Seismology of the deep Earth refers to studying the Earth's lower mantle and core using various seismological techniques. Seismology is the powerful tool to study the Earth's interior because the waves generated during earthquakes sample different depths and regions in the Earth's interior and carry the information...

Signals transmitted from satellites orbiting the Earth are delayed as they pass through the troposphere of the Earth. This is measurable by GPS and so it is possible to measure how much water vapour is actually in the atmosphere using GPS. This is a new area of research that will involve the student learning about...

The Southern Ocean encircles Antarctica, dividing the polar regions from the warm tropical ocean. It is home to the world's strongest ocean current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and is the primary location where ancient, deep ocean water is upwelled to the surface.  The Southern Ocean controls the natural...

Seismologists combine the so-called receiver functions and surface wave data to improve the general understanding of crustal and upper mantle structure in various regions of the world. An important humanitarian objective of obtaining improved structural models is better understanding of the seismicity and hazard...

Subduction zones are the most prolific producers of seismic and volcanic activity on Earth, yet many aspects of the subduction factory remain poorly understood. Surrounded by plate boundaries Australia has a unique advantageous location for recording earthquakes originating from nearby subduction zones.

The Southern Ocean is a key contributor to global climate. It regulates the absorption of CO2 into the ocean, plays a key role in ocean heat uptake and most likely influenced abrupt climate variability in the past. However, the processes that limit Southern Ocean circulation occur at very fine scales,...

The Earth’s inner core is a planet within a planet: a hot sphere with a mass of one hundred quintillion tons of iron and nickel that lies about 5150 kilometres beneath our feet, still waiting to be discovered. Modern global seismology serves as an inverted telescope with which we can probe the Earth's deepest shell.

Understanding present-day melting patterns of polar ice caps and the contribution to present-day sea level variations requires first unravelling the puzzle of how the continents are still adjusting after the melting that has occurred since the Last Glacial Maximum around 10,000 years ago. This is a complicated...

The Virtual Earth describes the real or material Earth - it is an electronic rendition of our planet as it is today. The aspect upon which we have specifically focussed is the geometric description of the planetary lithosphere, in particular the 3D geometry of the major subducting slabs. These geometries have been...

Many tsunami source inversion techniques have already been developed to derive source models with the assumption that tsunami generation is due to slip on a single large fault. Therefore, these inversion techniques cannot determine to what extent subsidiary phenomena - such as submarine landslides, block movement,...

Some of the most fundamental observations used to understand the physics of earthquakes are estimates of the spatio-temporal evolution of earthquake rupture on a fault surfaceusing seismic, tsunami and geodetic data. To date, uncertainties of rupture parameters are poorly understood, and the effect of choices such...

Eastern Indonesia is one of the least well-understood geological domains on Earth, yet the region provides a remarkable location for unraveling some of the major puzzles of plate tectonics. 30 broadband seismometers were deployed across the transition from subduction to collision from 2014-2018 to image the deep Earth.

Underworld Geodynamics Modelling software

Figure 1. The tropical waters around Indonesia are an important source region for Australia’s rainfall.
The warm tropical waters around Indonesia are an important source of rainfall for Australia. When the temperature of the water in this area is warmer than usual Australia receives more rain...