Solid Earth CO2 outgassing, driven by plate tectonic processes, is a key driver of carbon cycle models. However, the magnitudes and variations in outgassing are poorly constrained in deep-time. We assess plate tectonic carbon emissions and sequestration by coupling a plate tectonic model with reconstructions of oceanic plate carbon reservoirs and with a thermodynamic model … Read more…
Porphyry copper deposits contain the majority of the world’s discovered mineable reserves of copper. While these deposits are known to form in magmatic arcs along subduction zones, the precise contributions of different factors in the subducting and overriding plates to this process are not well constrained, making predictive prospectivity mapping difficult. Empirical machine learning-based approaches … Read more…
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…
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…
The Sturtian ‘Snowball Earth’ glaciation (~717–661 Ma) is regarded as the most extreme interval of icehouse climate in Earth’s history. The exact trigger and sustention mechanisms for this long-lived global glaciation remain obscure. The most widely debated causes are silicate weathering of the ~718 Ma Franklin LIP, and changes in the length and degassing of … Read more…
Kimberlites are sourced from thermochemical upwellings which can transport diamonds to the surface of the crust. The majority of kimberlites preserved at the Earth’s surface erupted between 250 and 50 million years ago, and have been attributed to changes in plate velocity or mantle plumes. However, these mechanisms fail to explain the presence of strong … Read more…
PyGPlates is an open-source Python library to visualize and edit plate tectonic reconstructions created using GPlates. The Python API affords a greater level of flexibility than GPlates to interrogate plate reconstructions and integrate with other Python workflows. GPlately was created to accelerate spatio-temporal data analysis leveraging pyGPlates and PlateTectonicTools within a simplified Python interface. This … Read more…
We have just released GPlately1.0 as a conda package. GPlately was created to accelerate spatio-temporal data analysis leveraging pyGPlates and PlateTectonicTools within a simplified Python interface. GPlately is a python package that enables the reconstruction of data through deep geologic time (points, lines, polygons and rasters), the interrogation of plate kinematic information (plate velocities, rates of subduction … Read more…
This video shows plate motions, carbon storage within tectonic plates and carbon degassing along mid-ocean ridges and subduction zones through time. Our carbon model shows these processes alone cannot explain global cooling in the Cenozoic Era. The effects of rock erosion, not shown here, played a key role. Arrows indicate plate motion speed relative to … Read more…
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…
Numerical models of groundwater flow play a critical role for water management scenarios under climate extremes. Large‐scale models play a key role in determining long-range flow pathways from continental interiors to the oceans, yet struggle to simulate the local flow patterns offered by small‐scale models. We have developed a highly scalable numerical framework to model … Read more…