News

Here are all the latest EarthByte news posts. See News Archive for recent years.

EarthByte also publishes the ‘GPlates News‘ newsletter every quarter. The GPlates newsletter contains features such as the latest GPlates updates, tutorials and datasets, EarthByte news highlights and much more! Click here to view the latest and past editions of ‘GPlates News‘, or subscribe to receive the newsletters.

EarthByte welcomes Mike Tetley

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Welcome back to Mike Tetley, who has commenced a PhD with EarthByte this week, under the supervision of Dietmar Müller, Simon Williams, Nico Flament and collaborator, Mike Gurnis at CalTech. Mike is a recipient of a University of Sydney Merit Award from his Honour’s degree study which focused on palaeomagnetics of the Palaeozoic Lachlan Orogen.

Nature Communications – Rift migration explains continental margin assymetry and crustal hyper-extension

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Brune, S., Heine, C., Pérez-Gussinyé, M., & Sobolev, S. V. (2014). Rift migration explains continental margin asymmetry and crustal hyper-extension. Nature communications, 5. doi: 10.1038/ncomms5014. Rift migration explains continental margin asymmetry and crustal hyper-extension Download supplementary information – pdf

Earth and Planetary Science Letters – Burial and exhumation during Archean sagduction in the East Pilbara Granite-Greenstone Terrane

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François, C., Philippot, P., Rey, P., & Rubatto, D. (2014). Burial and exhumation during Archean sagduction in the East Pilbara granite-greenstone terrane. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 396, 235-251. doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2014.04.025. Burial and exhumation during Archean sagduction in the East Pilbara granite-greenstone terrane Supplementary information is available from Science Direct here Download the combined supplementary tables … Read more…

Solid Earth – The Cretaceous and Cenozoic tectonic evolution of Southeast Asia

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Zahirovic, S., Seton, M., & Müller, R. D. (2014). The Cretaceous and Cenozoic tectonic evolution of Southeast Asia. Solid Earth, 5(1), 227-273. doi:10.5194/se-5-227-2014. The Cretaceous and Cenozoic tectonic evolution of Southeast Asia Download supplementary material – zip file

GPlates 1.4 now available to download

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GPlates Version 1.4 has been released! This latest update of GPlates brings added functionality for the export of both numerical floating point-data and colour reconstructed rasters, for a user specified region and resolution. There is also greater flexibility for raster file import, with ERMapper, Erdas Imagine and GeoTIFF files now supported and geo-referencing is retained … Read more…

Tectonophysics – Cenozoic uplift of South Western Australia as constrained by river profiles

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Barnett-Moore, N., Flament, N., Heine, C., Butterworth, N., & Müller, R. D. (2014). Cenozoic uplift of south Western Australia as constrained by river profiles. Tectonophysics, 622, 186-197. doi: 10.1016/j.tecto.2014.03.010. Cenozoic uplift of south Western Australia as constrained by river profiles

Geophysics – Mapping crustal thickness using marine gravity data: Methods and uncertainties

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Bai, Y., Williams, S. E., Müller, R. D., Liu, Z., & Hosseinpour, M. (2014). Mapping crustal thickness using marine gravity data: Methods and uncertainties. Geophysics, 79(2), G27-G36. doi: 10.1190/GEO2013-0270. Mapping crustal thickness using marine gravity data: Methods and uncertainties Download supplementary material

EarthByte publicity for Oblique rifting of the Equatorial Atlantic paper

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Summary FigureCongratulations to EarthByte’s Sascha Brune and Christian Heine (now at Shell in The Hague) who made it to the Sydney Uni front page with a media piece on “How the world missed out on a Saharan Atlantic ocean”, attracted international media attention and were chosen as a “Research Focus” in the current volume of Geology for their paper: Oblique rifting of the Equatorial Atlantic: Why there is no Saharan Atlantic Ocean. Well done! … Read more…

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Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems – Community infrastructure and repository for marine magnetic identifications

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magnetic_picks_globeMagnetic anomaly identifications form the primary data set from which the age of the oceanic lithosphere can be determined, a critical component of reconstructing the seafloor spreading history of ocean basins. This data is now available as part of an open source, community-driven online repository that contains quality-checked magnetic anomaly picks, organised by ocean basin and publication source.

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Solid Earth – Pacific plate slab pull and intraplate deformation in the early Cenozoic

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Butterworth, N. P., Müller, R. D., Quevedo, L., O’Connor, J. M., Hoernle, K., & Morra, G. (2014). Pacific Plate slab pull and intraplate deformation in the early Cenozoic. Solid Earth, 5(2). doi: 10.5194/sed-6-1-2014. Pacific Plate slab pull and intraplate deformation in the early Cenozoic

Geoscientific Model Development – A suite of early Eocene (~55 Ma) climate model boundary conditions

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Herold_etal_2014_BIOME4

Herold, N., Buzan, J., Seton, M., Goldner, A., Green, J. A. M., Müller, R. D., Markwick, P., & Huber, M. (2014). A suite of early Eocene (~ 55 Ma) climate model boundary conditions. Geoscientific Model Development, 7(5), 2077-2090. doi: 10.5194/gmd-7-2077-2014.

A suite of early Eocene (~ 55 Ma) climate model boundary conditions

Supplementary data

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Earth and Planetary Science Letters – Topographic assymetry of the South Atlantic from global models of mantle flow and lithospheric stretching

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Flament, N., Gurnis, M., Williams, S., Seton, M., Skogseid, J., Heine, C., & Müller, R. D. (2014). Topographic asymmetry of the South Atlantic from global models of mantle flow and lithospheric stretching. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 387, 107-119. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2013.11.017. Topographic asymmetry of the South Atlantic from global models of mantle flow and lithospheric stretching … Read more…

Scientific Drilling – Exploring new drilling prospects in the Southwest Pacific

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Arculus, R., D’Hondt, S., Exon, N., Foster, C., Gallagher, S. J., Gurnis, M., … & Wallace, L. (2014). Exploring new drilling prospects in the Southwest Pacific. Scientific Drilling, 17, 45-50. doi: 10.5194/sd-17-45-2014. Exploring new drilling prospects in the southwest Pacific

Geology – Oblique rifting of the Equatorial Atlantic: Why there is no Saharan Atlantic Ocean

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Heine, C., & Brune, S. (2014). Oblique rifting of the Equatorial Atlantic: why there is no Saharan Atlantic Ocean. Geology, 42(3), 211-214. doi:10.1130/G35082.1 107-199. Oblique rifting of the Equatorial Atlantic: why there is no Saharan Atlantic Ocean Access supporting data (ref. 2014073)

Journal of Geodynamics – Geological, tomographic, kinematic and geodynamic constraints on the dynamics of sinking slabs

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Butterworth, N. P., Talsma, A. S., Müller, R. D., Seton, M., Bunge, H. P., Schuberth, B. S. A., … & Heine, C. (2014). Geological, tomographic, kinematic and geodynamic constraints on the dynamics of sinking slabs. Journal of Geodynamics, 73, 1-13. doi: 10.1016/j.jog.2013.10.006. Geological, tomographic, kinematic and geodynamic constraints on the dynamics of sinking slabs Supplementary material

Solid Earth – Full-fit reconstruction of the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay

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Hosseinpour, M., Müller, R. D., Williams, S. E., & Whittaker, J. M. (2013). Full-fit reconstruction of the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay. Solid Earth, 4(2), 461-479. doi :10.5194/se-4-461-2013. Full-fit reconstruction of the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay Supplementary material

Opal exploration research recognised as outstanding highlight

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Recent EarthByte research on opal exploration was recognised as an outstanding highlight and reflects the work of many of the group including, Andrew Merdith, Tom Landgrebe, Adriana Dutkiewicz and Patrice Rey. Congratulations to all of the contributors to the project and specifically to John Cannon and Michael Chin, the GPlates developers!

Precambrian Research – The evolution of the 87 Sr/86 Sr of marine carbonates does not constrain continental growth

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Flament, N., Coltice, N., & Rey, P. F. (2013). The evolution of the 87 Sr/86 Sr of marine carbonates does not constrain continental growth. Precambrian Research, 229, 177-188. doi:10.1016/j.precamres.2011.10.009. The evolution of the 87 Sr/86 Sr of marine carbonates does not constrain continental growth

Tectonophysics – The Moho: boundary above upper mantle peridotites or lower crustal eclogites? A global review and new interpretations for passive margins

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Mjelde, R., Goncharov, A., & Müller, R. D. (2013). The Moho: boundary above upper mantle peridotites or lower crustal eclogites? A global review and new interpretations for passive margins. Tectonophysics, 609, 636-650. doi: 10.1016/j.tecto.2012.03.001. The Moho: boundary above upper mantle peridotites or lower crustal eclogites? A global review and new interpretations for passive margins

EarthByte welcomes Professor Sanzhong Li and PhD student Shan Yu

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EarthByte would like to welcome Professor Sanzhong Li who is visiting for 2 months from the Ocean University of China. We also welcome Shan Yu, a PhD student at the Ocean University of China who will study at EarthByte for 1 year. She will be developing plate reconstructions of the Paleotethys in central China and … Read more…