Geodynamics

Lava Lamps & Thermochemical Convection

Hands-on experiments explore the details of thermochemical convection. Build your own Lava Lamp and learn why the continents don't get sucked down into the deep Earth.

Geodynamics

High mantle seismic P-wave-speeds as a signature for pancake-like flow in the upper mantle

Buoyant material rising in the Earth's mantle is expected to spread out when it reaches the base of a tectonic plate like pancake batter dropped into a pan.

Geodynamics

A response to Gillian Foulger's argument against mantle plumes on Oliver Strimpel's podcast

Mantle plumes are the best explanation we have for much of Earth's intraplate volcanism but some remain doubtful despite 50 years of rigorous testing.

Geodynamics

Geodynamic models link enigmatic intraplate volcanism in Eastern Asia to subduction history and upper mantle upwellings

In Eastern Asia, Jurassic and Cretaceous intraplate volcanism and magmatism differ in their spatial distribution and composition. A combination of plate kinematic and geodynamic models provides clues for their causes.

Geodynamics

A tight squeeze between tectonic plates

The largest earthquakes occur at subduction zones, where one plate descends beneath another into the underlying mantle, at a convergent plate boundary. Some subduction zones seem to host more large

Geophysics

Chatting about reconstructing 1 billion years of Earth evolution in Geology Bites podcast

This is a transcript of a podcast with Oliver Strimpel from GeologyBites. We chat about the challenges and benefits of reconstructing Earth evolution over a billion years.

Geodynamics

East Australian Volcanism – interaction of plumes and subduction remnants

Eastern Australia hosts a wide range of volcanic edifices, ranging from localised outcrops to lava fields and central volcanoes, mostly older in the North, younger in the South. Here we discuss potential controlling mechanisms.

Seismology

The inherited structures within the Australian lithosphere define the tectonic evolution along the Banda arc

Integration of passive seismic images, geochemistry, and reconstruction of uplift from river profiles provide new findings on arc-continent collisional processes

Geodynamics

The Earth's troubled childhood

Continents host the oldest building blocks of the Earth's surface and keep a record of the processes that shaped it. A careful reading and high-performance computational modelling of the early, hotter Earth reveal a coming of age story.

Geodynamics

Do Australian earthquakes matter?

People naturally focus on big news and Geo-scientists also pay more attentions to big earthquakes happening in plate boundaries rather than the 'boring' small earthquakes in stable continents. Does this mean the intraplate earthquakes are negligible in scientific research?

Geodynamics

How is 'social distancing' maintained between strike-slip faults?

Haibin Yang, Louis Moresi and Mark Quigley provide a scaling relationship for the fault spacing in continental strike-slip shear zones.

Geodynamics

On the destructive tendencies of cratons

Katie Cooper, Rebecca Farrington and Meghan Miller explain how cratonic lithosphere can be sculpted by flow from a passing subducting slab.

Tectonics

How Earth's continents became twisted and contorted over millions of years

Figure: Photographed on Kangaroo Island, this rock – called a ‘zebra schist’ – deformed from flat-lying marine sediments through being stressed by a continental collision over 500 million years ago. Dietmar Muller

Geodynamics

Advanced geodynamic models of giant earthquakes

Though giant earthquakes are disastrous, they provide essential information to investigate earthquake physics. Thyagarajulu Gollapalli, a PhD student jointly from Monash University and the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, discusses our present understanding of such big earthquakes.

Publications

Craton Formation and the Onset of Plate Tectonics

Cratons are anomalously-strong regions of the continents that have largely resisted tectonic forces for billions of years. How such strong…

Publications

Plate tectonics and solid Earth dynamics

Lava Lamps & Thermochemical Convection

High mantle seismic P-wave-speeds as a signature for pancake-like flow in the upper mantle

A response to Gillian Foulger's argument against mantle plumes on Oliver Strimpel's podcast

Geodynamic models link enigmatic intraplate volcanism in Eastern Asia to subduction history and upper mantle upwellings

A tight squeeze between tectonic plates

Chatting about reconstructing 1 billion years of Earth evolution in Geology Bites podcast

East Australian Volcanism – interaction of plumes and subduction remnants

The inherited structures within the Australian lithosphere define the tectonic evolution along the Banda arc

The Earth's troubled childhood

Do Australian earthquakes matter?

How is 'social distancing' maintained between strike-slip faults?

On the destructive tendencies of cratons

How Earth's continents became twisted and contorted over millions of years

Advanced geodynamic models of giant earthquakes

Craton Formation and the Onset of Plate Tectonics

Modelling Lithospheric Drips and Delamination Events