News – Page 15 – EarthByte

Joanna Tobin awarded ASEG NSW Student Scholarship

19 April, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Congratulations to Honours student Jo Tobin who has been awarded the Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists (ASEG) NSW Student Scholarship! The aim of the scholarship is to promote and encourage geophysics related research and education. Jo’s Honours project focuses on the numerical simulation of the Papuan fold and thrust belt. The project involves the use of Underworld software, and looks at … Read more…

Geologists Discover How Australia’s Highest Mountain Formed

19 May, 20167 April, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Eastern_australia_topography Congratulations to Prof Dietmar Müller, Dr Nicolas Flament, Dr Kara Matthews, Dr Simon Williams, and Prof Michael Gurnis on their paper recently published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Their paper, Formation of Australian continental margin highlands driven by plate-mantle interaction, has featured in a variety of Australian and international media outlets.

PLOS ONE – The GPlates Portal: Cloud-Based Interactive 3D Visualization of Global Geophysical and Geological Data in a Web Browser

13 October, 201721 March, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Author List: Dietmar Müller, Xiaodong Qin, David Sandwell, Adriana Dutkiewicz, Simon Williams, Nicolas Flament, Stefan Maus, Maria Seton Citation: Müller, R. D., Qin, X., Sandwell, D. T., Dutkiewicz, A., Williams, S. E., Flament, N., Maus, S., & Seton, M. (2016). The GPlates Portal: Cloud-Based Interactive 3D Visualization of Global Geophysical and Geological Data in a Web Browser. … Read more…

Earth and Planetary Science Letters – Formation of Australian continental margin highlands driven by plate–mantle interaction

13 October, 201721 March, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Author List: Dietmar Müller, Nicolas Flament, Kara Matthews, Simon Williams and Mike Gurnis Citation: Müller, R. D., Flament, N., Matthews, K. J., Williams, S. E., & Gurnis, M. (2016). Formation of Australian continental margin highlands driven by plate–mantle interaction. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 441, 60–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2016.02.025 Formation of Australian continental margin highlands driven by plate–mantle … Read more…

Geophysical Research Letters – Alignment between seafloor spreading directions and absolute plate motions through time

13 October, 201721 March, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Author List: Simon Williams, Nicolas Flament and Dietmar Müller Citation: Williams, S., Flament, N., & Müller, R. D. (2016). Alignment between seafloor spreading directions and absolute plate motions through time. Geophysical Research Letters, 43, 1472–1480, doi:10.1002/2015GL067155. Alignment between seafloor spreading directions and absolute plate motions through time

Earth-Science Reviews – The Late Cretaceous to recent tectonic history of the Pacific Ocean basin

21 March, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Wright, N. M., Seton, M., Williams, S. E., & Müller, R. D. (2016). The Late Cretaceous to recent tectonic history of the Pacific Ocean basin. Earth-Science Reviews, 154, 138–173. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2015.11.015 The Late Cretaceous to recent tectonic history of the Pacific Ocean basin

Earth and Planetary Science Letters – Assessing the role of slab rheology in coupled plate-mantle convection models

21 March, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Bello, L., Coltice, N., Tackley, P. J., Müller, R. D., & Cannon, J. (2015). Assessing the role of slab rheology in coupled plate-mantle convection models. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 430, 191–201. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2015.08.010 Assessing the role of slab rheology in coupled plate-mantle convection models

Tectonophysics – Full-fit reconstruction of the South China Sea conjugate margins

21 March, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Bai, Y., Wu, S., Liu, Z., Müller, R. D., Williams, S. E., Zahirovic, S., & Dong, D. (2015). Full-fit reconstruction of the South China Sea conjugate margins. Tectonophysics, 661, 121–135. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2015.08.028 Full-fit reconstruction of the South China Sea conjugate margins

Geophysical Research Letters – Mantle-induced subsidence and compression in SE Asia since the early Miocene

13 October, 201721 March, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Author List: Ting Yang, Mike Gurnis, Sabin Zahirovic Citation: Yang, T., M. Gurnis, and S. Zahirovic (2016), Mantle–induced subsidence and compression in SE Asia since the early Miocene, Geophysical Research Letters, doi: 10.1002/2016GL068050. Mantle-induced subsidence and compression in SE Asia since the early Miocene

GPlates Portal International Media Coverage

14 March, 201611 March, 2016 by Carmen Braz

The recent article on the GPlates Portal published in PLOS ONE by Prof Dietmar Müller, Xiaodong Qin, Prof David Sandwell, Dr Adriana Dutkiewicz, Dr Simon Williams, Dr Nicolas Flament, Dr Stefan Maus, and Dr Maria Seton, has received significant international media attention over the past week, featuring in articles from Australia, UK, US, India, and UAE!

See the list of online media below, and check out the interactive globes yourself!

Virtual Time Machine Of Earth’s Geology Now In The Cloud

10 June, 201611 March, 2016 by Carmen Braz

gravity_grid_180my_ago How did Madagascar once slot next to India? Where was Australia a billion years ago?

Cloud-based virtual globes developed by a team led by University of Sydney geologists mean anyone with a smartphone, laptop or computer can now visualise, with unprecedented speed and ease of use, how the Earth evolved geologically.

Reported today in PLOS ONE, the globes have been gradually made available since September 2014. Some show Earth as it is today while others allow reconstructions through ‘geological time’, harking back to the planet’s origins.

Uniquely, the portal allows an interactive exploration of supercontinents. It shows the breakup and dispersal of Pangea over the last 200 million years. It also offers a visualisation of the supercontinent Rodinia, which existed 1.1 billion years ago. Rodinia gradually fragmented, with some continents colliding again more than 500 million years later to form Gondwanaland.

EarthByte Welcomes Ian Howson

29 June, 20167 March, 2016 by Carmen Braz

EarthByte welcomes Ian Howson to the group. He will be working with us as a software developer on the Badlands Project

GPlates in Spanish news

15 February, 2016 by Michael Chin

The link below points to an article written about EarthByte and GPlates by a Spanish journalist. The article is titled: “Viaje en una máquina del tiempo virtual a la Tierra de hace 1.000 millones de años: … which translates into: Travel in a virtual time machine to Earth 1,000 million years ago. http://m.eldiario.es/hojaderouter/ciencia/gplates-pangea-geologia-historia-Tierra-big_data_0_482951817.html Buenos dias todos … Read more…

Mike Tetley wins International Geological Congress Travel Grant

10 February, 2016 by Michael Chin

Congratulations to PhD candidate Mike Tetley who was awarded a 34th International Geological Congress Travel Grant Scheme for Early-Career Australian and New Zealand Geoscientists. The funds will go towards his current 12-month research visit to Caltech where he is working with Prof Mike Gurnis, a world leader in Earth Dynamics, to study the evolution of … Read more…

pygplates beta revision 12 released

4 February, 20196 February, 2016 by Michael Chin

The first beta release of pygplates (the GPlates Python library) is now available for download.

pygplates enables access to GPlates functionality via the Python programming language. This may be of particular use to researchers requiring more flexibility than is provided by the GPlates user interface.

The following pygplates functionality is available:-

Load and save feature data (GPML, Shapefile, etc)
Create/modify/query feature data
Traverse/modify/query plate rotation hierarchy
Partition into plates and assign plate properties
Reconstruct geometries, flowlines, motion paths
Resolve topological plates and query their boundary sections (ridges/subductions)
Calculate velocities
Distance between geometries (region-of-interest queries)
Geometry queries (length, point-in-polygon, area, centroid, tessellate, interpolate, join, partition)

EarthByte welomes Sebastiano ‘Sam’ Doss

6 February, 201629 January, 2016 by Michael Chin

EarthByte welcomes new Research Assistant Sebastiano ‘Sam’ Doss to the group. Sebastiano is currently working on the Deep Carbon Observatory project, investigating the interaction of subduction zones with carbonate platforms over time in connection to CO2 flux in the atmosphere.

EarthByte welomes Sebastiano 'Sam' Doss

29 January, 2016 by Ruken

2016 supercomputing resources

15 January, 2016 by Michael Chin

The EarthByte group has been awarded 11 million computing hours, representing the equivalent of k$AU440, to carry out research for the Basin GENESIS Hub on the supercomputers Raijin (National Computational Infrastructure) and Magnus (Pawsey Supercomputing Centre) for 2016 through the National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme (7.25 MSUs, one of the top 4 allocations across all disciplines … Read more…

EarthByte Welcomes Xianshi Cao

2 March, 201715 January, 2016 by Ruken

EarthByte Welcomes visiting student Xianshi Cao.

GPlates Portal receives a major facelift

1 March, 201814 January, 2016 by Michael Chin

The GPlates Portal has received a major facelift, using state-of-the-art web design. The primary design principle of the new front page is to convey the most important information to users in an effective way. The new grid layout guarantees the presentation of information is always in a user readable format on the screen of any … Read more…

EarthByte/Scripps research features on NASA Earth Observatory

13 January, 2016 by Michael Chin

Triplejunction gis 2014 (Copyright NASA Earth Observatory)

NASA Earth Observatory features a piece on the recent Mammerickx Microplate discovery. Their Image of the Day for 13 January 2016 is a satellite gravity map of the Indian Ocean, and the associated article, entitled ‘New Seafloor Map Helps Scientists Find New Features‘, discusses the power of satellite data for seafloor mapping and details the … Read more…

Earth and Planetary Science Letters – Oceanic microplate formation records the onset of India–Eurasia collision

13 October, 201713 January, 2016 by Michael Chin

Author List: Kara Matthews, Dietmar Müller and David Sandwell Citation: Matthews, K. J., Müller, R. D., & Sandwell, D. T. (2016). Oceanic microplate formation records the onset of India–Eurasia collision. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 433, 204-214. Oceanic microplate formation records the onset of India–Eurasia collision

Incredibly detailed, billion-year-old ancient maps of Earth produced by researchers

6 April, 201712 January, 2016 by Michael Chin

An article discussing GPlates and research that EarthByte is involved in has been featured on the IFL Science! website entitled ‘Incredibly Detailed, Billion-Year-Old Ancient Maps Of Earth Produced By Researchers‘.

Data Processing and Plotting Using  Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) Course

4 February, 201911 January, 2016 by Michael Chin

Course Overview
This course is designed to introduce students to different types of spatial data, data processing and interpolation functions and data plotting using GMT (Generic Mapping Tools). GMT is a set of public domain tools that will be used in conjunction with UNIX general processing tools (awk, grep) and basic shell programming. The examples presented in the course will focus on marine geophysical data, however many of the principles are applicable to other scientific data.

The learning outcomes for the course include: … Read more…

Software Developer required at EarthByte

6 October, 201710 January, 2016 by Michael Chin

A Software Developer position is available at EarthByte. The position will focus on the development, engineering, and maintenance of complex open-source, surface processes and geodynamics modelling software for the ARC-ITRH Basin GENESIS Hub. The total package offered is $100K-$127K p.a. for a full-time, fixed term 12 months (renewal possible). Applications close 24 January 2016. Click … Read more…

History and current advances in reconstructing the Earth through deep geological time

6 January, 20164 January, 2016 by Michael Chin

Time machine: History and current advances in reconstructing the Earth through deep geological time – an article on Quartz by Steve LeVine. The article is a review of the development of ideas and technologies in reconstructing the Earth through deep time, aimed at understanding supercontinent assembly, breakup and dispersal, starting with Alfred Wegener. The article focusses on research activities in the context of the IGCP 648 project ‘Supercontinent Cycles and Global Geodynamics‘ led by Zheng-Xiang Li. The piece provides some historical context, and highlights the work of a number of leading scientists, postdoctoral researchers and PhD students currently involved in this work. … Read more…

EarthByte Welcomes Amy l’Anson

2 June, 20173 January, 2016 by Ruken

EarthByte welcomes visiting student Amy l’Anson.

Mammerickx Microplate media coverage

6 April, 20176 December, 2015 by Michael Chin

The recent EPSL article on the discovery of the Mammerickx Microplate, by Dr Kara Matthews, Prof Dietmar Müller and Prof David Sandwell, has received lots of media attention from many different countries around the world including Australia, UK, USA, India, Pakistan, Mexico, Nepal and Honduras.

See below for a list of media items:

Online Media
The biggest continental collision in Earth’s history: Scientists pinpoint crashing together of continents that created the Himalayas 50 million years ago – Daily Mail
Scientists fix date for earth-shattering Himalayan birth pangs – The Sydney Morning Herald
Microplate discovery dates birth of Himalayas – EurekAlert!
Himalayas: Discovery of first ancient Indian Ocean microplate hints at new date of formation of mountain range – Yahoo! News … Read more…

EarthByte welcomes Sally Carney

30 November, 2015 by Michael Chin

EarthByte welcomes Sally Carney from the University of Wollongong who has just started a 6 week summer scholarship in the EarthByte group working with Dr Maria Seton on the evolution of the Panama gateway.

Nicky Wright is awarded the Chris Powell Medal

1 December, 201529 November, 2015 by Michael Chin

Nicky Wright Receives Chris Powell Medal

A big congratulations to PhD student Nicky Wright who was awarded the Chris Powell Medal for Postgraduate Research in Tectonics and Structural Geology from the Geological Society of Australia SGTSG. The medal is awarded at each regular field conference of the SGTSG for an outstanding research paper arising from postgraduate research on some aspect of … Read more…