Opinion - Geo★ Down Under

Australian Academy of Science Statement on Declining Funding for University Earth Science

Members of the National Committee for Earth Sciences of the Australian Academy of Science are deeply concerned by the systematic reduction in staff members in geosciences departments over the last year in Australia.

Geophysics

Probing the Australian-Pacific Plate Boundary: Macquarie Ridge in 3D (Updated)

A team of Australian researchers are about to set off on a landmark voyage to discover more about the Earth beneath our oceans, and what triggers underwater earthquakes. Read live updates of the cruise as they go — both personal reflections and scientific background to the cruise.

Editorial

Australian Earth Science facing a very uncertain future (updated)

Earth Science - everyone should know a little, but it is also important for Australia to have access to deep expertise.

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.

Opinion

Australia’s geoscience paradox threatens its prosperity and sustainability

Australia is losing capacity in geoscience education and research at a time it is most needed. Six of Australia's most influential Earth scientists offer their solutions.

Opinion

A decadal vision, a decade later

Research in the Earth Science faces an extremely uncertain future in Australian Universities. The financial shock of 2020 has turned into an existential crisis for Earth Science departments across the country.

Opinion

Motivations 3: Earth system services

The earth system provides many crucial services essential to the wealth and health of human society. It provides both the climate and the platform on which we live, the mineral, energy and groundwater resources on which we depend and increasingly a repository for our wastes. [1]

Opinion

Motivations 2: Children of the revolution

As the children of the plate tectonic revolution, today’s geoscientists have grown up with a zeal to understand the basic workings of our planet. There are many remarkable testimonies to the success of plate tectonics including declining discovery rates of large mineral resources. [1]

Opinion

Motivations 1: Lessons for an uncertain future

About 13,000 years ago, as their land was drowning, the last Vicmanians were confronted a terrible choice. Through human induced climate change we are now committing a similar fate. Unlike the Vicmanians, in foreseeing the future we can do something about it [1].

Seismology

Probing the Australian-Pacific Plate Boundary (Pt 8: Sailing Home)

Unlike Sirens, who drew sailors to the rocks by their enchanted singing, causing their ships to sink, Nereids – the daughters of Doris and Nereus, the old man of the sea

Geophysics

Probing the Australian-Pacific Plate Boundary (Pt 7: The hunt for MRO21)

When you are pressed for time, the only thing you hope for is for things to go as smoothly as possible so that you can move on.

Seismology

Probing the Australian-Pacific Plate Boundary (Pt 6: A race against time in sub-Antarctic waters)

... probably the most challenging feature in the global ocean on which to deploy ocean bottom seismometers, which need to land onto a relatively flat surface ...

Geophysics

Tweed Valley a ‘natural laboratory’ to model impacts of climate change and test carbon sequestration theory

Kyle Manley, Tristan Salles Dietmar Müller Since roughly 1880 the Earth has warmed by 1 deg C, many times faster than any warming episode in the past 65 million years

Geophysics

Probing the Australian-Pacific Plate Boundary (Pt 5: Underwater array observatory at the Macquarie Ridge)

Three and a half days after our departure from Hobart, we arrived in just northeast of the Macquarie island and instantly proceeded with swathing – mapping the ocean floor in the north-eastern quadrant, in lines parallel to the Macquarie ridge.

Seismology

Probing the Australian-Pacific Plate Boundary (Pt 4: What lies beneath ?)

A violent earthquake roared and rumbled through the underworld of a distant corner of the planet covered by the restless ocean, far enough from any soul to be felt or heard.

Opinion

Probing the Australian-Pacific Plate Boundary (Pt 3 — A voyage to the furious fifties)

“Below 40 degrees south there is no law, and below 50 degrees south there is no God."

Seismology

Probing the Australian-Pacific Plate Boundary (Pt 2 — On the Deck)

We (the team of 9 scientists and technicians from the Australian National University’s Research School of Earth Sciences) are out of strict 2-week quarantine and ready for a pre-voyage

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.

Opinion

Probing the Australian-Pacific Plate Boundary: Macquarie Ridge in 3D (Part 1 - Quarantine ?)

I am locked in a small hotel in Hobart turned into a quarantine, tempted to write a story named “Tasmanian quarantine”, but, honestly, I can’t. I could lament how