The recent over-ice seismic deployments in Antarctica provide datasets that enable exciting opportunities for seismological research. This project involves innovative development in passive seismology methods adapted for challenging icy conditions to unravel ice and solid Earth structure in Antarctica.

These projects aim to monitor how environmental processes change chemistry and mineralogy both in the field and in lab simulations using spectroscopy. The projects can be adjusted for different levels of students.

Use your skills in physics, mathematics or computational science to better understand our climate system.

Geodynamics occupies a unique position in the solid Earth Sciences. It is primarily concerned with the dynamical processes affecting the Earth, both within its interior and at its surface, although it can also be applied to the interiors and surfaces of other terrestrial planets and their moons.

Developing ultra-green hydrogen technologies

Congested subduction happens whenever buoyant material such as an oceanic plateau gets caught up on a moving plate and eventually arrives at a subduction zone. The buoyant material may be scraped off or subducted, but it always puts up a fight which leaves characteristic scars on the over-riding plate.

Experimental petrology is about subjecting rocks and minerals to pressure, temperature and other conditions that occur in the Earth, in order to investigate and understand processes that lead to diverse processes including volcanism, plate tectonics, ore deposit formation, differentiation of the Earth and many others.

Figure: Mass variations for 1-10 September 2010 computed from Level-1B data of the GRACE mission using the ANU GRACE software.
Nature of Project(s):
Computational+fieldwork (analysis of satellite/...

Fault slip vs. sea sea surface tsunami source inversion. Two approaches to tsunami source inversion: (a) Slip on a fault is assumed and translated to surface deformation, requiring several assumptions about fault...

High-temperature gases are found in many environments on Earth and other planets, but they have been overlooked because they leave little trace. These projects aim to investigate these gases in magmas, volcanoes and metamorphic rocks using geochemistry and mineralogy of natural samples and experiments.

Zealandia, the Earth’s hidden continent submerged in the southwest Pacific Ocean, is the youngest and thinnest geological continent in the world. Yet, how this continent is formed remains to be further explored, mostly due to a poor understanding of its sub-surface structure.

Diatoms are an important primary producer group and currently account for 40% of global primary production. The sequestration of carbon into the deep ocean by diatoms makes them key players in the modulation of atmospheric CO2 levels and global climate.
There is growing evidence from both laboratory and...

Nature of Project(s):
In situ analysis of petrologic materials with the SHRIMP ion microprobes.
Isotopic analyses of geologic materials using chemical separation methods and thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) or plasma source mass spectrometry  (ICPMS)
Essential...

Earth’s internal structure and processes, which cannot be observed directly, must be inferred from data that can be collected at (or above) Earth’s surface. Our research in Mathematical Geophysics at ANU attempts to address the question of `How to do this?' `How robust are the results? '.

The ocean is a sea of internal gravity waves. Similar to the gravity waves that propagate over the ocean surface and break along our coastlines, internal waves propagate great distances through the ocean interior. These waves are generated at the ocean surface and the seafloor by a variety of mechanisms. As the...