Ben Mather - Geo★ Down Under

Unusual geochemical signature in Arctic ocean floor basalts

Earth’s tectonic plates are constantly moving. Over millions of years new plates form at oceanic ridges, while others form mountains or even sink back in the mantle and disappear from the surface. The unique geochemical signature of sunken plates can be preserved and reappear in newly formed crust.

Geophysics

Rocky icebergs and deep anchors – new research on how planetary forces shape the Earth’s surface

A recent article in The Conversation by Simon Lamb from Victoria University of Wellington "uncovers the fundamental forces that control the Earth’s surface". They use Crust 1.0, ETOPO1, and the McKenzie and Priestley lithosphere model to compute their "Whole Layer Isostasy" model.

Publications

Turning up the heat on Earth temperature modelling — AuScope

Modelling temperature in the Earth’s crust is accomplished by populating a geological model with thermal properties, such as thermal…

Expedition to the Coral Sea to sample underwater volcanoes

Chronicles from our 2019 voyage aboard the RV Investigator to the Coral Sea to sample underwater volcanoes on the submerged continent of Zealandia

Software

Introducing Stripy

Geodynamicists from Sydney and Australian National universities have developed Stripy, a software module that allows scientists to efficiently place GIS ‘wrapping paper’ around the spherical Earth ‘present’.