Big Data Maps World’s Ocean Floor

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Lithology globe Aus Ant viewScientists from the University of Sydney’s School of Geosciences have led the creation of the world’s first digital map of the seafloor’s geology.

It is the first time the composition of the seafloor, covering 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, has been mapped in 40 years; the most recent map was hand drawn in the 1970s.

Published in the latest edition of Geology, the map will help scientists better understand how our oceans have responded, and will respond, to environmental change. It also reveals the deep ocean basins to be much more complex than previously thought.

… Read more…

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Nature – Onset of Antarctic Circumpolar Current 30 million years ago as Tasmanian Gateway aligned with westerlies

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Simon Williams on the Southern Surveyor

Scher, H. D., Whittaker, J. M., Williams, S. E., Latimer, J. C., Kordesch, W, E, C., & Delaney, M, L. (2015). Onset of Antarctic Circumpolar Current 30 million years ago as Tasmanian Gateway aligned with westerlies. Nature, 523, 580-583.

Onset of Antarctic Circumpolar Current 30 million years ago as Tasmanian Gateway aligned with westerlies

Congratulations to Simon Williams and Tassie EarthByter Joanne Whittaker for co-authoring the paper in Nature.

In a project led by Howie Scher from the University of South Carolina they used fossil fish teeth recovered from the oceans around Australia combined with detailed tectonic reconstructions to shed new light on the origins of the world’s mightiest ocean current, … Read more…

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India – Eurasia collision paper makes "Most Downloaded" list

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Sabin Zahirovic Magic Planet

Congratulations to Dr Ana Gibbons, Dr Sabin Zahirovic, Dr Joanne Whittaker and Dr Yatheesh Vadakkeyakath, whose paper “A tectonic model reconciling evidence for the collisions between India, Eurasia and intra-oceanic arcs of the central-eastern Tethys” is now the third-most downloaded paper on Gondwana Research over the last 90 days!

Most Downloaded Gondwana Research Articles

The paper already has 3 citations (not bad for a paper that just came out this month).

Citation
Gibbons, A. D., Zahirovic, S., Müller, R. D., Whittaker, J. M., & Yatheesh, V. (2015). A tectonic model reconciling evidence for the collisions between India, Eurasia and intra-oceanic arcs of the central-eastern Tethys. Gondwana Research. doi: 10.1016/j.gr.2015.01.001.

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India – Eurasia collision paper makes “Most Downloaded” list

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Sabin Zahirovic Magic Planet

Congratulations to Dr Ana Gibbons, Dr Sabin Zahirovic, Dr Joanne Whittaker and Dr Yatheesh Vadakkeyakath, whose paper “A tectonic model reconciling evidence for the collisions between India, Eurasia and intra-oceanic arcs of the central-eastern Tethys” is now the third-most downloaded paper on Gondwana Research over the last 90 days!

Most Downloaded Gondwana Research Articles

The paper already has 3 citations (not bad for a paper that just came out this month).

Citation
Gibbons, A. D., Zahirovic, S., Müller, R. D., Whittaker, J. M., & Yatheesh, V. (2015). A tectonic model reconciling evidence for the collisions between India, Eurasia and intra-oceanic arcs of the central-eastern Tethys. Gondwana Research. doi: 10.1016/j.gr.2015.01.001.

… Read more…

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Earth's climate throughout the Phanerozoic

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Eocene topo bath

Eocene topo bathProject Summary
EarthByte is involved in a series of projects aimed at understanding and modeling Earth’s climate throughout the Phanerozoic. Some of these projects include:

  • Future Fellowship of Maria Seton on “Oceanic gateways: a primary control on global climate change?”
  • Basin GENESIS Hub activities, related to the effect of the mantle, crustal deformation, erosion and sedimentary processes on sedimentary basins
  • ATOM – a coupled atmospheric-ocean circulation code jointly developed by Prof. Roger Grundmann and EarthByte.

EarthByte’s expertise in tectonics, geodynamics and surface process modeling is enhanced by close collaborations with leading palaeoclimate modellers and geochemical oceanographers.  … Read more…

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Earth’s climate throughout the Phanerozoic

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Eocene topo bath

Eocene topo bathProject Summary
EarthByte is involved in a series of projects aimed at understanding and modeling Earth’s climate throughout the Phanerozoic. Some of these projects include:

  • Future Fellowship of Maria Seton on “Oceanic gateways: a primary control on global climate change?”
  • Basin GENESIS Hub activities, related to the effect of the mantle, crustal deformation, erosion and sedimentary processes on sedimentary basins
  • ATOM – a coupled atmospheric-ocean circulation code jointly developed by Prof. Roger Grundmann and EarthByte.

EarthByte’s expertise in tectonics, geodynamics and surface process modeling is enhanced by close collaborations with leading palaeoclimate modellers and geochemical oceanographers.  … Read more…

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Gondwana Research – The tectonic stress field evolution of India since the Oligocene

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Dietmar Müller

Müller, R. D., Yatheesh, V., & Shuhail, M. (2014). The tectonic stress field evolution of India since the Oligocene. Gondwana Research. doi:10.1016/j.gr.2014.05.008. The tectonic stress field evolution of India since the Oligocene Download accompanying data – zip file

EarthByte's plate tectonic animation added to NOAA's SOS database

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An EarthByte plate tectonic animation has recently been added to NOAA’s Science on a Sphere database. NOAA produces large interactive 3D spherical projection systems that are installed at museums, universities, schools and other institutes across the world (see Science On a Sphere map locations). The EarthByte animation is from the recent Gibbons et al. (2015) … Read more…

EarthByte’s plate tectonic animation added to NOAA’s SOS database

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An EarthByte plate tectonic animation has recently been added to NOAA’s Science on a Sphere database. NOAA produces large interactive 3D spherical projection systems that are installed at museums, universities, schools and other institutes across the world (see Science On a Sphere map locations). The EarthByte animation is from the recent Gibbons et al. (2015) … Read more…

Summer Scholarship opportunities available within the School of Geosciences

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The Division of Natural Sciences at the University of Sydney offers a variety of Summer Scholarship opportunities for students in the 2nd or 3rd year of their undergraduate degree.

Research projects are available in most disciplines for a duration of between 4-6 weeks over the Summer holiday period (November-February).

The program is open to both current University of Sydney students as well as students from other Australian Universities. Each scholarship is valued at $497 (in accordance with APA rate) per week for the duration of the project.  … Read more…

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EarthByte welcomes Nicolas Coltice and Claire Mallard

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This week we’re excited to host our long-term collaborators from France, Prof Nicolas Coltice and PhD student Claire Mallard. They will be presenting their work as part of the Augury Project – a European Research Council funded initiative to study the Earth’s evolution of mantle convection and plate tectonics. They spent two weeks field mapping in … Read more…

EarthByte helps the International Science School

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Nikita and Jono at the International Science SchoolEarthByte helped run the 2015 geosciences workshop for the University of Sydney’s International Science School, with over 140 high school students engaging in activities from a wide range of research topics and teaching areas at the School of Geosciences. Thanks to all the brilliant EarthByte volunteers, including Mandi Thran, Nikita Golkin, Luke Hardiman, Jono Leonard and Carmen Braz.

 

See the School of Geoscience’s Facebook page for more info and photos from the day!  … Read more…

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Gondwana Research – A tectonic model reconciling evidence for the collision between India, Eurasia and intra-oceanic arcs of the central-eastern Tethys

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Gibbons, A. D., Zahirovic, S., Müller, R. D., Whittaker, J. M., & Yatheesh, V. (2015). A tectonic model reconciling evidence for the collisions between India, Eurasia and intra-oceanic arcs of the central-eastern Tethys. Gondwana Research. doi: 10.1016/j.gr.2015.01.001. A tectonic model reconciling evidence for the collisions between India, Eurasia and intra-oceanic arcs of the central-eastern Tethys

EarthByte joins ACTER

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Simon Williams' ACTER talk photoRecently, EarthByte joined the Australia-China Joint Research Centre for Tectonics and Earth Resources (ACTER). The joint research centre is led by the Institute for Geoscience Research at Curtin University and the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with involvement of Australian and Chinese universities and industry partners. The aim of the centre is to promote joint research activities, the exchange of staff and students, and to foster long-term mutually-beneficial collaboration between Australian and Chinese research groups. … Read more…

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Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems – Semi-automatic fracture zone tracking

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Wessel, P., Matthews, K. J., Müller, R. D., Mazzoni, A., Whittaker, J. M., Myhill, R., & Chandler, M. T. (2015). Semi-automatic fracture zone tracking. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. doi: 10.1002/2015GC005853. Semi-automatic fracture zone tracking This paper includes an update to the global seafloor tectonic fabric data set by Matthews et al. (JGR, 2011).  Based on the vertical gravity … Read more…

Dietmar Müller attends Australian open research data showcase in Canberra

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ANDS Showcase June 2015Today Prof Dietmar Müller attended the Australian open research data showcase in Canberra. The showcase featured a variety of talks and discussions around the benefits and issues concerning open research data. It was an important milestone towards consolidating the Australian effort towards involving Universities and individual researchers in sharing their data.

A highlight was Ian Chubb’s presentation that pointed out that if you look at all papers published in the last 115 years, about 50% were either never cited or only cited once. The hope is that open access publications and associated open research data will improve these sorts of statistics. George Bernard Shaw was quoted by geologist Geoffrey Boulton (Univ. Edinburgh) as pointing out: “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. … Read more…

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Lithos – Overlapping Sr-Nd-Hf-O isotopic compositions in Permian mafic enclaves and host granitoids in Alxa Block, NW China: Evidence of crust-mantle interaction and implications for the generation of silicic igneous provinces

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Dan, W., Wang, Q., Wang, X. C., Liu, Y., Wyman, D. A., & Liu, Y. S. (2015). Overlapping Sr–Nd–Hf–O isotopic compositions in Permian mafic enclaves and host granitoids in Alxa Block, NW China: Evidence for crust–mantle interaction and implications for the generation of silicic igneous provinces. Lithos, 230, 133-145. doi:10.1016/j.lithos.2015.05.016. Overlapping Sr–Nd–Hf–O isotopic compositions in … Read more…

Plate reconstruction with ocean basin paleo-ages

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A global animation accompanying the publication Global continental and ocean basin reconstructions since 200 Ma.Citation Seton, M., et al. (2012), Global continental and ocean basin reconstructions since 200 Ma, Earth-Science Reviews, 113(3-4), 212-270. doi: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2012.03.002.View the full playlist on our EarthByte YouTube channel

Plate reconstruction with paleo-bathymetry of the ocean basins

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Reconstructions of tectonic plates and oceanic paleodepth (i.e. paleobathymetry).Citation Müller, R., M. Sdrolias, C. Gaina, and W. Roest (2008). Age, spreading rates, and spreading asymmetry of the world’s ocean crust, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 9(4), 19, Q04006. doi: 10.1029/2007GC001743.View the full playlist on our EarthByte YouTube channel

Geodynamics of arc-continent collisions

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Courtesy of Prof Louis Moresi, created with the ellipsis software.Citation O’Neill, C., Moresi, L., Müller, R.D., Albert, R. and Dufour, F., 2006, Ellipsis 3D: a particle-in-cell finite element hybrid code for modelling mantle convection and lithospheric deformation, Computers and Geosciences, 32, 1769-1779.View other EarthByte animations on our YouTube channel

School of Geosciences Awards Evening winners

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Tonight was the annual School of Geosciences Awards Evening held at the Macleay Museum. Congratulations to EarthByters Mike Tetley, Dr Sabin Zahirovic, Andrew Merdith, Sarah MacLeod, Carmen Braz, Luke Hardiman and Serena Yeung for receiving academic and School service awards! Dr Maral Hosseinpour was photographer for the evening and took some brilliant photos!

Nature Geoscience – Long-term interaction between mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes

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Whittaker, J. M., Afonso, J. C., Masterton, S., Müller, R. D., Wessel, P., Williams, S. E., & Seton, M. (2015). Long-term interaction between mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes. Nature Geoscience, 8(6), 479-483. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2437. Summary Plate tectonic motions are commonly considered to be driven by slab pull at subduction zones and ridge push at mid-ocean … Read more…

Long-term interaction between mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes

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Whittaker et al 2015 MORs plumes LIPSCitation
Whittaker, J. M., Afonso, J. C., Masterton, S., Müller, R. D., Wessel, P., Williams, S. E., & Seton, M. (2015). Long-term interaction between mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes. Nature Geoscience, 8(6), 479-483.

Summary
Plate tectonic motions are commonly considered to be driven by slab pull at subduction zones and ridge push at mid-ocean ridges, with motion punctuated by plumes of hot material rising from the lower mantle. Within this model, the geometry and location of mid-ocean ridges are considered to be independent of lower-mantle dynamics, such as deeply sourced plumes that produce voluminous lava eruptions-termed large igneous provinces. Here we use a global plate model to reconstruct the locations of large igneous provinces relative to plumes and mid-ocean ridges at the time they formed. … Read more…

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