Geodynamics and continental extension in the East African Rift System: origin and evolution of the Turkana Depression in northern Kenya. The Lake Turkana region in northern Kenya, famous for its fossil evidence of human origins, occupies a critical position within the Great Rift Valley of East Africa. This project seeks to explain how this complex region evolved and also the dynamic earth processes responsible for its formation between two great uplifted domes in Ethiopia and Kenya.
Detachments in evaporites and shales: their controls on fold-thrust belt style and wedge geometry. Deepwater fold-thrust belts comprise large structural traps, currently a major focus of Australian petroleum exploration. The structural style of a fold-thrust belt is controlled by its detachment and new field analogues will demonstrate the fundamental role of detachments.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130100604
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
The dynamics of continent deformations. Modeling the coupling of subducting oceanic plates and deforming continents provides a fundamentally new view of the dynamics of our planet. It will improve an understanding of the formation of basins in continent interiors and their evolution over geological times.
Unravelling the geodynamics of eastern Australia during the Permian: the link between plate boundary bending and basin formation. Using paleomagnetic and sedimentological investigations, this project will unravel the Permian tectonic history of eastern Australia, which has hitherto remained poorly understood. The reconstruction will provide a crucial component in our attempt to model the evolution of the Australian continent and its associated natural resources.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140100376
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$389,339.00
Summary
The role of mantle plumes in driving plate tectonics and continental margin evolution. Plumes of molten rock rise from deep within the Earth resulting in massive surface eruptions that can lead to global mass extinction events. Despite their size, the role plumes play in driving movements of the continents is poorly understood. This project combines independent global and Australian geological and geophysical data with open software systems to link deep Earth and surface geological processes. Th ....The role of mantle plumes in driving plate tectonics and continental margin evolution. Plumes of molten rock rise from deep within the Earth resulting in massive surface eruptions that can lead to global mass extinction events. Despite their size, the role plumes play in driving movements of the continents is poorly understood. This project combines independent global and Australian geological and geophysical data with open software systems to link deep Earth and surface geological processes. This approach will result in a clearer understanding of how the internal workings of our planet drive, and interact with, surface geological processes. The project will also show how these interactions shape the environmentally important, and resources rich, continental margins and ocean basins.Read moreRead less
Indo-Australian Plate Active Tectonics Program. The Indo-Australian Plate Active Tectonics Program investigates fundamental questions in geodynamics using the unique record of landscape evolution in Australia. In this project the origin of iconic landscapes such as the Lake Eyre Basin and the Flinders Ranges will be addressed to explore the nature of the couplings between surface deformation and flow in the upper mantle, and between surface processes and tectonic activity.
Iron isotope variation in subduction magmas: Links to fluid flux and oxidation of the mantle wedge? The plates of the outer tectonic shell of our Earth are in ceaseless motion; their collisions create huge earthquakes and their collapse into the Earth introduces surface water to these hot regions at >150km depth, creating melting and volcanic eruption. This project will use iron isotopes to map this surface water as it is introduced to the mantle.
The origin of Australian Gondwana: using isotopic proxies for subduction to reconstruct ancient oceans. This project will, for the first time, include ancient ocean basins in Neoproterozoic plate tectonic reconstructions. It will provide new insights into the geography of Australia between 850 and 500 million years ago, a time of major climatic extremes, the origin of multi-cellular life and the accumulation of the first major petroleum deposits.
Supercells and the supercontinent cycle. This is a new approach to understanding how the Earth works, at a global-scale and billion-year perspective. In particular it seeks to understand why continents come together as supercontinents, then drift away again. The work has implications for copper-gold exploration on the Australian continent because it has relevant predictive capacity.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120103067
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
How does the continental crust get so hot? This project is aimed at constraining the tectonic drivers of high geothermal gradient crustal regimes. The key outcomes of this project are better constraints on the tectonic drivers of high geothermal gradient metamorphism and the development of quantitative tools to assess the evolution of heat within areas of mountain building.