News 2025

EarthByte PhD candidates Elnaz and Hojat awarded two prestigious scholarships and a research prize.

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EarthByte Group PhD candidates Elnaz Heidari and Hojat Shirmard have recently been awarded two competitive scholarships: the Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists (ASEG) Research Foundation Scholarship (2025–2027) and the Edgeworth David Travelling Scholarship, in recognition of their innovative geoscience research. In addition to these honours, Hojat has also been selected to receive the Faculty of … Read more…

New Kinematic Model of the Early Opening of the Equatorial Atlantic Realm

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The opening of the Equatorial Atlantic Ocean constitutes the final stage of Gondwana’s breakup, leading to the separation of the African and South American continents. The early spreading has been debated due to the absence of magnetic anomalies related to the Early Cretaceous opening at low latitude, and an incomplete fracture zone record, hidden by … Read more…

Regional Carbonate Compensation Depth variability in the Pacific Ocean since the Oligocene

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Deep-sea carbonates constitute the primary deep carbon reservoir, playing a critical role in regulating the long-term global carbon cycle. Reconstructing the temporal evolution of carbonate flux to the seafloor requires estimating the changes in carbonate compensation depth (CCD), a key proxy, revealing the depth where the rate of calcium carbonate supply from biogenic ooze equals … Read more…

Subducting seafloor anomalies promote porphyry copper formation

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Oceanic seafloor is scarred by age discontinuities, seamounts, and large igneous provinces (LIPs) over normal bathymetry. The recycling of these seafloor anomalies has been speculated to alter subduction regimes which may locally prime some regions for porphyry copper deposit formation. Using a tectonic plate reconstruction encompassing the last 100 Ma paired with a machine learning classifier … Read more…

A tectonically driven 60 million-year biogeochemical redox cycle paces marine biodiversity

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The fossil record shows a prominent 60 million-year biodiversity cycle during the Phanerozoic Eon, the origin of which is still unknown. Here we use time-series analysis and correlation of empirical and model datasets of Earth’s interior and sur cial processes to demonstrate that this cycle is a pervasive feature in marine animal genus-level diversity data … Read more…

Convolutional Neural Networks for Mineral Prospecting Through Alteration Mapping with Remote Sensing Data

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Traditional geological mapping methods, which rely on field observations and rock sample analysis, are inefficient for continuous spatial mapping of geological features such as alteration zones. Deep learning models such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have ushered in a transformative era in remote sensing data analysis. CNNs excel in automatically extracting features from image data … Read more…

Geology-Geophysics Seminar Series: Patrice Rey

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We are excited to invite you to the 11th seminar of the 2025 Geology and Geophysics Seminar Series, featuring Patrice Rey, a Professor of Structural Geology, Tectonics and Geodynamics in the School of Geosciences, University of Sydney. Patrice will be presenting on “A Thermo-Mechanical Framework for Proterozoic Basins“. This interesting talk will delve into how elevated thermal conditions … Read more…

Geology-Geophysics Seminar Series: Maxwell Lechte

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We are excited to invite you to the 10th seminar of the 2025 Geology and Geophysics Seminar Series, featuring Maxwell Lechte, a Research Fellow who works on Precambrian geobiology and sedimentary geology at the School of Geography Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Melbourne. Max will be presenting on “Using the sedimentary iron record to track environmental change … Read more…

Remote sensing framework for geological mapping via stacked autoencoders and clustering

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Supervised machine learning methods for geological mapping via remote sensing face limitations due to the scarcity of accurately labelled training data that can be addressed by unsupervised learning, such as dimensionality reduction and clustering. Dimensionality reduction methods have the potential to play a crucial role in improving the accuracy of geological maps. Although conventional dimensionality … Read more…

Magnetization of Oceanic Lithosphere From Modeling of Satellite Observations

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Magnetic observations from the oceans have made fundamental contributions to our knowledge of plate motions and the evolution of the geomagnetic field over the past ∼200 Myr. Here we construct updated models of magnetization for the oceanic lithosphere, taking advantage of the most recent models for Earth’s past plate motions. We then evaluate these models using … Read more…

Machine Learning and Big Data Mining Reveal Earth’s Deep Time Crustal Thickness and Tectonic Evolution: A New Chemical Mohometry Approach

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Quantitative analysis of crustal thickness evolution across deep time poses critical insights into the planet’s geological history. It may help uncover new areas with potential critical mineral deposits and reveal the impacts of crustal thickness and elevation changes on the development of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. However, most existing estimation methods are restricted to … Read more…

Geology-Geophysics Seminar Series: Sinan Özaydın

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We are excited to invite you to the 8th seminar of the 2025 Geology and Geophysics Seminar Series, featuring Sinan Özaydın, a post-doctoral research fellow in School of Geosciences, University of Sydney. Sinan will be presenting on “Using thermomechanical modelling to decode anomalies from magnetotelluric models: an example from a pull-apart basin.” presenting a new approach that transforms … Read more…

Geology-Geophysics Seminar Series: Josephine Joergensen

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We are excited to invite you to the 7th seminar of the 2025 Geology and Geophysics Seminar Series, featuring Josephine Joergensen, a visiting PhD student in the EarthByte group at University of Sydney, visiting from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. Josephine will be presenting on “Analysing small-scale seafloor topography“, discussing the significance of … Read more…

PyGPlates 1.0 released

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We’re pleased to announce the release of pyGPlates 1.0. PyGPlates enables access to GPlates functionality via the Python programming language. PyGPlates can now be installed using conda or pip. Please see the installation instructions in the pyGPlates documentation. Note: The old method of manually installing pre-compiled binaries is no longer supported (that’s now handled by conda and pip). But … Read more…

Geology-Geophysics Seminar Series: Thomas Mauch

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We are excited to invite you to the next seminar of the 2025 Geology and Geophysics Seminar Series, featuring Dr. Thomas Mauch, a Research Compute Data Scientist and NCI-Sydney Scheme Manager at Sydney Informatics Hub, University of Sydney. Tom will be presenting on “Sydney Research Cloud: Changes to Research Computing” discussing the transition from Artemis to NCI and … Read more…

Machine Learning-Based Spatio-Temporal Prospectivity Modeling of Porphyry Systems in the New Guinea and Solomon Islands Region

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Abstract. The discovery of new economic copper deposits is critical for the development of renewable energy infrastructure and zero-emissions transport. The majority of existing copper mines are located within current or extinct continental arc systems, but our understanding of the tectonic and geodynamic conditions favoring the formation of porphyry systems is still incomplete. Traditionally, exploration … Read more…

Phanerozoic icehouse climates as the result of multiple solid-Earth cooling mechanisms

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The Phanerozoic climate has been interrupted by two long “icehouse” intervals, including the current icehouse of the last ~34 million years. While these cool intervals correspond to lower atmospheric CO2, it is unclear why CO2 levels fell, with hypotheses suggesting changes in CO2 degassing rates or modification of silicate weathering through changing continental lithology or paleogeography. Here, … Read more…

Geology-Geophysics Seminar Series: Valentin Rime

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We are excited to invite you to the next seminar of the 2025 Geology and Geophysics Seminar Series, featuring Valentin Rime, a visiting researcher at the School of Geosciences, University of Sydney. Valentin will be presenting on “Rift, breakup and drift: what can we learn from the Afar Depression, Eastern Africa?” exploring the structure, evolution, and key controls … Read more…

Geology-Geophysics Seminar Series: Aleksandra Stachowska

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We are excited to invite you to the next seminar of the 2025 Geology and Geophysics Seminar Series (formerly Earthbyte Seminars), featuring Dr Aleksandra Stachowska, a researcher at the Seismic Interpretation and Basin Analysis Research Group (SeisSed) at the Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Science. Aleksandra will be presenting on “Inversion Tectonics Vs. Depositional Systems – Seismic … Read more…

Geology-Geophysics Seminar Series: Wu Jiayu

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We are excited to invite you to the upcoming seminar of the 2025 Geology-Geophysics Seminar Series (formerly Earthbyte Seminars), featuring Wu Jiayu a PhD candidate from China University of Geosciences. Wu Jiayu will be presenting on “Data-driven Metallogenic Potential Evaluation and Dynamic Analysis of Southeast Coast of China​” sharing fresh insights and innovative methods in geoscience. Date: February 12, 2025 … Read more…

Geology-Geophysics Seminar Series: Diange Zhou

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We are excited to invite you to the next seminar of the 2025 Geology and Geophysics Seminar Series (formerly Earthbyte Seminars), featuring Diange Zhou a PhD candidate from China University of Geosciences. Diange Zhou will be presenting on “Mineral Spatial Distribution Prediction based on Representation Learning” sharing fresh insights and innovative methods in geoscience. Date: February 5, 2025  Time: 11:00 … Read more…

Lamprophyres, gold and orogenies: a mineral systems perspective

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The common spatial and temporal association of calk alkaline lamprophyres with orogenic gold deposits has been recognized for more than a century, although interpretations regarding the significance of this association have varied greatly. A persistent lack of consensus on Archean geodynamics and the deposits themselves presented a challenge to the use of a Mineral Systems … Read more…

Geology-Geophysics Seminar Series: Stacia Gordon

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We are excited to invite you to the first seminar of the 2025 Geology and Geophysics Seminar Series (formerly Earthbyte Seminars), featuring Professor Stacia Gordon from the University of Nevada-Reno. Stacia will be presenting on “Rates, Conditions, and Scales of Mass Transfer From the Mantle to the Crust: Insights from Earth’s Youngest UHP Terrane” sharing fresh insights and innovative … Read more…

pide: Petrophysical Interpretation tools for geoDynamic Exploration

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pide is a Python library for calculating geophysical parameters (e.g., electrical conductivity, seismic velocity), employing the results from experimental petrology, mineral/rock physics, and thermomechanical modelling studies. pide can calculate the theoretical electrical conductivity of any Earth material that exists in the literature. pide can also calculate seismic velocity utilising the external ‘sister’ library SAnTex. Using … Read more…

GPlates Web Service v1.0.0 Released

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We are pleased to announce the first official stable release of the GPlates Web Service. The GPlates Web Service is a part of the GPlates project funded by AuScope. The web service is built upon pyGPlates and allows users to utilize the pyGPlates functionalities without the need of installing pyGPlates locally. Users send HTTP requests … Read more…