. By Ellen McPhiddian, Cosmos Ocean currents play a big role in floods, droughts, and other large-scale weather patterns. We know that ocean circulation will be affected by global warming – but figuring out exactly how it will be affected is much more difficult. Will there be … Read more…

Global warming speeds up currents in the ocean’s abyss

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University of Sydney media release University of Sydney scientists have used the geological record of the deep sea to discover that past global warming has sped up deep ocean circulation. This is one of the missing links for predicting how future climate change may affect heat and carbon capture by the oceans. Circulation of the … 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…

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…

Nicolas Flament awarded the AAS Anton Hales medal

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Dr Nicolas Flament, University of Wollongong Dr Flament works at the interface between geodynamics and geology by novel 4D mathematical modelling of flow deep in Earth’s interior. He makes significant contributions to understanding our planet by connecting the evolution of the deep Earth with the evolution of its surface. He shows Earth was largely a water … Read more…

A geological postcard from Australia to Mars on NASA Perseverance

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How a bit of the Australian desert is destined for the Red Planet – A small piece of the Pilbara holds the secret to an ancient geological environment that was common to Earth and Mars 3.5 billion years ago. Find out how Patrice Rey from the School of Geosciences played a pivotal role in unearthing … Read more…

Earth-moving research charts one billion years of tectonic plate movement

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New research shows how the earth’s tectonic plates have shifted over the last billion years. Tectonic plates are irregular-shaped slabs of solid rock which can vary massively in size from a few hundred to thousands of kilometres across. Heat from radioactive processes within the planet’s interior causes the plates to shift. And this movement creates … Read more…

GPlates Portal passes 1 million views!

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Just in time for science week, our #AuScope supported GPlates Portal has passed 1 million views! The most popular globe remains the vertical gravity gradient globe which highlights the Earth’s lithospheric structure, followed by our seafloor lithology globe. For #ScienceWeek our portal guru Michael Chin has created a new globe for reconstructing the SRTM15 digital elevation model. Check it … Read more…

Visualizing the Deep Carbon Cycle

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Christian Fogerty, writing for American Geophysical Union (AGU)’s EoS magazine, reviews some of our work on modelling and visualising Earth’s deep carbon cycle. We started our exciting journey with the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) in 2015, and these projects have laid the foundations of a lot of exciting future work. Importantly, the team behind the … Read more…