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.

Some of the oldest continental building blocks (e.g. cratons) are found in Australia. At depth, the ancient rock record has invaluable information about the dynamics of the Earth. Seismology can provide remarkable views into the deep lithospheric structure using imaging techniques on broadband seismic data.

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...

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

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.

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.