About EarthByte

EarthByte is an international e-research project aimed at implementing interoperability of plate tectonic data and geodynamic computing services for applied and fundamental research purposes. EarthByte is currently funded through the AuScope National Collaborative Research InfraStructure (NCRIS) Program. It was previously funded by the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC) and by an Australian Research Council e-Research pilot project and is a major component of the APAC Geoscience Initiative. EarthByte is leveraging technologies developed in international sister projects such as the NERC data grid and the CHRONOS project. EarthByte is located in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney, Australia.


EarthByte News

August 2008
Paper by Torsvik, Müller, Van der Voo, Steinberger and Gaina published in Reviews of Geophysics (Global plate motion frames: Toward a unified model) Download Paper

A paper published in Geology, by Patrice Rey and Nicolas Coltice, has resulted in a research highlights news article in Nature "The end of flat earth" View Article

Paper by Rey and Coltice published in Geology (Neoarchean lithospheric strengthening and the coupling of Earth’s geochemical reservoirs) Download Paper

Nick Herold is attending an international palaeoclimate workshop in Cambridge, UK.

Dietmar Müller and James Boyden are attending the 33rd International Geological Congress followed by a GPlates workshop in Oslo, Norway.

Ana Gibbons is onboard the German research vessel Sonne for 6 weeks exploring the ocean floor around Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.

July 2008
A Response to Comment Paper by Whittaker, Müller, Leitchenkov, Stagg, Sdrolias, Gaina and Goncharov has been published in Science (Response to Comment on: Major Australian-Antarctica Plate Reorganization at Hawaiian-Emperor Bend Time) Download Paper

Paper by Clark and Müller published in the Journal of Geodynamics (Convection models in the Kamchatka region using imposed plate motion and thermal histories) Download Paper

Patrice Rey and Nicolas Flament are currently undertaking fieldwork in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Dietmar Müller, Patrice Rey, Nicolas Flament and Sian Smith are attending the Australian Earth Sciences Convention in Perth, Australia.

June 2008
A paper published in Geology, by Scott Dyksterhuis and Dietmar Müller, has resulted in a research highlights news article in Nature "Geophysics: Mysterious mountains" View Article

Paper by Dyksterhuis and Müller published in Geology (Cause and evolution of intraplate orogeny in Australia) Download Paper Download Supplementary Section

April 2008
Paper by Spasojevic, Liu, Gurnis and Müller published in Geophysical Research Letters (The case for dynamic subsidence of the U.S east coast since the Eocene) Download Paper

Paper by Müller, Sdrolias, Gaina and Roest published in G-Cubed (Age, spreading rates, and spreading asymmetry of the world's ocean crust) Download Paper Download Data

March 2008
A paper published in Science, led by Dietmar Müller, has resulted in an article in the New York Times, entitled "Sea Levels Are Falling Over the Long Term Because of Lower Basins" View Article

A paper published in Science, led by Dietmar Müller, has resulted in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, entitled "Rising oceans, she'll be right - in 80 million years" View Article

A paper published in Science, led by Dietmar Müller, has resulted in an article in Reuters Environment News , entitled "Oceans to Fall Not Rise, Over Millions of Years" View Article

A paper published in Science, led by Dietmar Müller, has resulted in an article in National Geographic, entitled "Sea Levels to Plunge Long Term, Study of Dino Era Says" View Article

A Podcast associated with the Müller et. al. (2008) Science Article has been released. Listen to Podcast

Paper by Müller, Sdrolias, Gaina, Steinberger and Heine published in Science (Long-Term Sea-Level Fluctuations Driven by Ocean Basin Dynamics) Download Paper Download Data

EarthByte welcomes Ana Gibbons who has started her Masters with Dietmar Müller and will be working on reconstructing the Indian Ocean.

February 2008
EarthByte would like to welcome Carmen Gaina who will be working with the EarthByte Group for the next 6 weeks.

January 2008
We would like to draw your attention to a special session on VIRTUAL GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATORIES IN 4D at the upcoming International Geological Congress in Oslo 6-14 August 2008. Conveners: R. Dietmar Müller (Sydney, Australia), Mike Gurnis (CalTech, USA), Trond H. Torsvik (Centre for Geodynamics, Geological Survey of Norway, Trondheim); (e-mail: dietmar@geosci.usyd.edu.au; gurnis@gps.caltech.edu; trond.torsvik@.ngu.no). The abstract deadline is 1 Feb 2008. Click here to view session summary

Paper by Xie, Müller, Ren, Jiang and Zhang published in Marine Geology (Stratigraphic architecture and evolution of the continental slope system in offshore Hainan, northern South China Sea) Download Paper

Lachlan O'Brian, a 2007 3rd year student in our School, won the Australian International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) Student Competition with an instrumental piece called 'Rondosymbiosis', representative of the origin and evolution of life on the Planet Earth throughout geological time, and presented as an mp3 recording. He will act as ambassador for Australia at the IYPE Launch in Paris. If you'd like to listen to his piece, please contact him directly for obtaining the mp3 file: lobr8028@mail.usyd.edu.au. Well done, Lachlan!

December 2007
The GPlates Project has made the first public release of GPlates! Congratulations to the GPlates development team!

This release of GPlates v0.9 includes the ability to load multiple PLATES4 Line format files, PLATES4 rotation files, and ESRI Shapefiles, as well as being able to save in PLATES4 formats. Several data sets can be loaded at simultaneously, and can be interactively reconstructed and queried.
Please be aware that this is an "alpha" release, and thus is not intended for everyday use. No pre-compiled binaries are available and we cannot offer any support; this release is intended to demonstrate the current state of GPlates development.
There will shortly be available a 0.9.1 "technology preview" version, with the ability to take snapshots of the current reconstruction as scalable vector graphics (SVG) files, ready for import to vector graphics programs such as Adobe Illustrator.
Get GPlates from SourceForge.net

New data files, including EarthByte global coastline and rotation files in PLATES format, are available on the Resources page.
Go to Resources

Dietmar will represent EarthByte at the upcoming AGU in San Francisco (11-15th December 2006).

October 2007
Glen Fernandes, a University of Sydney software engineering student and part-time software developer for the AuScope NCRIS project in the School of Geosciences, has won a prestigious summer internship with Microsoft. Glen is one of 12 Australian students selected by Microsoft for an extremely competitive 3-month internship in Seattle. See attached article in 21 October 2007 (Saturday) Telegraph: Career Section. Well done, Glen! View Article

Guillaume Duclaux has accepted a permanent position to join in Perth CSIRO Exploration and Mining. Guillaume will defend his PhD thesis end of November and will be back in Australia next January. In Perth, he will join Nicolas Thébaud who was recently recruited at the Center for Exploration Targeting at Curtin University. Well done Guillaume.

An article based on the Nature News and Views piece by Dietmar Muller entitled "Speedy continental collision explained" has been published in Nature News View Article

An article based on the Nature News and Views piece by Dietmar Muller has been published in the National Geographic News, entitled "Slimmer Indian Continent Drifted Ten Times Faster" View Article

A News and Views Piece by Dietmar Müller has been published in Nature (An Indian Cheetah) Download Article

A paper published in Science, led by PhD student, Joanne Whittaker, has resulted in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, entitled "We're hot stuff, thanks to Japan" View Article

Paper by Whittaker, Müller, Leitchenkov, Stagg, Sdrolias, Gaina and Goncharov published in Science (Major Australian-Antarctica Plate Reorganization at Hawaiian-Emperor Bend Time) Download Paper

Paper by Müller and Eagles published in Mathematical Geology (Mapping seabed geology by textural image/neural network classification of acoustic backscatter mosaics) Download Paper

September 2007
Carmen Gaina will be attending the Fifth International Conference on Arctic Margins in Tromso, Norway between 3-5 September. Click here to see the abstracts that were submitted by EarthByte participants.

Paper by Müller, Gohl, Cande, Goncharov, and Golynsky published in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences (Eocene to Miocene geometry of the West Antarctic Rift System) Download Paper Download Data




EarthByte farewells Stuart Clark who completed his PhD with Dietmar Müller and has now joined Simula in Oslo, Norway. We wish him all the best.

August 2007
Paper by Dyksterhuis, Müller, and Rey published in Computers and Geosciences (A Graphical User Interface for Particle-in-Cell Finite Element Analysis of lithospheric deformation and mantle convection in two dimensions) Download Paper

Paper by Gaina, Müller, Brown, Ishihara and Ivanov published in Geophysical Journal International (Breakup and early seafloor spreading between India and Antarctica, Antarctica) Download Paper

Paper by Gaina and Müller published in Earth Science Reviews (Cenozoic tectonic and depth/age evolution of the Indonesian gateway and associated back-arc basins) Download Paper

Paper by Goyette, Takatsuka, Clark, Müller, Rey and Stegman published in Visual Geosciences (Increasing the Usability and Accessibility of Geodynamic Modelling Tools to the Geoscience Community: UnderworldGUI) Download Paper

July 2007
Paper by Dyksterhuis, Rey, Müller and Moresi published in Geological Society of London Special Publication: Imaging, Mapping and Modelling Continental Lithosphere Extension and Breakup (Effects of Initial Weakness on Rift Architecture) Download Paper

Paper by Duclaux, Rey, Guilot and Menot published in Geology (Orogen-parallel flow during continental convergence: numerical experiments and Archean field examples) Download Paper

Paper by Menot, Duclaux, Peucat, Rollond, Guilot, Fanning, Bascou, Gapais, Pecher published as a US Geological Survey and National Academies Short Paper (Geology of the Terre Adelie (135-146degE)) Download Paper

Nicholas Herold will attend the 8th Association of Pacific Rims Universities (APRU) Doctoral Students Conference (DSC) in Tokyo from 30th July to 3rd August.

Maria Sdrolias will be attending the IODP LIPs Workshop in Coleraine, Northern Ireland from 21-26th July, 2007.

Dietmar Müller and Jo Whittaker will be attending the Emerging Plays in Australasia Conference held by the Geological Society in London in July. Click here to see the abstracts that were submitted by EarthByte participants

June 2007
EarthByte extends a warm farewell to Scott Dyksterhuis who completed a one year postdoc with Dietmar Müller and has now joined ExxonMobil in Melbourne. Good luck Scott!

May 2007
Congratulations to Joanne Whittaker who has been awarded the University of Sydney Postgraduate Research Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement. Jo will attend a prize night hosted by the Faculty of Science on the 9th May to receive her award. Well done Jo!

A recent Geology paper by Coltice and others (including Patrice Rey) has been featured in Discovery News "Why Supercontinents Self-Destruct". Click here to find out more.

April 2007
Paper by Coltice, Phillips, Bertrand, Ricard and Rey published in Geology (Global warming of the mantle at the origin of flood basalts over supercontinents) Download Paper

Congratulations to Nicholas Herold who was awarded the Earth Resources Foundation Elliston Medal. The Elliston Medal is awarded to the honours graduate showing exceptional standards of observation and the ability to analyse and interpret such observations from first principles. Well done Nick!

Congratulations to Joshua Knight who was awarded the Earth resources Foundation Ken Richards Memorial Scholarship for an exceptional third year student entering into their Honours year. Well done Josh!

EarthByte welcomes back Honours Student Joshua Knight from a 2 month stint at sea to Antarctica. Joshua will be working on palaeo-stress modelling of the Indo-Australian plate.

Congratulations to Christian Heine who submitted his PhD thesis on "Formation and Evolution of Intracontinental Sedimentary Basins".

Honours course: Dietmar and Maria will run a 4-day course on "Data Processing & Plotting using Generic Mapping Tools (GMT)". Where: University of Sydney. When: 7-10th May 2007

March 2007
Congratulations to Stuart Clark who submitted his PhD thesis on "The Time-Dependant Evolution of Subduction Zones: Interactions of the Lithosphere and Mantle".

EarthByte welcomes Judy Tong who has started her PhD on palaeo-climate modelling under the supervision of Dietmar Müller and John You.

February 2007
Paper by Whittaker, Müller, Sdrolias and Heine published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters (Sunda-Java trench kinematics, slab window formation and overriding plate deformation since the Cretaceous) Download Paper

EarthByte welcomes Nicholas Herold who has started his PhD under the supervision of Dietmar Müller after completing his honours in palaeo-climate modelling last year.

EarthByte warmly farewells Christian Heine who left the School of Geosciences to join Norwegian oil company, Norsk-Hydro. Good luck Christian!

January 2007
Postgraduate course: Patrice will run a 5-day course on "Numerical Simulation of Lithospheric Processes Using Ellipsis". Where: University of Minneapolis. When: January 22nd to 26th 2007

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Site Last Updated 12 October 2007 by Maria Sdrolias