Revising the chlorite geothermometer to understand the formation mechanisms of ore deposits

Exposure dating has revolutionised the study of the history of glaciers and ice sheets. By directly dating glacial debris and eroded bedrock, the timing of the advance and retreat of the ice (a sensitive indicator of climate) can be determined with unprecedented reliability. Dr Timothy T. Barrows is using this...

For more information on this project please visit the GRACE website.

Small zircon crystals found in sediments from the Jack Hills, Western Australia are the oldest terrestrial materials yet identified and provide a unique perspective on Earth's early history, before the start of the preserved rock record at about 4 Ga. The difficulty is that the most ancient zircons, with ages >4 Ga...

The Australian Lungfish is an iconic species. It is an air breathing freshwater fish that may survive up to 100 years and has remained unchanged for 140 million years. However, young fish may not be reaching maturity, leaving an ageing population in terminal decline. We propose to use a novel method for exploring...

Production of the classic Barrovian metamorphic facies series in Scotland was associated with a period mountain building referred to as Grampian orogenesis. Recent geochronological work from the Grampian terrane, Scotland has the Grampian orogenic episode beginning at c . 478 Ma and lasting for less than...

The lowermost mantle sits atop the core-mantle boundary – the most dramatic boundary within our planet, with contrasts in physical properties that exceed those that exist at the surface. Despite significant progress, this region is not well understood, and global seismology paves the path towards new understanding.

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.

Pyrochlor is the main ore mineral for the critical metal niobium, and is most commonly found in carbonatites. This project aims to use experimental petrology to understand the conditions under which economic deposits of pyrochlor can form, during crustal evolution of carbonatite magmas.

The magnetism of sediments provides information on the past behaviour of the Earth's magnetic field. This project will study sediments from the oceans around Australia to understand how the field was recorded and use this information to construct a new generation of computer models that will provide insights into...

Rates of soil formation in North Queensland are being studied on basalt lava flows which are dated by K/Ar. In the semi-arid Hughenden- Charters Towers region (500-600 mm/year rainfall), soils form at rates of ~0.3 mm/1000 years. On the Atherton Tableland, (rainfall 1200-3500 mm/year) rates are significantly faster...

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.

This project uses state-of-the-art computational tools to calculate seismic waveforms for large tsunamigenic earthquakes. It will assess how critical is the effect of 3D seismic velocity structure in determining earthquake parameters like focal mechanism and rupture area, which are crucial for improved tsunami warning.

Free oscillations (also called normal modes) are vibrational patterns of the Earth. Normal modes sense the long-wavelength structures of Earth’s interior depending on the type and mode of vibration. For example, 13S2, a spheroidal mode with radial order 13 and angular order 2, samples the Earth along its radius...

Moment tensors in seismology provide a theoretical framework to understand physical mechanisms of earthquakes (how they are generated in their source); in fact, apart from tectonic and volcanic earthquakes, the same framework is used to characterise explosions, landslides, meteorite impacts and other phenomena.