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Research School of Earth Sciences
Annual Report 2014
Diver drilling a Porites coral off the island of Alor, Indonesia
Photo Credit: Stewart Fallon
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DIRECTOR’S REVIEW OF 2014
STAFF, STUDENTS AND AWARDS
Academic Staff
Professional Staff
Post-Graduate Students
Theses Submitted
Honours and Awards
Student Awards
RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
Archaeogeochemistry
Experimental Petrology
Geodynamics & Geodesy
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
Isotope Geochemistry
Marine Biogeochemistry
Marine Geology & International Ocean Drilling Program
Ocean & Climate Change
Ore Genesis
Palaeo & Environmental Magnetism
Paleobiogeochemistry
Past climates & Environmental impacts
Rock Physics
Seismology & Mathematical Geophysics
Structure Tectonics
Water & Regolith Science
RESEARCH SUPPORT
Electronics Group
Engineering Group
RESEARCH GRANTS
PUBLICATIONS
COMMITTEES/PANELS/EDITORIAL BOARDS
Director’s Review of 2014: a Year of Transition
It was with a mixture of sadness and great pride that the School this year farewelled
one of its most influential early research scientists. Edward A. "Ted" Irving CM FRSC
FRS passed away on 25 February. Ted Irving had been a student in the early days of
rock magnetism at the University of Cambridge working on the magnetization of some
Precambrian sandstones from Scotland. By 1955, his palaeopole positions for the
Scottish sandstones had been published with Creer and Runcorn as part of the first
paleomagnetic polar wander path (for NW Europe). In the same year, Irving joined
Jaeger’s fledgling Department of Geophysics, within the ANU’s Research School of
Physical Sciences. Within two years in Canberra, Irving and PhD student Ronald Green
had enough data to construct an initial polar wander path for SE Australia, and the
opportunity to demonstrate systematic differences between polar wander paths for
different continents – unambiguously indicative of continental drift at speeds of order
10 cm/year. Under Irving’s leadership during the period 1955-1964, the increasingly
influential ANU palaeomagnetic laboratory contributed substantially to the rapidly
developing international reputation of Jaeger’s Department of Geophysics. The School
was delighted to welcome Ted back to Canberra in 1992 as our Jaeger-Hales lecturer.
Now, we salute the passing of one of our finest.
Overall, 2014 was a successful year for RSES with satisfying outcomes in research,
student recruitment and research funding, along with welcome external recognition of
the quality of the School’s research, research training and undergraduate teaching.
The attached research highlights testify to the School’s diverse and vibrant research
culture in which big questions are asked and answered about the origin, structure and
evolution of our planet, including the surficial processes of central significance to
climate and the origin, evolution and survival of life on Earth.
Addressing such questions often requires the development and application of novel
experimental, analytical, or computational methods – innovation that is underpinned
by the School’s skilled technical and workshop staff. The capability of the stable
isotope SHRIMP SI ion microprobe was significantly enhanced during 2014 with
demonstration of precise spatially resolved charge-mode measurement of all four
sulphur isotopes allowing interrogation of the oxygenation of the ancient atmosphere
and patterns of biological activity, as well as overprinted secondary processes (Avila &
Ireland). Rubatto and her students continued to develop protocols for spatially
resolved ion probe measurement of oxygen isotopes in diverse metamorphic minerals
thereby gaining insight into fluid involvement in metamorphism. There has been a
major expansion of noble gas analytical facilities during 2014 as follows.
Unprecedented mass resolution on the new Helix multi-collector noble gas mass
spectrometer has allowed a significant revision of the concentration of atmospheric
21
Ne with implications for cosmogenic dating (Honda). The commissioning of a new
Argus VI mass spectrometer and associated extraction line for 40Ar-39Ar dating
(Forster) is providing new opportunities for dating movement on crustal shear zone.
The transfer from Melbourne (with ARC Future Fellow Kendrick) of equipment allows a
novel extension of the 40Ar-39Ar geochronological method for isotopic measurements of
the halogens (Cl, Br, I) alongside the noble gases. Sambridge and his collaborators
have continued to develop trans-dimensional inversion methodologies in which the
number of unknowns is itself an unknown, with new applications in 2014 ranging
widely from seismology and geodynamics to palaeomagmetism and remote sensing. A
new framework for geodynamical modeling, Fluidity, developed by ARC Future Fellow
Davies with international collaborators, is providing for accurate simulations of the
behaviour of complex three-dimensional geometries, across a range of length scales,
with sharp variations in material properties such as mantle viscosity.
The School is continuing with its influential work on the origin, internal structure and
evolution of the solid Earth, as is evident from the following examples from the
attached research highlights. Amelin continues to tighten the chronology for the
processing of material in the early solar nebula, dating its oldest known igneous rock,
a unique basaltic achondrite Asuka 881394, at 4565.57±0.55 Ma. From their work in
Greenland, Bennett et al. have new isotopic constraints on the growth of the
continental crust during the Hadean era – concluding that no more than 15% of its
present volume was formed before 3.8 Ga. ARC Laureate Fellow O’Neill is using
orthogonal polynomials to describe the variations in concentration of the rare earth
elements to better understand controls on the composition of basaltic magmas formed
by partial melting in the Earth’s upper mantle. Koulali et al. used geodetic observations
to derive a new block model for the deformation in Papua New Guinea that quantified
for the first time the convergence in the Highland Fold and Thrust belt. Arculus et al.
have interpreted the basaltic basement rocks recovered during a recent IODP
expedition from the Izu-Bonin-Mariana trench slope in terms of spontaneous initiation
of subduction. Balfour et al. have used patterns of seismicity and seismic wavespeed
variations to infer that intraplate deformation is localized by fluid-assisted fault
reactivation in the Finders Ranges of South Australia. Transdimensional modeling
procedures have yielded improved inversions for earthquake fault slip parameters
(Dettmer et al.) and shown that hot-spot volcanism is uniformly distributed across
large deep mantle zones of reduced shear wave speed rather than concentrated at
their edges (Davies et al.).
In the broad realm of ocean and climate geoscience, progress is similarly being made
on many fronts as indicated by the following representative research highlights. In a
study of the Southern Annular Mode of atmospheric circulation, ARC QEII Fellow
Abram has shown that increasing greenhouse gas levels are causing the Southern
Ocean winds to get stronger and pull in more tightly around Antarctica, meaning that
Australia misses out on winter rain and parts of the Antarctic ice sheets become more
susceptible to melting. Lewis has likewise employed a suite of climate models to infer
that recent record-breaking temperatures in Australia almost certainly reflect
anthropogenic forcing of the climate. On longer timescales, Grant et al. are using
geochemical and palaeomagnetic methods to explore the relationship between dust
and ice age climate from an Indian Ocean sediment core sediment core that spans
multiple glacial-interglacial intervals during the past 750,000 years. Heslop et al. are
exploring the possibility of using magnetofossils - the magnetic particles produced by
bacteria for the purpose of navigation - that are preserved in ancient sediments,
contributing to marine sedimentary palaeomagnetic signals, to extract information
concerning the marine carbon cycle. Sr isotopic compositions are being used in
conjunction with dating methods to trace the origins and migrations of fossil humans
and animals from the archaeological records of France (PhD student Willmes et al.).
The School made substantial progress during 2014 in the reduction of its recurrent
account deficit. The traditional block grant income to the School, which now accounts
for about 40% of the total budget and is spent mainly on salaries, continues to decline
in value. Pressure on the salary budget was eased by a number of retirements funded
by the University’s 2013 Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme, by increased returns
based on research grant income, undergraduate student numbers and PhD
completions, and increased fractional funding of technical/workshop staff salaries from
research grants. The School’s lower-than-usual success rate in Discovery Project
funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) in 2014, was offset by the award
of Future Fellowships to Drs Rhodri Davies, Helen McGregor (University of
Wollongong), Oliver Nebel and Jimin Yu, a Discovery Early Career Research Award (Dr
Rachel Wood), and a $1M Linkage Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grant
for new electron microprobes for ANU and the University of Melbourne (Dr Greg
Yaxley).
The School takes great pride in the election in 2014 of two of our alumni to Fellowship
of the American Geophysical Union – an honour bestowed annually upon only 0.1% of
its membership. James B Gill, Distinguished Professor at the University of California at
Santa Cruz, (ANU PhD 1968-1972) was elected for influential studies of the chemical
evolution of the continental and oceanic crust and the use of short-lived radionuclides
to elucidate the magmatic processes responsible for volcanic rocks. Professor Shijie
Zhong of the Physics Department of the University of Colorado in Boulder (ANU
Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow 1997) was recognized for his influential research in
understanding the inter-related thermo-mechanical and chemical aspects of planetary
evolution. Professor Tetsuo Irifune (Research Fellow 1984-7), currently Director of the
Geodynamics Research Center at Ehime University, Matsuyama, Japan, was awarded
the 2014 A. E. Ringwood Medal by the Geological Society of Australia for major
ongoing contributions in both high-pressure experimental petrology and the
development of ultrahard materials. Emeritus Professor Ross Griffiths’ career-long
contributions to the field of fluid dynamics were recognized by election to Fellowship
of the American Physical Society. Visiting Fellow Dr Gavin Young, an international
leader in the field of early fossil vertebrates, was awarded the 2014 Mawson Medal
and Lecture by the Australian Academy of Science. Dr Neil Williams (BSc Hons 1970,
Research Fellow/Lecturer 1976-81) was awarded the 2014 Haddon Forrester King
Medal and Lecture, by the Australian Academy of Science – recognition for for an
influential career across academia, the minerals exploration industry and government.
Dr Marc Norman was elected to Fellowship of the Meteoritical Society in recognition of
his outstanding contributions to the study of meteorites – an accolade reserved for
only 1% of the membership every two years. Dr Andy Hogg received the prestigious
Nicholas P Fofonoff early-career award of the American Meteorological Society for
fundamental advances in understanding the impact of ocean eddies on the large-scale
circulation, flow through straits, and turbulent mixing. Dr Oliver Nebel was awarded
the early-career Viktor-Moritz Goldschmidt Prize of the DMG (German Mineralogical
Society). Rachel Kirby (née Woods) and Angus Gibson were awarded ANU University
Medals in Earth and Marine Sciences, and Physics of the Earth, respectively.
2014 saw commencement of Professor Hugh O’Neill’s 5-year Laureate Fellowship
project, and the following academic staff promotions: Dr Steve Eggins to Professor
(Level E1), Dr Penny King to Senior Fellow (D), Dr Rhodri Davies to Fellow, and Dr
Natalie Balfour to Research Fellow (B). In the absence of compulsory age retirement,
timely retirements like those facilitated by the ANU’s 2013 Voluntary Early Retirement
Scheme, are critical to the School’s future - by funding our program of ongoing
renewal. Following the retirement of Prof Brian Kennett and resignation of Dr Nick
Rawlinson, the School identified seismology as its research field of highest strategic
priority, and commenced a worldwide search leading to formal advertisement planned
for 2015. In parallel, a Continuing Appointments Committee was established to
consider the merits of staff on terminating mid-career research fellowships for possible
continuing appointment. The Committee is expected to meet early in 2015.
During 2014, the School trialled a modified internal structure involving three clusters
of research groups, labeled Geophysics, Geochemistry, and Ocean and Climate
Geoscience, each led by an Associate Director (AD) and supported by an embedded
cluster administrator. Workload aspects of these broadly satisfactory new
administrative arrangements, are to be reviewed during the first half of 2015. A fourth
Associate Director assumed responsibility for School Projects, alongside those with
ongoing responsibilities for Education (coursework) and for Graduate Research
Training (HDR), respectively. Continuing rotation of staff through the Associate
Director roles saw Professors Malcolm Sambridge and Rainer Grün step down in
December 2014 after valuable contributions over many years, to make way for the
incoming Associate Directors Dr Paul Tregoning (Geophysics) and Trevor Ireland
(School Projects).
The past year also saw occupancy of refurbished space within the heritage-listed
Florey building, directly opposite the Jaeger buildings across Mills Road, that was
formerly part of the John Curtin School of Medical Research. The attractive new space
on the ground floor and basement accommodates the micropalaeontology and marine
geoscience labs, and houses the School’s extensive geological collection. The School is
grateful to School Manager Geoff Pearson for guiding this project through to
completion in late 2014 – thereby completing the consolidation of all geoscience
activities of the modern School on the Jaeger site – with all the benefits of co-location.
That the School’s valuable geological collection remained well catalogued, and that it
was well prepared for its recent move to the Florey Building, despite the absence in
recent years of a full-time curator, owe much to the commitment of a long-serving
volunteer Ms Val Elder. With the move of the collection now complete, Val is finally
handing over the reins to another volunteer Ms Lynne Bean, but will remain a
welcome visitor to the School. At the School’s Christmas party Val was presented with
a token of its appreciation for all her effort over many years.
The biennial Jaeger-Hales lecture, entitled At the speed of Volcanic Eruptions,
honouring the foundational contributions of Professors Jaeger and Hales, was
delivered in July by distinguished geochemist Professor Terry Plank, of Columbia
University in New York. Further progress has been made during 2014 in cultivating a
shared sense of community among our alumni – both students and staff – whose
ongoing support is critical in maintaining and enhancing the School’s illustrious
reputation. The School Director Prof Ian Jackson and Philanthropic Development
Manager Ms Mary Anne King met selected alumni in Melbourne (May) and Perth
(December) where a reception for alumni and friends of the School attracted more
than 50 participants. By year’s end, preparations were well underway for the public
launch early in 2015 of a new ANU Earth Sciences Future Fund, intended to augment
the School’s already significant endowment to support diverse activities including a
prestigious new Alumni Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.
Finally, it remains for me to thank all staff and students for their efforts during 2014 in
helping the School maintain its proud tradition of leadership in research, research
training and undergraduate teaching. We look forward to more of the same in 2015!
7 August 2015
STAFF, STUDENTS AND AWARDS
ACADEMIC STAFF
Director and Professor
I.N.S. Jackson, BSc Qld, PhD ANU, FAA
Associate Directors
Professors
R. Grün, Diplo Geol, Dr.rer.nat.habil Köln, DSc ANU, FAAH - Projects
J. Hermann, Dip PhD ETH Zürich – Education (Undergraduate)
D. Rubatto, BSc MSc Turin, PhD ETH Zürich – Education (HDR)
M.S. Sambridge, BSc Loughborough, PhD ANU, FRAS – Geophysics
Senior Fellows
S. Eggins, BSc UNSW, PhD Tasmania – Ocean and Climate
G. Yaxley, BSc PhD Tasmania – Geochemistry
Distinguished Professor
B.L.N. Kennett, MA PhD ScD Cambridge, FAA, FRS
Professors
R.J. Arculus, BSc PhD Durham, FAIMM
I.H. Campbell, BSc UWA, PhD DIC London
S.F. Cox, BSc Tasmania, PhD Monash
N. Exon, BSc (Hons) NSW, PhD Kiel
T.R. Ireland, BSc Otago, PhD ANU
G.S. Lister, BSc Qld, BSc (Hons) James Cook, PhD ANU
H.St.C. O'Neill, BA Oxford, PhD Manchester, FAA
B.J. Pillans, BSc PhD ANU, HonFRSNZ
A.P. Roberts, BSc Massey, BSc (Hons) PhD DS Victoria University (Wellington)
M.L. Roderick, BAppSc QUT, PGDipGIS Qld, PhD Curtin
E. Rohling, BSc, MSc, PhD
I.S. Williams, BSc PhD ANU
Senior Fellows
Y. Amelin, MSc PhD Leningrad State University
R. Armstrong, BSc MSc Natal, PhD Witwatersrand
V.C. Bennett, BSc PhD UCLA
A. Berry, BSc (Hons) Sydney, DPhil Oxford
J.J. Brocks, Dip Freiburg, PhD Sydney
M. Ellwood, BSc (Hons) PhD Otago
C.M. Fanning, BSc Adelaide
M.K. Gagan, BA UCSantaBarbara, PhD James Cook
A.M. Hogg, BSc ANU, PhD UWA
M. Honda, MSc PhD Tokyo
G. Hughes, BE ME Auckland, PhD Cambridge
R.C. Kerr, BSc Qld, PhD Cambridge, FAIP
C. Lineweaver, BSc Munich, PhD Berkeley
J.A. Mavrogenes, BS Beloit, MS Missouri-Rolla, PhD Virginia Tech
S. McClusky, BSurv PhD NSW
D.C. McPhail, BSc. (Hons) MSc British Columbia, PhD Princeton
M. Norman, BSc Tennessee Technological University, MSc Tennessee, PhD Rice
H. Tkalcic, Dip Engineering in Physics, Zagreb, PhD California Berkley
P. Tregoning, BSurv PhD UNSW
Fellows
N. Abram, BSC Advanced (Hons) Sydney, PhD ANU
S. Fallon, BA MS San Diego, PhD ANU
M. Forster, BSc MSc PhD Monash
D. Heslop, BSc Durham, PhD Liverpool, Dr habil Bremen
M.A. Kendrick, BSc Edinburgh, PhD Manchester
P King, BSc (Hons) ANU, PhD Arizona State
H. McGregor, PhD ANU
O. Nebel, Diplom Geology Dr rer. nat. Munster
B.N. Opdyke, AB Columbia, MS PhD Michigan
R. Strzepek, BSc McGill, PhD British Columbia
J. Yu, BSc MSc Nanjing University, PhD Cambridge
Research Fellows
J. Avila, BSc MSc UFRGS, PhD ANU
N. Balfour, BSc (Hons) MSc Victoria University (Wellington), PhD University Victoria
(British Columbia)
L. Chang, BSc Peking, PhD Southampton
M. Davies, MSc Washington, PhD Oregon State
R. Davies, MSc PhD Cardiff University, UK
J. Dettmer, Dipl. Geophys. University of Hamburg (Germany), PhD University of
Victoria (British Columbia, Canada)
S. Downes, BSc (Hons) UNSW, PhD UTas
B. Gayen, PhD UC San Diego, USA
G. Iaffaldano, BSc Rome, PhD Munich
A. Klocker
S. Lewis, PhD ANU
M. Louvel, PhD ETH Zurich
J. Montillet, BSc MSc Ecole Centrale d' Electronique, MSc Aalborg, PhD Nottingham
U. Proske, BSc Diplom (MSc-equivalent) PhD University of Bremen
A. Purcell, BSc (Hons), PhD ANU
R. Salmeron, BAeroEng (Hons), MBA (Hons) Venezuela, PhD Sydney
M. Salmon, BSc (Hons) PhD Victoria University (Wellington)
E. Saygin, BEng Istanbul Technical University, PhD ANU
Postdoctoral Fellows
A. Abrazhevich, Dip Geology & Geophysics St Petersburg, MPhil Hong Kong, PhD
Michigan
S. Allgeyer,
A. Benard, BSc (Hons) IUEM, Brest, France, MSc IPGP, Paris, PhD University of SaintÉtienne and LMV
A. Burnham, MSci MA Cambridge, PhD Imperial College London
N. Darbeheshti, BSc MSc K.N. Toosi University of Technology, PhD Curtin
E. David, BSc, MSc École Normale Supérieure, Paris, PhD Imperial College London
K. Grant, BSc Southampton, MSc JCU, PhD Southampton
B. Hejrani, BSc Kurdistan, MSc Tehran, PhD Aarhus University, Denmark
S. Kim, BSc, MSc, PhD Seoul National University
A. Koulali,
L. Lescarmontier,
G. Marino, MSc (cum laude) University ‘Federico II’ of Naples; PhD Utrecht University
J. Pownall, MEarthSci Oxford, PhD Royal Holloway University of London
C. Sippl, Dipl.-Geophys. UMunich, PhD FU Berlin
J. Stipcevic, Diploma of Engineering in Physics, PhD Zagreb
P. Tollan, MSci University of Bristol, PhD Durham University
Emeritus Academics
K.S.W. Campbell, MSc PhD Queensland, FAA
J.M.A Chappell, BSc MSc Auckland, PhD ANU, FAA, HonFRSNZ
W. Compston, BSc PhD DSc (Hon) WAust, FAA, FRS
P. DeDeckker, BA MSc (Hons) Macquarie, PhD DSc Adelaide
R.A. Eggleton, BSc (Hons) Adelaide, PhD Wisconsin, DSc Adelaide
D.J. Ellis, MSc Melbourne, PhD Tasmania
J.D. Fitzgerald, BSc James Cook, PhD Monash
D.H. Green, BSc MSc DSc DLitt (Hon) Tasmania, PhD Cambridge, FAA, FRS
R.W. Griffiths, BSc PhD ANU, FAIP, FAA
K. Lambeck, BSurv NSW, DPhil DSc Oxford, FAA, FRS
I. McDougall, BSc Tasmania, PhD ANU, FAA
M.S. Paterson, BSc Adelaide, PhD Cambridge, FAA
R. Rutland, BSc PhD London, FTSE
S.R. Taylor, BSc (Hons) MSc New Zealand, PhD Indiana, MA DSc Oxford, HonAC
J.S. Turner, MSc Sydney, PhD Cambridge, FIP, FAIP, FAA, FRS
Visiting Academics
C. Alibert, MS Paris VII, first thesis ENS Paris, State thesis, CRPG, Nancy
R. Binns, BSc (Hons) Sydney, PhD Cambridge
R.V. Burne,
D. Christie, MA Toronto, PhD ANU
P.R. Cummins, BA Physics, PhD UC Berkeley
G.F. Davies, MSc Monash, PhD CalTech
M. Duval, PhD University of Burgos, Spain
G.M. Gibson,
R. Henley,
L. Jacques, BSc (Hons) Western Australia, PhD Tasmania
P.J. Jones, BSc. London, MSc. ANU, PhD London
C. Klootwijk,
F.E.M. Lilley, BSc (Hons) Sydney, MSc, PhD University of Western Ontario
W. Mayer,
R. Ranasinghe, BScEng Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, PhD Western Australia
D.L. Strusz,
E. Truswell, BSc(Hons) Western Australia, PhD Cambridge
G.C. Young, BSc (Hons) ANU, PhD London
Research Officers
A. Heerdegen, BSc (Hons) Massey, PhD ANU
P. Holden, BSc Lancaster, PhD St. Andrews
G. Luton, BSurv UNSW
H.W.S. McQueen, BSc Qld, MSc York, PhD ANU
R. Rapp, BA State University of New York, PhD Rensselar Polytechnic Institute
M. Ward, BSc (Hons) Florida, CAS Cambridge, PhD Florida State
R. Wood, BSc (Hons) Durham, MSc DPhil Oxford
Research Assistants
A. Arcidiaco, BAppSc GradDip SAInst
J. Byrne, BSc (Hons) ANU, PhD Monash
J. McDonald, MPhil ANU
J. Shelley, BSc MSc University of Canterbury (NZ)
L. Rodriguez Sanz, BSc Venezuela, MEnvStudies, PhD Autonomous University of
Barcelona
PROFESSIONAL STAFF
School Manager
G.F.M. Pearson, BA, BTh, MBA, FAIM
Executive Assistant to the Director and the School Manager
M. Farrer
Information Technology Manager
P. Davidson, BSc MSc Auckland, PhD ANU
Information Technology Officers
D. Bolt, BSc Sydney
B. Harrold, BSc ANU
Philanthropic Development Manager
M. King, DipTeach ACU, BA Deakin, GradDipRE ACU, MEd (Leadership) UNSW
PRISE Business Officer and School Projects Officer
B.J. Armstrong, BSc UNISA
Building and Facilities Officer
E. Ward, Cert V Frontline Management, Quest/ANU
Assistant Building and Facilities Officer
N. Craddy
Receptionist
S. Avalos (to 18/7/2014)
T. Asher (from 4/8/2014)
Student Administrator HDR
M. Coldrick
Student Administrator Coursework and Honours
J. McDermid, BCom Victoria University (Wellington), MAppSc (Lib&InfoMgt) CSU
Cluster Administrators
M. Hapel - Geophysics
J. Magro - Geochemistry
R. Petch – Ocean and Climate Geoscience
IODP Administrator
C. Beasley
Electrical Engineering Workshop Manager
A. Latimore, BEng University of Canberra
Electrical Engineering Workshop
D. Cassar, AdvDipEng CIT
D. Corrigan
D. Cummins, AdvDipEng CIT
T. Redman, AssocDip(Elect Eng) CIT
H. Sasaki, AssocDip CIT
N. Schram, DipEIE SAIT
Mechanical Engineering Workshop Manager
A. Wilson, AssocDipMechEng CIT, Cert III Engineering (Mechanical) Trade
Mechanical Engineering Workshop
B. Butler, Cert III Mechanical Engineering Sydney Institute, Cert III EngineeringMechanical Trade (Toolmaking)
D. Thomson, Cert-Fitting and Machining Trade
C. Were, AdDipMechEng CIT, Cert III Eng ineering (Mechanical) Trade
G. Woodward, Cert-Fitting and Machining Trade
School Laboratory Manager
J. Cali, BAppSc QIT
Technical Officers
D. Clark, Cert III Metal Fabrication AdvDipEng CIT
J. Cowley, BSc ANU
D. Edwards,
R. Esmay,
B. Fu, BSc Chungchun, MSc Nanjing, PhD Vrije
H. Gao, BSc Wuhan University, MSc Zhongshan University
J. Hope, BSc JCUNQ
B. Jenkins, BSc UTS, PhD ANU
R. Khattiyakul,
L. Kinsley, BSc GradDipSc ANU
H. Kokkonen, Certificate in Lapidary ACT TAFE, BAppSc Canberra College of Advanced
Education
P. Lanc,
Q. Li,
K. Marshall,
L. McMorrow, AssocDipSc NTU
H. Miller, AdDipMechEng CIT
J. Park,
S. Paxton, AssocDip AppliedGeoscience CIT , FGAA
A. Percival,
S. Rayapaty, BEng Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, MIT University of
Canberra
J. Rousseau,
A. Rummery,
D. Scott, AssocDipMechEng CIT
H. Scott-Gagan, BSc Sydney
B. Tranter, Cert II Auto Radiator Services John Batman Institute TAFE, Auto Climate
Control/Air conditioning Casey Institute of TAFE
U. Troitzsch, Diplom Technische Universität Darmstadt, PhD ANU
D. Vasegh,
J. Wykes,
X. Zhang, PhD LaTrobe
X. Zhao, BSc Jilin University, PhD Southampton
L. Zhou,
S. Zink,
C. Zirk, BA Victoria University (Melbourne)
POST-GRADUATE STUDENTS
PhD Candidates
Amies, Jessica
Benavente Bravo, Roberto
Brenner, Alan
Brentegani, Luna
Bruisten, Benjamin
Carr, Patrick
Castillo Gonzalez, Paula
Chen, Mimi
Chopping, Richard
Chopra, Aditya
Cipta, Athanasius
Cline II, Christopher
Cocker, Helen
Connolly, Clare
Crisp, Laura
Dai, Yuhao
David, Anthony
De Leon, Andrea
Doull, Matthew Jason
Emetc, Veronika
Fang, Fang
Gauthiez-Putallaz, Laure
Goodarzi, Patrick
Gowan, Evan
Gueneli, Nur
Haber, Thomas
Hao, Hongda
Hawkins, Rhys
Hoffmann, Janosch
Holland, Katherine
Hossen, Md. Jakir
Ingham, Elizabeth
James, Hannah
Jarrett, Amber
Johnson, Emma
Jollands, Michael
Jones, Timothy
Kallenberg, Bianca
Kimbrough, Alena
Koefoed, Piers
Komugabe, Aimee
Koudashev, Oleg
Krause, Claire
Lakey, Shayne
Li, Yang
Loiselle, Liane
Long, Kelsie
Lowczak, Jessica
Manceau, Rose
Mare, Eleanor
Masoumi, Salim
McAlpine, Sarlae
McConnochie, Craig
Meyerink, Scott
Moore, Michael
Mustac, Marija
Naguit, Muriel
Nand, Vikashni
Nash, Graham
O'Kane, Tomas
O'Neill, Cameron
Owens, Ryan
Pachhai, Surya
Papuc, Andreea
Pejic, Tanja
Prichard, Jennifer
Rajabi, Sareh
Renggli, Christian
Richardson, Laura
Roberts, Jenna
Robinson, Michael (withdrew March 2014)
Saltanatpouri, Atefeh (withdrew Sept 2014)
Rosso, Isabella
Sagar, Stephen
Samanta, Moneesha
Sapah, Marian
Schoneveld, Louise
Scicchitano, Maria
Scroxton, Nicholas
Sebastian, Nita
Short, Michael
Sieber, Melanie
Skelton, Richard
Smith, Tegan
Snow, Kate
Sossi, Paolo
Stephenson, Joanne
Stott, Rachel
Stotz, Ingo
Strzepek, Kelly
Tambiah, Charles
Thompson, Claire
Tian, Siyuan
Tolley, James
Tynan, Sarah
Vasilyev, Prokopiy
Vreugdenhil, Catherine
Ward, Josephine
Whan, Tarun
Williams, Morgan
Willmes, Malte
Wu, Jiade
Wurtzel, Jennifer
Zannat, Umma
Zhukova, Irina
PhD THESES COMPLETED
Arad, Alon (Andrew Christy) Advances in image processing, high-performance
computing and numerical methods for digital petrophysics using micro-CT imaging.
Augenstein, Clemens (Gordon Lister) The formation of the Lepontine gneiss dome.
Boston, Katherine (Daniela Rubatto) Investigation of accessory allanite, monazite and
rutile of the Barrovian sequence of the central Alps (Switzerland).
Chapman, Christopher (Andrew Hogg) Interactions of jets and eddies with
topography in the Southern Ocean.
D’Olivo Cordero, Juan Pablo (Stephen Eggins) Assessing the impacts of ocean
acidification, global warming and terrestrial runoff on the cross-shelf variability of
coral calcification in the central Great Barrier Reef.
Hanger, Brendan (Gregory Yaxley) Redox conditions in the cratonic lithosphere and
implications for metasomatism.
Huyskens, Magdalena (Yuri Amelin) Improving precision and accuracy of U-Pb
geochronology with application to the Permian period.
Mazerat, Julie (Michael Gagan) Coral and speleothem reconstructions of early
Holocene ocean-atmosphere dynamics in southern Australasia.
McCoy-West, Alex (Victoria Bennett) Geochemical constraints on the nature, age
structure and development of the lithosphere in Zealandia.
McCulloch, Iain (Bradley Pillans) On the development and application of a photon
counting imaging system for broad spectrum luminescence analysis.
Morrison, Adele (Andrew Hogg) Response of the Southern Ocean circulation to
changes in global climate.
Pilia, Simone (Nicholas Rawlinson) 3-D tomographic imaging of the southeast
Australian crust: new insight into the evolution of the east Gondwana margin.
Stenhouse, Iona (Gordon Lister) Diffusion modelling to constrain the duration of
metamorphism.
Stenhouse, Paul (Stephen Cox) Reactive transport and fluid pathways in fracturecontrolled flow systems.
Tanner, Dominique (John Mavrogenes) In situ mineral geochemistry as a guide to
ore-forming processes.
Wykes, Jeremy (John Mavrogenes) Selenium and sulfur in silicate melts.
Xue, Yunxing (Ian Campbell) The genesis of the Bellerophon gold deposit, St Ives
camp, Yilgarn craton- an example of a magmatic-hydrothermal gold deposit.
Young, Mallory (Hrvoje Tkalcic) Earth's structure from a Bayesian analysis of seismic
signals and noise.
MPhil Candidates
Burne,Robert
Hayward,Kathryn
Higgins,Andrew
Leonard,Yosafat
Thorne,Jane
Wang Boyi (Fred) (withdrew May 2014)
MPhil THESES COMPLETED
Gunawan, Indra (Phil Cummins) Determining earthquake source properties, seismic
attenuation and site amplification using the Indonesian strong-motion network.
McDonald, John (Marc Norman) Hydrochemical processes in the lower Murrumbidgee
area, NSW: the influence of weathering reactions, evaporation and salt dissolution
on groundwater quality.
Omang, Amalfi (Phil Cummins) Assessing sensitivity of probabilistic seismic hazard
analysis to fault parameters: Java and Sumatra case study.
Rudyanto, Ariska (Phil Cummins) Development of strong-motion database for the
Sumatra-Java region.
HONOURS & AWARDS
Dr N.J. Abram, awarded the 2015 Dorothy Hill Award from the Australian Academy
of Science; highly commended for “Best Talent on Film” at the 2014 ANU Strategic
Communications and Public Affairs awards.
Dr Y. Amelin, elected a Fellow of the Geochemical Society.
Dr R.V. Burne, appointed Guest Professor, Centre for Modern Physics, University
of Chongqing, People’s Republic of China for “Outstanding Academic
Achievements”; conferred with an Honorary Professorship in the School of Earth
Sciences, University of Queensland for “Academic Distinction and Standing”.
Dr D. R. Davies, 2014 ‘Outstanding Young Scientist Award’, from the Geodynamics
Division of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).
Prof P. De Deckker, made an Honorary Fellow of the Geological Society of London.
Prof R.W. Griffiths, elected Fellow, American Physical Society.
Dr A.McC. Hogg, Nicholas P Fofonoff award from the American Meteorological
Society.
Dr M. Honda, awarded a medal from the Geochemical Society of Japan for
significant contributions to geochemistry.
Dr O. Nebel, Goldschmidt award from the German Mineralogical Society (DMG) for
outstanding contributions of young scientists in the field of mineralogy, petrology
and geochemistry.
Dr M. Norman, elected a Fellow of the Meteoritical Society.
Dr J. Pownall, “Best presentation by a recent PhD student” award at the biennial
conference of the Specialist Group in Structural Geology and Tectonics of the
Geological Society of Australia.
Dr E. Saygin, 'Young Scientist Award Grant' from the Comprehensive Nuclear-TestBan Treaty Organization.
A/Prof G.M. Yaxley, awarded a Marie-Curie Incoming International Fellowship at
the School of Earth Sciences, Bristol University, UK.
STUDENT AWARDS
Ms H. Cocker, awarded the DA Brown Travel Fellowship.
Ms L. Crisp, awarded the Ringwood Scholarship.
Ms K. Holland, jointly awarded the Mervyn and Katalin Paterson Fellowship.
Mr M. Jollands, jointly awarded the Mervyn and Katalin Paterson Fellowship.
Ms C. Krause, awarded the Robert Hill Memorial Prize.
Ms L. Schoneveld, awarded the Allan White Scholarship.
Mr R. Skelton, awarded the Jaeger Scholarship.
Ms S. Tynan, awarded a Chrysalis Scholarship from the Association for Women
Geoscientists.
RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
ARCHAEOGEOCHEMISTRY
Prof Rainer Grün
In 2014, we added Corsica to our sample collection, using our ARC Discovery Grant
DP110101415 “Understanding the migrations of prehistoric populations through
direct dating and isotopic tracking of their mobility patterns” and additional funds
from the Australian French Association for Science. Sample collection and analysis is
now completed. We have published the first paper on the Sr data base (Earth System
Science Data 6, 117-122), which attracted the following referees' comments: "The
article … is an excellent contribution to many fields of research related to the natural
sciences, but will be immeasurably useful to archaeology" and "This manuscript is a
great example of scientific sharing that will have a large impact on our discipline, our
knowledge base, and the way we practice science. I hope that all research groups
working with bioavailability of Sr will follow this great example. Being able to share
and contribute to a region wide dataset is a fantastic approach to understanding
human and animal migrations across disciplines" (the full referees' comments are
published on the ESSD website).
We published in high profile international refereed journals such as Nature
Communications, Journal of Human Evolution, PLOS ONE, and Palaeogeography,
Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. At the moment we are writing up the results for a
Sr map of France, and various applications to Neanderthal sites such as Moula
Guercy, Payre, and Marrilac and more modern sites such as Agris and Tumulus des
Sables. We are now in a position to work on any French archaeological site and
provide information about the origins of the humans and their prey.
The Archaeogechemistry group had three PhD students working on archaeological
themes: Malte Willmes on isotopic tracing of prehistoric humans in France, Kelsie
Long on utilising oxygen isotopes in fish otoliths for environmental reconstructions
and Hannah James on using in situ oxygen isotope analysis on human teeth for the
reconstruction of human movements. We also welcomed Fang Fang, whose PhD
thesis focuses on reconstructing the denudation rates of the Himalayas.
In 2014, the group was joined by Mathieu Duval the head of the Electron Spin
Resonance dating laboratory at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la
Evolución Humana (CENIEH) in Burgos, Spain, who was granted a Marie Curie
Fellowship from the European Union to work on high resolution ESR dating.
Prof. Grün was invited to talk at the international Homo heidelbergensis meeting at
Tautavel. He and Fang Fang gave separate presentations at the International
Conference on Luminescence and Electron Spin Resonance Dating, 7-11 July 2014,
Montreal, Canada. Prof. Grün was invited by the Universität zu Köln to give several
invited talks and a lecture series on Quaternary Geochronology. Malte Willmes gave
presentations at the European Geophysical Association in Vienna and the Australian
French Association for Science at the ANU. Hannah James and Kelsie Long each
presented their research at the Australian Quaternary Association (AQUA) conference
at Mildura. Kelsie acquired a National Science Foundation participant award to attend
a short intensive on stable isotopes in environmental studies (ISOCAMP) at the
University of Utah, USA. She was also awarded a research grant from the Australian
Archaeological Association for the radiocarbon dating of otoliths from a key
archaeological site at Lake Mungo. Work on the applications of geochemical
techniques to otoliths (fish ear-stones) for reconstructing past environmental
conditions in association with human occupation at Lake Mungo continues.
Preliminary work was published in Quaternary Science Reviews in early 2014. A key
project evaluating the relationship between otolith geochemistry and environmental
conditions in modern controlled environments is nearing completion.
We have completed a map for bioavailabe Sr isotopes in France. This baseline map
will allow us to trace the origins of fossil humans and animals from the rich
archaeological records of France.
Isotopic tracing of human migrations (Malte Willmes et al.)
EXPERIMENTAL PETROLOGY
Dr Andrew Berry
My research focuses on the geochemistry behind the mobility, transport and redistribution of elements during high-temperature processes. The results of these
processes are depletions, enrichments (including ore deposits), and other
geochemical signatures. I use the techniques of experimental petrology to prepare
analogues of natural samples under controlled conditions (e.g. Figure 1), thus
allowing the effects of variables such as pressure, temperature, composition and
oxygen fugacity to be disentangled.
Figure 1: A sample of silicate melt (circular) that was
experimentally equilibrated with carbon dioxide at 1400 ˚C
and 10 kbar in a graphite-lined platinum capsule with a
diameter of 3 mm.
My main analytical tool is synchrotron light (e.g. the Australian Synchrotron,
www.synchrotron.org.au/). Geochemists use a range of instruments to determine
the amounts (often at vanishingly small concentrations) of elements and isotopes.
However, the geochemical behaviour of an element depends on its chemical
environment or speciation. For example, two different oxidation states of an element
behave geochemically as if they were different elements. Despite most elements
occurring in more than one oxidation state chemical speciation is almost never
determined because it is experimentally difficult. X-ray absorption spectroscopy
(XAS), undertaken at a synchrotron light source, however, is a relatively new
technique that is ideal for this purpose: not only can the oxidation state be
determined (Figure 2) but also the number and distances of coordinating elements
(i.e. the site in a crystal or the complex in a fluid or melt). A particular advantage of
XAS is that it is suited to in situ experiments on samples under geological conditions.
This means that fluids and melts, the primary agents of mass transfer in the Earth,
can be studied directly without having to worry about changes in solubility,
speciation, or structure that might occur on cooling.
Figure 2: 3-D representation of the
oxidation state of Fe (distribution of
Fe3+) in a crystal of garnet in
peridotite from Wesselton, South
Africa. The image is ~ 500 x 500
microns.
A major research focus this year will be quantifying the ratio of Fe3+ to Fe2+ in midocean ridge basalt, which is somewhat surprisingly still controversial. In particular
we are investigating the effect of degassing (S and water) on the oxidation state of
the melt. Figure 3 shows variations in water in a partially degassed melt that we can
correlate with S content, the oxidation state of S, and the oxidation state of Fe.
Figure 3: Distribution of water, determined by
FTIR spectroscopy, in a degassing basaltic melt
that is partially enclosed in a crystal of olivine.
The image is ~ 250 x 250 microns.
This year we are also developing new methods to image the 3-D distribution and
inter-connectivity of basaltic melt in partially molten peridotite (Figure 4). The
connectivity of melt in the upper mantle exerts a strong control on permeability and
the rate at which magmas are transported from the source to the surface.
Figure 4: Melt connectivity along grain boundaries
of an analogue for partially molten mantle
peridotite. The sample is 250 microns wide.
Prof Joerg Hermann
My main interests are in an interdisciplinary approach to the study of high grade
metamorphism and tectonic processes of the lithosphere. I combine fieldwork with
petrology, experiments and advanced analytical techniques. At the moment my
research is focussed on the following topics:
•
Subduction zone processes: I am interested in the link between structures,
fluid flow and metasomatism in the subducted slab and the mantle wedge and
how this impacts on the global element recycling. Of particular interest is the
recycling of K, Th and U as these are the main heat producing elements. My
main approach has been to combine observations from natural rocks with
results from experimental studies, by verifying experimental results on natural
rocks and get inspired by observation from natural rocks to design new
experiments.
•
Deep water cycle: During subduction of the oceanic lithosphere,
dehydration of hydrous minerals produces a fluid phase. A part of this fluid
phase will recycle water back to the Earth’s surface through hydrothermal
aqueous fluids or through hydrous arc magmas, whereas another part of the
water will be transported to the deep mantle by Nominally Anhydrous Minerals
(NAMs) such as olivine, pyroxene and garnet. The partitioning of water
between these two processes is crucial for the understanding the deep water
cycle. I am investigating the incorporation of water into NAM's combining
infrared spectroscopy with ionmicroprobe measurements on samples produced
in experiments and from high-pressure metamorphic terrains.
•
Deep carbon cycle: The deep carbon cycle has great influence on the longterm concentration of greenhouse gasses in the Earth atmosphere. A key
aspect of the deep carbon cycle is how CO2 is recycled in subduction zones. I
investigate the stability of carbonates under subduction zone metamorphic
conditions and how interaction of fluids with subducted crust results in the
liberation of CO2.
•
Formation and differentiation of the continental crust: I am
investigating intra-crustal differentiation due to partial melting in natural rocks
as well as in experiments and I study the different trace element signatures of
fluid-fluxed melting and dehydration melting at mid- to lower-crustal
conditions.
•
Accessory phases in magmatic and metamorphic petrology: Accessory
phases are excellent recorders of geologic events and are the main hosts for a
wide range of trace elements. I investigate how the presence of such phases
affects differentiation and partial melting trends in rocks and how accessory
phase can be used to constrain pressure-temperature-time paths in
metamorphic rocks.
•
Diffusion in minerals: How much do chemical signatures in minerals
change during the complex journey of the rocks to the surface? To answer
this question we investigate major and trace element diffusion in minerals
combining experiments with Laser-Ablation ICP-MS, electron microprobe and
ionprobe measurements.
Dr Marion Louvel
My research focus on the role of high temperature fluids and gas mixtures in the
genesis of magmatic-hydrothermal ore deposits. Especially, I study how fluid
composition, pressure and temperature affect the transport and deposition of Cu and
REE, combining in situ technics (XAS in high temperature autoclave at the ESRF –
France – Fig1), synthetic fluid inclusions experiments in piston-cylinder (+LA-ICPMS)
and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) experiments in cold-seal apparatus.
Our most recent synchrotron measurements investigated the solubility and speciation
of Gd and Yb up to 500 °C at pressure conditions characteristic of rare metal
deposits formation (e.g. Bayan Obo, China; Nolans Bore, Australia; Strange Lake
Canada). It is critical to provide such information to the mining industry as the REE
demand from the green energy and communication sectors increases.
First results suggest that, even in highly acidic (pH<1.5) Cl-rich solutions, REE
solubility is retrograde up to 500 °C at pressure conditions characteristic of ore
emplacement (i.e., solubility decreases with increasing temperature, on the contrary
to most metals). Therefore, acidic high temperature fluids released from crystallizing
magmas may not be the main carrier of REE and other transport mechanism have to
be investigated.
Schematic view of the high temperature autoclave of the BM30-B beamline of the ESRF. This device
enable to conduct in situ XAS measurements in high temperature fluids up to 600 °C and 1500 bars to
study the solubility and speciation of various elements (Mn to Pu) in geological fluids at relevant P-T-X
conditions. (a) Complete view of the autoclave, including the high pressure vessel and the heating
elements; (b) close-up view on the heating elements and internal vitreous C cell; (c) schematic
representation of the X-ray path through the aqueous fluids in the internal cell.
Prof Hugh O’Neill
The smoothness and shapes of chondrite-normalized Rare Earth Element
patterns
In igneous petrology, the usefulness of the 14 Rare Earth Elements (REEs) arises
because their mineral/melt partition coefficients often span a wide range for any
given mineral (in garnets, for example, the range is typically three orders of
magnitude), but within that range vary smoothly with atomic number, Z. The usual
practice for displaying REE abundances in geochemistry is to normalize them to
chondritic abundances (nowadays specifically CI chondrite abundances), and then to
plot these normalized abundances in order of Z. In basalts, the resulting CInormalized REE patterns usually present as smooth curves (Eu excepted), which not
only attests to the smooth variation of the chemical properties of the REE with Z, but
also to the common origin of the Earth and the chondrites from the same
nucleosynthetic reservoir.although the 3+ ionic radius, rREE, is proposed here as a
preferable independent variable. In basalts, the resulting CI-normalized REE patterns
usually appear smooth (excepting Eu), such that they may be fitted to polynomials in
rREE with three to five terms, depending on analytical precision. The polynomials can
be re-arranged into an orthogonal form:
ln([REE]/[REE]CI) = λ0 + λ1f1orth + λ2f2orth + λ3f3orth + ……
where f1orth, f2orth etc. are themselves polynomials of rREE, chosen such that the
coefficients λ1, λ2, etc. are not correlated with each other. The terms have a simple,
intuitive meaning: λ0 is the average of the logarithms of the CI-normalised REE
abundances; the term in λ1 describes the linear slope of the pattern; that in λ2
describes the quadratic curvature, etc. For most basalts, fits using only three terms
(λ0, λ1, and λ2) capture REE patterns to better than ±5%. The λn, called the “shape
coefficients”, can be used to compare the shapes of CI-normalized REE patterns
quantitatively, allowing large numbers of data to be assessed, revealing trends not
evident from studies of individual localities. Especially instructive are λ2 vs. λ1
diagrams. The usefulness of this approach is demonstrated using the REE patterns of
Ocean Floor Basalts (OFBs) - see Figure 1. The global population of OFBs is
characterized by a narrow dispersion of λ0 at a given MgO content, but with large
variations of λ1 and λ2. Convergent Margin Basalts have much greater variation of λ2
at a given [MgO], but most plot in the same area of the λ2 vs. λ1 diagram. Ocean
Island Basalts (OIBs) are well separated from the OFB global array on this diagram,
with Hawaiian shield basalts occupying a unique area.
Because REE mineral/melt partition coefficients are also smooth functions of rREE,
many mass-balance equations for petrogenetic processes that relate observed
concentrations to initial concentrations, [REE]o, such as batch or fractional melting,
or crystallization, may be fitted to the same orthogonal polynomials:
ln([REE]/[REE]o) = ψ0 + ψ1f1orth + ψ2f2orth + ψ3f3orth + ……
The orthogonality ensures that all λn and ψn terms of the same order n sum
independently of the terms of the other orders, such that λn = λno + ψ n, where λno
is the shape coefficient of the source or parent magma. On λ2 vs. λ1 diagrams, this
approach can be used to relate the shapes of patterns in parental basalts to the
shapes of the patterns of their sources, or differentiated basalts to their parental
melts, by means of “petrogenetic process vectors” consisting of the ψ1 and ψ0 terms,
which plot as vectors on the λ2 vs. λ1 diagrams. For example, the difference between
OIBs and the global array of OFB can be shown to be due to garnet in the sources of
OIBs.
The global array of OFBs require a remarkably constant degree of partial melting (F)
of a source with constant λ0 to produce their parental magmas, or a compensating
correlation between F and source. Assuming constant source, F is ~19%, with the
standard deviation of the population being only 2%. Hawaiian shield tholeiites are
likely products of a couple percent melting at substantially higher pressures, perhaps
straddling the garnet-to-spinel transition, of a typical OFB-type source. Other OIBs
come from lower degrees of melting, probably of enriched sources.
An Excel spreadsheet with VBA macro is available to fit REE data using the
orthogonal polynomials.
Figure 1: REE pattern shape
coefficients (λn) in Ocean Floor
Basalt (OFB) glasses from the
dataset of Jenner and O’Neill (2012)
(n = 616). a) to e): λn vs. [MgO].
Only λ0 shows a strong correlation
with [MgO] (R2 = 0.70), λ1, is
poorly correlated (R2 = 0.20) and
the others hardly at all (R2 < 0.1). f)
shows the strong correlation of λ2
with λ1. Error bars for λ2, λ3 and λ4
are ± one standard deviation
corresponding
to
±
5%
in
s(ln[REE]); the equivalent error bars
for λ0 and λ1 are not shown as they
would be less than the size of the
symbols. The scatter of λ0 around
[MgO] corresponds to a standard
deviation of 0.176. Samples from the
Carlsberg Ridge are among a few
with anomalously low λ0.
Dr Gregory Yaxley
The Earth’s Deep Carbon Cycle
The carbon cycle between various reservoirs in the Earths’ exosphere (atmospherehydrosphere-biosphere) exerts a critical control on climate on a range of time scales
which are short relative to the age of the earth. However, the earth has a much deep
carbon cycle, whereby carbon is recycled from exosphere into the deep mantle via
subduction and returned to the exosphere during volcanism, on much longer time
scales of millions or billions of years.
My colleagues, students and I are investigating this deep carbon cycle using a range
of techniques, including high pressure experimental petrology using multi-anvil and
piston-cylinder apparatuses, with sophisticated microbeam imaging and analysis of
experimental run products. We are interested in the stability and melting
temperatures of carbonate phases during deep subduction at pressures relevant to
the sub-arc environment (≤ 6GPa), down to the uppermost part of the lower mantle
(≤23 GPa).
As an example, the back-scattered electron image shows a multi-anvil experiment
conducted at 13 GPa and 1250°C on an average mid-ocean ridge basaltic
composition with a few wt% CaCO3 added. This is simulating deep subduction of
altered, mafic oceanic crust, which commonly contains a small amount of calcite,
added during hydrothermal alteration of the crust. Under these conditions, the
sample has crystallized an assemblage of majoritic garnet + omphacitic
clinopyroxene + stishovite, with a carbonatitic partial melt. This indicates that along
relatively warm subduction geotherms, deeply subducted carbonate-bearing oceanic
crust could produce carbonatitic melts in the deep upper mantle. The effects of these
when they segregate from the subducting crust and move into overlying peridotite
are currently being experimentally investigated.
Of great importance is the influence of oxygen fugacity on carbon’s behaviour under
these P-T conditions. We have developed and applied a synchrotron-based method
(Fe K-edge XANES) for determination of the Fe3+ content of mantle garnets in
kimberlite-bourne peridotites (Berry et al. 2010; Yaxley et al. 2012; Hanger et al.
2014) and eclogites. This enables determination of the mantle oxygen fugacity in the
cratonic lithosphere and deeply subducting oceanic crust, and investigation of its
effects on diamond stability, partial melting and metasomatism.
Back-scattered electron image of a sample produced in the multi-anvil press at RSES at 13 GPa and
1250°C. The lower part is quenched alkali-rich carbonatite melt (the bright phase is a mixture of ReO2
and Re metal, which maintains the oxygen state at high levels to prevent reduction of the carbonate
to diamond). The upper 2/3 of the sample is majoritic garnet (bright phase), omphacitic clinopyroxene
(mid-grey) and stishovite (dark grey). The black patches are holes in the polished sample surface. The
image was obtained using a Hitachi FE-SEM in the Centre for Advanced Microscopy at ANU.
GEODYNAMICS & GEODESY
The Geodynamics and Geodesy group comprises five academics, one senior
manager, 8 PhD students and one M. Phil. student. The research undertaken
predominantly uses satellite observations to study changes on Earth, as well as using
ground-based geomorphological observations to construct models of ice sheets to
represent the deglaciation cycles of the Earth.
The group saw the departure of Dr Jean-Philippe Montillet who has taken up a
position at the Cascadia Hazards Institute, Central Washington University. Two PhD
students, Janosch Hoffmann and Evan Gowan, submitted their PhD theses during
2014. Janosh has taken a position at Goddard Space Flight Center, working with
Prof. Thorsten Markus (lead Project Scientist) on the forthcoming IceSat 2 satellite
altimetry mission, while Evan is now a postdoc at Stockholms Universitet. Two new
PhD students, Siyuan Tian and Veronika Emetc commenced their studies on
assimilating remotely sensed observations into hydrological modelling and modelling
the flow of polar glaciers, respectively.
Crustal deformation studies using GPS focused on western Papua New Guinea and
Eastern Indonesia, with Simon McClusky and Achraf Koulali participating in two field
campaigns during the year. We derived a new block model for the deformation in
PNG (Koulali et al., GJI, in revision) that quantified for the first time the convergence
in the Highland Fold and Thrust belt and also identified deformation on the BewaniTorricelli Fault Zone to the south of Vanimo (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Observed (black) and
modelled (red) velocities of GPS
sites relative to the Australian
Plate. The insignificant velocities at
Aiambak, Kiunga and Tabubil show
the extent of the rigid Australian
Plate.
The FG5 absolute gravimeter was loaned to Geoscience Australia who used it to
survey the Australian high precision gravity network, reoccupying several sites
observed by us during the AuScope Gravity programme. The tidal gravimeter at
Darwin was retrieved and found to have collected over a year of data.
A new firn compaction model for Antarctica was developed by PhD student Bianca
Kallenberg as part of our activities to separate present-day mass balance changes
from ongoing glacial isostatic adjustment. Refinements were incorporated into our
model for the North American Ice Sheet model by developing corrections to the
eustatic sea level curve for the late glacial and Holocene periods, leading to more
accurate estimates of ice volumes through this period. Ice model histories for the
Last Interglacial and MIS6 for North America have been generated.
Development of in-house software to analyse the GRACE observations has neared
completion. We are now able to integrate the orbits of the satellites with sufficient
accuracy and can derive estimates of the temporal gravity field, although further
work is required to refine the constraints used to stabilise the inversion. We are now
developing a Kalman filter to enable us to stack together multiple estimates into
weekly/monthly gravity field solutions.
Analysis of site-dependent reflected signals in GPS observations led to a new
approach to mitigating multipath and was published in the Journal of Geodesy
(Moore et al., 2014). Also, a complete reanalysis was undertaken of over a decade of
observations on the global GPS network, using state-of-the-art analysis techniques
(including general relativistic corrections developed in the GRACE orbit integrator).
The solutions for the satellite orbits and site coordinates were submitted to the
International GNSS Service and now form part of their official IGS products.
Figure 2: Lydie Lescarmontier and Veronika
Emetc awaiting helicopter pickup at Landing
Bluff, Antarctica.
Dr Simon McClusky
My research interests centre on, using geodetic techniques to investigate and
understand the geophysical properties of the Earth, and processes that are
constantly reshaping our planet. Some interesting current research includes:
The dynamics of active tectonic processes in South East Asia
Our knowledge as to the nature of tectonic processes that “shape and shake” our
planet has taken a significant leap forward since the advent of satellite geodesy.
Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements have revealed patterns of motion in
actively deforming regions which when compared with short-term seismic
observations of earthquakes and long-term structural deformation fabrics motivate a
re-evaluation of how the different tectonic processes involved interact. Of particular
interest are the links between longer-term (orogenic time-scale) motion and the
results of short-term (earthquake time-scale) deformation as manifested in coseismic displacements (during earthquakes) and the patterns of deformation that
occur before, during and after seismic events? In this research we are using a
multidisciplinary approach aimed at developing better geodynamic understanding of
active tectonic processes in South East Asia using data from satellites, seismometers
and mass spectrometers.
Figure 1: GPS in SE Asia showing a vortex of flow around the eastern end of the Himalaya, and
activity on strands of the Sagaing Fault. The 2004 co-seismic displacements (blue) in the Andaman
Sea are orthogonal to the margin, and not parallel as expected.
Landscape archaeology at Lake Mungo
The southern tip of the Lake Mungo Joulni lunette is an icon of Australia’s Indigenous
past. Despite its international significance, the archaeological traces have
disintegrated as the lunette has eroded over the past 30 years. This interdisciplinary
project undertaken in collaboration with Elders from the Willandra Lakes Region
World Heritage Area is reconstructing the history of environmental changes and the
life-ways of the first humans to settle this region.
The ANU RSES geodesy and geodynamics group is developing precise geodetic
techniques for measuring and monitoring processes of modern sediment erosion and
deposition and their rates of change. Using surveying and mapping techniques such
as terrestrial laser scanning, and photogrammetry from airborne unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAV’s) and ground based photography, this research is providing the
framework for stitching together the patchwork of archaeological traces scattered
through space and time enabling development of management strategies for the
future protection of this unique archive of Australia’s past.
Figure 1: A one millimeter resolution, 10 million-point digital elevation model of a “residual” landscape
feature at Lake Mungo, created using the Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetric technique
from 93 photos.
Prof Paul Tregoning
My research involves using observations of the Earth made by satellites to study
contemporary changes on and within the Earth. There are many geophysical
processes that affect the Earth which can be detected – and hence studied – using
satellite observations, including earthquake deformation, inter-seismic strain caused
by fully or partially locked plate boundaries, climate-driven variations in sea level and
polar ice caps, and hydrological processes and the exchange of water between
oceans and continents
Data from a number of different space-geodetic satellite missions is analysed to
derive estimates of crustal deformation, sea level and mass distribution on Earth.
For example,
satellite altimetry is used to measure global sea surface
heights and ice topography in polar regions. Commencing in
1992 with the Topex/Poseidon mission, satellite altimeters
have been used to measure changes in global and regional
sea level. Both radar and laser altimeters are also used to
monitor changes in ice sheets, contributing to mass balance
studies in polar regions and of mountain glaciers
space gravity observations of the Gravity Recovery and
Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission are used to study mass
redistributions on Earth, including: the ongoing adjustment of
the Earth’s surface after melting of the very large ice sheets
that existed 10,000-20,000 years ago, mass balance
variations of polar ice sheets and changes in continental total
water storage. I have led a team who has developed our own
software to generate estimates of mass redistribution from
the Level1B GRACE data. Research using GRACE continues at RSES in fields of
oceanography, crustal deformation and climate change.
use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) observations
to study deformation of the Earth’s crust including elastic
deformation caused by atmospheric, hydrological and
ocean loading, deformation related to earthquakes and
the strain buildup between earthquakes and the ongoing
relaxation of the Earth’s mantle after loading caused by
the large ice sheets thousands of years ago.
Research in Environmental Geodesy using remotely sensed satellite observations
requires a strong background in physics and mathematics and involves the
development and use of software for the analysis of the data. The combination of
changes on Earth detected by multiple sensors leads to new insights into how our
Earth responds to changing climate conditions. I use such information to quantify
changes in resources (e.g. water availability, local sea level) and to learn about how
our environment on Earth is changing.
GEOPHYSICAL FLUID DYNAMICS
The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (GFD) group focusses on the fluid dynamics of the
earth system, with current priorities in regions of physical oceanography, natural
convection and the climate system. The group experienced a number of changes in
staffing in 2014. Long-term Technical Officer Marshall Ward left to join the
National Computational Infrastructure, and was replaced with Aidan Heerdegen.
Research Fellow Yvan Dossmann and PhD student Chris Chapman have both moved
on to positions in France, while Sophie Lewis joined the team as a new Research
Fellow. Angus Rummery joined the group as a Technical Officer, working to support
laboratory facilities.
A number of notable achievements within the group occurred this year. Both Adele
Morrison (now at Princeton) and Chris Chapman (IPSL) graduated from their PhD,
while Honours student Angus Gibson was awarded a University Medal upon his
graduation. Ross Griffiths was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society
for "pioneering experiments and theoretical analysis in geophysical fluid dynamics,
including ocean modelling, earth mantle convection and lava flows, and for scientific
leadership and service to the fluid dynamics community.” Andy Hogg was awarded
the Nicholas P Fofonoff early career award from the American Meteorological
Society "in recognition of the fundamental advances that his research has delivered
in understanding the impact of ocean eddies on large-scale circulation, flow through
straits, and turbulent mixing."
Research highlights for the group includes work across physical oceanography, iceocean interaction, convection in natural systems and Australian temperature
extremes:
• Sophie Lewis published a series of results which highlighted the impact of
climate change on Australian temperature, with particular emphasis on records
broken during 2013.
• We published (in JFM) seminal work on horizontal convection, showing for the
first time that there is a transition from viscous to inertial (and turbulent)
regimes at large Rayleigh numbers. This carries the important implication that
previous assumptions regarding the dynamics of this form of convection do
carry forward to very high Rayleigh numbers and will not be appropriate when
considering the contribution of convection to the large scale overturning
circulation of the oceans.
• We published (in Journal of Physical Oceanography) results which show, for
the first time, how the momentum budget of the the world’s strongest ocean
current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), is balanced. This
understanding supports results (recently accepted for publication) which uses a
combination of observations and models to highlight the lack of sensitivity
of the ACC to climate change, against a backdrop of a rapid increases Southern
Ocean eddies.
• We have also embarked upon a series of experiments investigating the effect
of the stratification of the ocean upon ablation of Antarctic ice shelves,
designed to understand the rapid rates of basal melting recently observed on
these ice shelves.
Funding for the group was boosted by the award of a major grant from the
Australian Renewable Energy Agency to improve the efficiency with which thermal
energy is captured in concentrating solar thermal power systems (“Bladed receivers
with active airflow control”, $1.4M). The work will be undertaken in collaboration
with the Solar Thermal Group at ANU and collaborators at Adelaide, CSIRO and
Sandia National Laboratories. We continue to play an active role in the ARC Centre of
Excellence for Climate System Science, and have established strong partnerships with
CSIRO ocean and climate modelling efforts over the last year.
Plans for the coming year include the installation of a major new laboratory
experiment to work on Southern Ocean dynamics, which is the most ambitious
experiment undertaken in this laboratory. We will continue to work on understanding
ocean mixing, including the partitioning between deep mixing induced by topography
and that radiating into the ocean interior. We will conduct new experiments
on circulation in Antarctic ice-shelf cavities, push our global ocean modelling capacity
to higher resolution (see figure) and work on a broader understanding of the
variability of Australian precipitation in the context of the last millennium.
Estimates of ocean surface velocity in the Southern Ocean from a new high resolution (0.1°) ocean
model.
Dr Andrew Hogg
My research interests centre on physical processes governing the ocean and climate,
and I'm a member of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.
Some interesting research includes:
The Southern Ocean
The Southern Ocean is home to the world's strongest ocean current and the
strongest winds. It acts to insulate Antarctica from the tropical oceans, is a point of
convergence for other major ocean basins and plays a pivotal role in the natural
carbon cycle.
Ocean Eddies:
Ocean eddies are small scale (10-100km) vortices which occur in all regions of the
ocean. Despite their small size, they can have significant impacts on large scale
ocean circulation - and climate. In the near future, global ocean/climate models will
be able to resolve eddies, posing new problems for ocean modellers.
Energy and Mixing in the Ocean:
The ocean circulation is constrained by the sources and sinks of energy. Sources of
energy include input of energy from winds, tidal stresses at the ocean and bottom
and heating/cooling at the surface, while energy is lost via ocean turbulence and
mixing. Understanding the ocean energy budget, using theory, laboratory
experiments and numerical models, helps to constrain the ocean's response to
changes in climate.
Dr Graham Hughes
Research interests
My research interests lie broadly in buoyancy-driven flows, spanning fundamental
processes that include convection, instability and mixing, wave dynamics and the
interaction of flow with topography. I make use of laboratory experiments and
theoretical models to help understand these processes and thus the geophysical,
environmental and engineering flows to which they are relevant.
Projects
•
Convection
•
Stratified turbulence
Dr Ross Kerr
Research interests
Geological and environmental fluid mechanics: experimental and theoretical studies
in fluid mechanics, and their application to the Earth. Physical processes of interest
include: thermal, compositional and multi-component convection; melting, dissolving
and crystallization; porous media flow; turbulent plumes and fountains; convective
mixing; laminar and turbulent gravity currents; and sedimentation.
Projects
•
Convection
•
Melting of Ice Sheets
Dr Sophie Lewis
I use global climate models to understand climate change and variability. I have
recently been investigating the attribution of recent extreme climate events. This
involves examining the contributions of human and natural influences to recent
extreme climate events in Australia, such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall (see
Figure).
In one study, I investigated the changing likelihood of extreme Australian heat in
2013 using a suite of climate models, examining both natural and anthropogenic
factors as possible causes. This found that record-breaking temperatures
experienced in Australia in 2013 (see Figure) fall entirely outside the bounds of
natural climate variability estimated using a suite of state-of-the-art climate models.
This means it is virtually impossible to reach such a temperature record as 2013 due
to natural climate variations without warming from greenhouse gases.
I plan to further research the influences of natural and anthropogenic forcings on
Australia’s recent climate. In particular, I am currently investigating atmospheric,
oceanic and land surface contributions to extended Australian droughts using global
climate models, observational datasets and satellite estimates. I am also
investigating the long-term variability of Australian over the Last Millennium as a
context for understanding recent extremes.
Professor Michael Roderick
Research Interests
•
Environmental physics
•
Climate Change Science
•
Ecohydrology (including plant-water relations)
•
Carbon-water-nutrient cycling
•
Remote Sensing
•
Ecological Dynamics
Changing Hydroclimates
Changes in water availability is perhaps one of the most important impacts of climate
variability and climate change and has impacts on agriculture (food supply), ecology
(terrestrial ecosystems) and water supply for human settlements. My research uses
both historic observations and climate model simulations and projections to
understand how water availability has changed, and how it might change into the
future.
Changing Hydroclimates
Changes in water availability is perhaps one of the most important impacts of climate
variability and climate change and has impacts on agriculture (food supply), ecology
(terrestrial ecosystems) and water supply for human settlements. My research uses
both historic observations and climate model simulations and projections to
understand how water availability has changed, and how it might change into the
future.
Do the wet get wetter and dry get drier?
It is widely assumed that the “wet get wetter and dry get drier” but is this actually
what climate models project? In a recent paper we set out to investigate this idea
using the output from 23 different climate models. In terms of the difference
between precipitation (P) and evaporation (E) over land we found that climate
models project that the dry stay dry while the wet can getter wetter or drier
depending on how P changes. We also found that climate model projections of P-E
follow the empirically determined Budyko-based framework of catchment hydrology.
Drought Physics:
During drought the air is usually warmer. The most common interpretation in the
wider public is that the warmer causes faster evaporation leading to drying.
However, land surface scientists have long interpreted this correlation in a more or
less opposite fashion. Their interpretation is that the decline in evaporation causes
warming of the air. Which interpretation is correct? This had never been determined
because it is very difficult to separate cause and effect using standard weather
observations. We recently developed a new approach to separate the cause from the
effect using radiation observations made by global satellites. Our results supported
the scientific interpretation that a decline in evaporation leads to more warming
during meteorological drought. Physically based findings of this sort enable a better
assessment of climate variability and climate change.
ISOTOPE GEOCHEMISTRY
The research activities within the Isotope Geochemistry group span the extremes of
the geologic timescale, from the study of rare pre-solar grains preserved in
meteorites pre-dating the beginning of the solar system more than 4.5 billion
through to high precision age determinations of young volcanoes, and in scale from
planetary systems to individual molecules. Active areas of research within the
Isotope Geochemistry area include planetary and early Earth studies, metamorphic
and igneous geochemistry, the role of fluids in crustal processes and the elemental
cycling from atmosphere to the deep Earth interior. The diverse faculty and research
activities under the Isotope Geochemistry banner are linked through reliance on the
development and application of novel analytical methods and instrumentation for
isotopic measurements, with a strong network of collaborations and student cosupervision throughout the group.
2014 was a year of high research productivity with a continuing flow of publications
from students and faculty in the highest ranked national and international journals.
Isotope Geochemistry faculty and students were also prominent at national and
international conferences, as meeting organizers, session conveners and presenters
including keynote invited talks at the Goldschmidt Conference, held in the
Sacramento, California, the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston in
March and the American Geophysical Union meeting in December in San Francisco.
Group members maintained high levels of professional service with notable examples
being Marc Norman continuing as Executive Editor of leading geochemistry journal
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, overseeing 90 associate editors and 1000 new
manuscript submissions per year; Trevor Ireland was elected Vice-President of the
Meteoritical Society; Vickie Bennett was a member of the American Geophysical
Union executive serving as the VGP section Secretary and Fall meeting organizer.
Angrite meteorite with an
age of 4557.381 ± 0.066 Ma
as determined by Yuri
Amelin, is the most precisely
dated object from the early
solar system. Field of view
is 1 cm across.
Research Highlights:
The past year was gratifying in seeing research payoffs emerging from multi-year
development projects. Under the direction of Trevor Ireland, the newest generation
large ion-probe, the stable isotope SHRIMP SI came into its own in 2014, with in situ
measurement capability developed for precision measurement of all four sulphur
isotopes using faraday cups in a combination of resistor and charge. This is a unique
capability in the ion probe world, exceeding original design expectations and enabling
a wide range of new research applications. Installation of a new generation, multicollector noble gas mass spectrometer Helix-MC was completed during the year
under the direction of Masahiko Honda. The first research projects are leading to a
redetermination of the isotopic composition of atmospheric Ne, with implications for
the determination of cosmogenic 21Ne surface exposure ages and are demonstrating
the U/Th-He method to be a promising new approach to directly date the formation
of individual diamonds.
Daniela Rubatto and students have made substantial progress in the measurement of
oxygen isotopes in-situ in a range of minerals commonly found in metamorphic
rocks. Accurate analysis of oxygen isotopes in antigorite, lizardite and chrysotile by
SHRIMP ion microprobe been achieved and substantial progress was made in
determining oxygen diffusion in garent to better understand the meaning of oxygen
isotopic variations.
Penny King and Trevor
Ireland consulting in the
SHRIMP Bay. The newest
generation, SHRIMP SI, is
at the far end of the room.
Staffing Matters
We congratulate Yuri Amelin on being awarded a Fellow of the Geochemical Society
recognizing his long-term contributions to determining the chronology of early solar
system events.
Kate Boston (PhD supervisor Daniela Rubatto) successfully completed her PhD
program. 2014 also saw the graduation of the first PhD students associated with the
SPYDE2R facility (thermal ionization mass spectrometers plus clean laboratory) with
Magda Huyskens (Supervisor Yuri Amelin) accepting a postdoctoral position at the
University of California, Davis and Alex McCoy-West (Supervisor Vickie Bennett) now
a postdoctoral fellow at Durham University.
PhD student Laure Gauthiez Putallaz in
the field collecting samples from the
early Archean terranes of southwest
Greenland. Studies of early metamorphic
events using in situ oxygen analyses of
garnet forms one of her research
projects.
We welcomed ARC Future Fellow awardee, Mark Kendrick, to the faculty in early
2014. Mark now has his lab in place, including the MAP noble gas spectrometer and
has established a significant new branch of research at RSES looking at the global
scale cycling of noble gases and halogens in crustal and mantle environments.
We also welcomed back former ANU PhD (2011), Janaina Avila, who has returned to
the SHRIMP group as a postdoctoral fellow tasked with contributing to the
development and application of in situ sulphur isotope measurement capabilities on
SHRIMP SI.
John Foster at work on the source chamber of
a SHRIMP. John retired from the ANU after 50
years, but continues his association with the
Isotope Geochemistry group.
Dr John Foster retired in January 2014, after 50 years of continuous service to the
ANU devoted largely to the development and improvements to the SHRIMPs. He
continues his association with the SHRIMP group as a School Visitor and as a
consultant for Australian Scientific Instruments.
Dr Yuri Amelin
U-Pb age of the achondrite Asuka 881394 – the oldest known igneous rock
in the Solar System.
Asuka 881394 is a unique basaltic achondrite composed of mostly calcic plagioclase
and pyroxene. It shares many similarities to coarse-grained cumulate eucrites, but
the differences isotope systematics indicate Asuka 881394 was formed not on
asteroid Vesta like eucrites, but on another asteroid. The Pb-Pb age for Asuka
881394 of 4566.51±0.21 Ma, reported by Wadhwa et al. (2009), makes it the oldest
known igneous rock in the Solar System. However the age difference between Asuka
881394 and the angrite D’Orbigny – the best current reference rock for Solar System
chronometry - is inconsistent between Pb-Pb, 26Al-26Mg and 53Mn-53Cr chronometric
systems. We re-investigated the U-Pb systematics of Asuka 881394 using multi-step
partial dissolution with high precision isotopic mass spectrometry in order to better
understand this age discrepancy.
The new age of 4565.57±0.55 Ma is obtained by combining new, more precise, data
points, with the original data set, and applying a directly measured uranium isotopic
composition 238U/235U= 137.768±0.038. We found that the new age does not
eliminate the discrepancy between various chronometers, but, rather, slightly
increases it. This result suggests that the age discrepancies are likely to be caused by
natural factors such as heterogeneous distribution of 26Al and 53Mn, rather than by
uncertainty of isotopic dating.
Akira Yamaguchi, the curator of
meteorite collection at the National
Institute of Polar Research in Japan,
handles the main mass of Asuka
881364. It is a small meteorite – 70
grams only, and has no known pairs.
Pb isotope data for all pyroxene and bulk rock
residue fractions. Grey ellipses – fractions from
Wadhwa et al. (2009). Blue ellipses – this study.
(Full story in 46th Lunar and Planetary Science
Conference (2015), abstract #1842.)
FUN with inclusions: the mystery of missing uranium in the rocks that
formed before the Sun.
Among the calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs) that are considered the first
macroscopic solids that formed in the Solar System there is a small subset referred
to as FUN CAIs (an acronym for Fractionation and Unidentified Nuclear effects) that
exhibit unusually large mass-dependent fractionations and mass-independent isotopic
variations in many elements. Understanding the origin, conditions of formation,
genetic relationship of these inclusions with other CAIs and the time of formation has
been hampered by the rarity of these objects: since the first discovery of two FUN
CAIs 37 years ago, only about 20 such CAIs have been identified. Variable and low
compared to “normal” CAIs 26Al/27Al ratios in FUN CAIs derived from their internal
26
Al-26Mg isochrons suggests that these CAIs formed either prior to, or
simultaneously with, injection and homogenization of freshly synthesized 26Al into the
protosolar nebula. Alternatively, the FUN CAIs could have formed significantly later,
or experienced widespread resetting of the 26Al-26Mg isotopic system, but then the
widespread isotopic anomalies are hard to explain.
We have studied U-Th-Pb and Rb-Sr isotopic systematics of a FUN CAI CMS-1,
recently discovered in the Allende meteorite by researchers from the Arizona State
University. The most intriguing observation is the evidence for extreme elemental
fractionation between REE and Th, on one hand, and U, on the other. Considering
“flat” distribution pattern of rare earth elements, this fractionation is unlikely to be
caused by evaporation and/or condensation processes and the difference in volatility.
Nucleosynthetic origin of low U abundance is also unlikely, since U and Th are
thought to be produced in the same r-process, and the ratio of their yields have little
dependence on the conditions, e.g. neutron flux. In terrestrial surface environments,
U is known to very efficiently fractionate from REE, Th and other elements by
leaching under high oxygen fugacity. Similar interaction with an aqueous fluid in the
nebular environment, either in the protosolar nebula or near the place of primary
condensation, could have caused U
removal from the parent material of the
FUN CAIs. Although the reason for the
measured depletion in U is not clear at
present, it is noted that the ~5 mg fraction
of CMS-1 analysed thus far may not be
representative of the bulk inclusion.
Further analyses will be required to
address this issue.
FUN CAI CMS-1 in a slab of Allende meteorite
(Full story in 46th Lunar and Planetary
Science Conference (2015) , abstract
#2355.)
Dr Janaina Avila
Research Interests
Development and applications of secondary ion mass spectrometry within the
planetary sciences; Stable isotopes; Cosmochemistry; Cosmochronology; Meteorites
and stardust grains.
Research Highlights
• In situ multiple sulfur isotope analysis of sedimentary pyrites with SHRIMP-SI:
unravelling complex depositional and post-depositional processes
The sulfur isotopic record of Archean and Paleoproterozoic sedimentary rocks places
important constraints on the timing of atmospheric oxygenation. However, many of
these ancient rocks have endured several post-depositional processes (e.g.,
diagenetic, magmatic, hydrothermal, and metamorphic) over geological time so that
the original isotopic signature from the early atmosphere and biosphere is now
largely overprinted. In situ SHRIMP-SI measurements of multiple sulfur isotopes (32S,
33
S, 34S, 36S) in pyrite now allow Δ33S to be determined with internal errors better
than 0.05‰ (2SE) and reproducibility about 0.1‰ (2SD). Charge mode
measurements [1] of 36S− allow Δ36S values to be determined with internal
precisions of ± 0.2‰ (2SE) and reproducibility better than 0.25‰ (2SD). This level
of precision permits identification, at the micron scale, of preserved isotopic
signatures of ancient atmospheric chemical and biological activity, as well as
overprinted secondary processes.
[1] Ireland et al (2014) International Journal of Mass Spectrometry 359, 26-37.
• Measurements of oxygen isotope ratios with the new SHRIMP-SI: high
precision analyses of zircon reference materials:
The potential for oxygen isotopic analysis of zircon (ZrSiO4) has been recognized for
quite some time. Due to its refractory nature and widespread occurrence in many
geological environments, zircon δ18O values offer unique insights into a wide range
of geological processes. The recently commissioned SHRIMP-SI has been designed to
be capable of levels of precision similar to conventional oxygen isotope bulk analysis,
while maintaining the in situ relationship that is essential for the documentation and
interpretation of geological samples. In order to assess SHRIMP-SI instrument
performance, oxygen isotopic analyses have been carried out on a suite of zircon
reference materials, many of which have been used previously for U-Pb and/or
oxygen isotope standardization. We have been able to achieve analytical sessions
with measurement stability of better than 0.3 ‰ (95% confidence level). Analyses
of common reference materials (Mud Tank, FC1, Temora, R33) typically yield the
expected offsets within 0.1 ‰.
Dr Victoria Bennett
My activities are focussed on the application of mass spectrometry and radiogenic
and stable isotope geochemistry to solving key questions in Earth Sciences. These
include: What was the origin and evolution of the Earth's continental crust? How and
when did the various mantle chemical reservoirs form and evolve? How did early
terrestrial and planetary differentiation processes operate?
Answering these
questions entails integrating geologic observations with a range of isotopic
investigations including from the long –lived 87Rb-87Sr, 147Sm-142Nd, 187Re-187Os and
176
Lu-176Hf isotopic systems as well as from extinct nuclide signatures, e.g., 146Sm142
Nd preserved in Earth’s oldest (>3,6000 million years old) terrestrial materials
(Figure 1). These isotopic systems record processes that predate the rocks,
providing direct information on the earliest history of the Earth and direct comparison
a with lunar and meteoritic records. My research currently includes a wide range of
collaborators including Allen Nutman at University of Wollongong and at RSES our
laboratory manager Sonja Zink, Marc Norman, Yuri Amelin, Trevor Ireland, Mark
Kendrick, postdoctoral fellow Janaina Avila, PhD students Laure Gauthiez Putallaz
and Joelle d'Andres – Ducommun, as well as various international collaborators. My
group’s main research tools are our thermal ionisation mass spectrometers (Triton
and MAT 261) and isotopic clean laboratory facilities (Figure 2) as well as the three
large ion probes -SHRIMPs and plasma source mass spectrometers housed within
RSES.
In addition to research projects aimed at revealing the first billion years of planetary
history, my other current research includes on-going investigations to determine the
impact history of the Moon through geochemical and isotopic studies of impact melt
rocks collected during the Apollo missions (PhD student Thomas Haber); the origins,
tectonic history and age of the mantle lithosphere underpinning the South Pacific
micro-continent (Zealandia) that hosts New Zealand (work with PhD student Alex
McCoy-West, who graduated in 2014 and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Durham
University) and developing methods to directly date the major tin ore mineral,
cassiterite, and isotopically trace the fluids associated with economic tin deposits
(PhD student Patrick Carr).
Figure 1: PhD student Laure Gauthiez Putallaz during fieldwork in the early Archean terranes of
southwest Greenland. This region contains some of oldest terrestrial rock sequences, with ages as old
as 3900 million years, and is a key area for determining mechanisms and processes of early planetary
differentiation and early continent formation.
Research highlight:
The mechanisms of continental crust production and rates of continental growth on
the early Earth remain controversial. Related to this are as are the questions rates of
the relative roles of early planetary differentiation processes such as accretion, core
formation and magma oceans, versus subsequent “normal” tectonic processing in
creating Earth’s present day chemical signatures. We address these questions
integrating geologic observations with whole rock major, trace element and Sm-Nd
isotopic signatures and combined with U-Pb and Lu-Hf isotopic compositions of zircon
populations from the same rocks, from the most extensive early rock record
comprising the 3.9 Ga to 3.6 Ga terranes of southwest Greenland. These new data
reveal repeated patterns of formation of juvenile tonalitic crust and associated mafic
and ultramafic rocks in convergent margin settings followed by formation of more
evolved granites (Nutman, Bennett and Friend American Journal of Science 313, 877911; 2013]. Our new zircon Lu-Hf data from rare 3.6-3.7 Ga tonalites within the
Itsaq Gneiss Complex, obtained from single component gneisses with simple zircon
populations now document continuous extraction of juvenile tonalites from a near
chondritic mantle source between 3.9 Ga and 3.6 Ga. In contrast, the more evolved,
granitic rocks in each area show slightly negative initial Hf in accord with crustal
reworking of the older (3.8-3.9 Ga) gneisses. There is no evidence for Hadean (>4.0
Ga) material in the sources of the granitoids. The Hf isotope-time patterns are
consistent with juvenile crust production from a mantle source that experienced only
modest amounts of prior crustal extraction. The patterns are distinct from those
predicted by reprocessing of an enriched Hadean mafic crust, as has been previously
proposed for this region as well as for the source of the Hadean zircons from the
Jack Hills, Western Australia. This work shows that plate tectonic processes were
operative on the Earth as early as 3.8 billion years ago, but that the amounts of
continental crust were small, less than about 15% of the present day mass of
continents.
Figure 2: Magda Huyskens at work in our SPIDE2R (Sensitive and Precise Isotopic Dating of Earth’s
ad Extraterrestrial Rocks) clean laboratory. This lab has been specially constructed to enable a range
of high precision isotopic analyses of small samples of early Earth, lunar and planetary materials.
Dr Masahiko Honda
Current research has focused on two major disciplines: (1) evolution and structure of
Earth’s mantle and (2) tracing Earth’s surface processes. The first of these disciplines
utilizes noble gases as geochemical tracers, with significant implications for
understanding the dynamics and geochemical evolution of the Earth’s mantle
through time, the formation of the atmosphere, the storage of volatiles in the Earth,
and the origin of diamonds. The second discipline uses cosmogenic isotopes to
determine soil formation and erosion rates with implications for landscape evolution,
soil management and climate change.
The noble gas laboratory at RSES, ANU was designed with the aim of analysing the
five noble gases (helium, neon, argon, krypton and xenon), and is one of only a
handful of laboratories in the world and currently only one available within Australia
with this capability. The diverse and often unique range of noble gas expertise
offered by us has led to high profile collaborations with world class researchers both
nationally and internationally. New noble gas analytical facilities with a new
generation multi-collector noble gas mass spectrometer Helix-MC, funded by ARC are
fully functioning.
Figure: Helix-MC Plus multi-collector noble gas mass spectrometer at installed ANU
Redetermination of the 21Ne relative abundance of the atmosphere, using
a high resolution, multi-collector noble gas mass spectrometer (Helix-MC
P lus)
Masahiko Honda, Xiaodong Zhang, David Phillips, Doug Hamilton, Michael Deerberg,
Johannes B. Schwieters
The HELIX-MC Plus noble gas mass spectrometer installed at the Australian National
University is equipped with high mass resolution collectors, including a fixed axial
(Ax), adjustable high mass (H2) and adjustable low mass (L2) detectors. The high
mass resolution of the L2 and Ax collectors permits complete separation of 20Ne
(measured on L2 detector) from doubly charged interfering 40Ar (required MR of
1,777), 1H19F (MR = 1450), 1H218O (MR = 894) and partial separation of the 21Ne
peak (on Ax detector) from interfering 20Ne1H (MR = 3,271). Because of the high
MRP of ~8,000, 21Ne can be measured, without interference from 20Ne1H, by setting
the magnet position at an interference-free position. This capability has provided the
opportunity to re-evaluate the 21Ne isotopic composition of the atmosphere. Our
analyses demonstrate that 20Ne1H contributes ~3% to atmospheric 21Ne
measurements, with the corresponding production ratio of 20Ne1H to 20Ne being ~1E4. We calculate a new atmospheric 21Ne/20Ne ratio of 0.002858 ± 0.000012 relative
to an atmospheric 22Ne/20Ne ratio of 0.102; this new value is distinctly lower than the
current IUPAC recommended 21Ne/20Ne value of 0.00298 ± 0.00011. There are
several significant implications ensuing from the newly determined atmospheric 21Ne
abundance. For example, in the area of Earth sciences the most critical issue relates
to cosmogenic 21Ne surface exposure dating, which involves the calculation of 21Ne
concentrations from excess 21Ne, relative to the atmospheric 21Ne/20Ne ratio. For
young samples, where cosmogenic 21Ne contents are small and the 21Ne/20Ne ratio is
close to the atmospheric value, the revised atmospheric composition could increase
cosmogenic 21Ne ages significantly.
Figure: Scan for atmospheric
MC Plus mass spectrometer.
21
Ne:
20
NeH interference is partially separated from
21
Ne with the Helix-
Geochronology of Congo fibrous cubic diamonds using the U/Th-He
method
(Hanling Yeow, Masahiko Honda, Daniel Howell, A. Lynton Jaques, Janaina Avila
and Trevor Ireland)
We undertook noble gas and LA-ICP-MS analyses, and calculated U/Th-He ages for
two fibrous cubic diamonds from the DRC. The ages are several hundred million
years older than that of their kimberlite host, indicating a xenocrystal relationship
with their host kimberlite. This pilot study demonstrates that the U/Th-He method
appears to be a promising new approach to date the formation of diamonds.
Prof Trevor Ireland
Development of SHRIMP SI
SHRIMP SI continues to expand its retinue of stable isotope applications. The past
year saw the first results reported for oxygen-three-isotope analysis of meteoritic
materials, with 16O excesses in refractory inclusions, the solar system’s oldest
materials (Sapah et al. 2014), and 16O deficits in interstitial silicates in chondrules
(Bridges and Ireland, 2014). Sulfur-four-isotope analysis of sulfides and sulfates has
been developed to a near-routine capability. The four isotopes of sulfur fractionate
differently between Archean photochemical reactions and biochemical reactions,
allowing the possibility of discerning early life processes on Earth. Development of
charge-mode acquisition (Ireland et al. 2014) allows faraday cup measurements of
count rates down to 50,000 c/s and work continues to lower this noise limit by an
order of magnitude or more. This capability will allow the measurement of isotope
ratios that normally require the use of electron multipliers, which can be
compromised by gain drift and dead time corrections. Ultimately this will lead to the
development of a new multiple collector for SHRIMP SI, as well as SHRIMP II.
Ireland et al. (2014) Oxygen isotope compositions of CAI from NWA4502 CV3
chondrite. 45th Lunar and Planetray Science Conference, Abstract #1671.
Bridges and Ireland (2014) Oxygen isotope exchange in OC chondrules.
Meteoritical Society Annual Meeting, Abstract #5334.
77th
Ireland et al. (2014) Charge-mode electrometer measurements of S-isotopic
compositions on SHRIMP-SI. Int. J. Mass Spectrometry 359, 26-37.
Dr Mark Kendrick
My research interests encompass the roles of fluids, melts and volatiles (H2O, CO2,
halogens, noble gases) in a wide range of geological settings from sedimentary
basins at the top of the Earth's crust to the Earth's deep mantle interior. Saline
fluids are important for the transport of metals in solution and can lead to the
formation of economically important ore deposits. Magmatic volatiles are exsolved
from melts to form fluids that influence metamorphic processes and the presence
of volatiles controls the violence of volcanic eruptions.
I use a range of geochemical and petrologic techniques to investigate volatiles,
fluids and melts, however, much of my research is underpinned by a novel method
for high precision measurements of halogens (Cl, Br, I) together with noble
gases. I established this method, which represents an extension of the 40Ar-39Ar
geochronological method, at RSES, making the ANU noble gas laboratory one of
only two laboratories with this capability globally. I combine this method with
standard noble gas analyses and I have lead its application to fluid inclusions,
metamorphic rocks and magmatic glasses.
Current research
My current research focuses include the alteration of the oceanic crust (see Fig)
and the role of halogens in arc-related magmatic processes. The unifying aim of
these projects is to improve our understanding of global-scale volatile re-cycling
processes; that is the extent to which plate tectonic processes have caused
volatiles to be exchanged between Earth’s surface reservoirs (seawater, air and
sediments) and the Earth’s interior over geological time.
The Figure shows maps of Ca and Cl in metagabbro from the Mathematician Ridge, NE Pacific: the
Ca data distinguish the main minerals and show pyroxene replacement by amphibole and
albitisation of the plagioclase. The concentration of Cl in amphibole varies over short distances as a
result of fluctuations in the salinity of the amphibole forming fluids.
Participation in IODP Expeditions
I am excited to be joining IODP Expedition 360 at the end of 2015. The ultimate aim
of the expedition titled ‘SW Indian Ridge Lower Crust and Moho’ is to drill through
the seismic Moho which separates the oceanic crust from the underlying
mantle. Achieving this objective will provide new information about the extent of
lithospheric hydration which has important implications for the structure of the
oceanic crust and volatile recycling processes. Furthermore, extensive core
recovery from gabbros in layer 3 of the crust will provide critical information about
oceanic hydrothermal root zones.
Morgan Williams is part of the onshore scientific party of Expedition 357 titled
‘Atlantis Massif Seafloor Processes: Serpentinization and Life’. Morgan will collect
samples in a transect across the Atlantis Field and then measure boron isotopes and
halogens to investigate spatial variation in serpentinisation processes and the utility
of Br and I (which are involved in several biochemical pathways) as biomarkers.
Emeritus Prof Ian McDougall
Retrospective on the plate tectonic revolution focusing on K/Ar dating,
linear volcanic chains and the geomagnetic polarity time scale
Notions of migration of volcanism in the Hawaiian Islands were contemplated for
decades, but no quantitative measurements were made until the early 1960s.
Collections of volcanic rocks from the accessible high islands were undertaken by the
author in 1961. Surprisingly, K/Ar dating was possible, owing to much lower
atmospheric argon in the samples than anticipated, allowing radiogenic argon to be
detected. It became evident that there had been a progression of volcanism from
Kauai (~4.4 Ma) in the WNW of the archipelago to the Island of Hawaii in the ESE,
where there is active volcanism, with a rate of migration of volcanism averaging
~13–16 cm/year (Figure 1). These results gave strong support to J Tuzo Wilson’s
hotspot model for the origin of certain island chains, proposed in 1963. Later, rates
determined in other Pacific island chains were concordant with Hawaii as indicators
of direction and rate of plate motions. Concurrently with the successful Hawaiian age
measurements, palaeomagnetic results were obtained by Don Tarling and combined
with the K/Ar ages these showed that normal and reversed polarity zones were time
related, and a geomagnetic polarity time scale was rapidly developed. Marine
magnetic measurements across mid ocean ridges showed symmetry of parallel zones
of magnetized crust, interpreted by Fred Vine and Drummond Matthews as reflecting
normal and reversely magnetized new ocean floor, that was soon calibrated against
the geomagnetic polarity time scale, providing persuasive evidence in favour of plate
tectonics and seafloor spreading. But K/Ar dating was crucial to the major changes in
tectonic hypotheses.
Reference: Ian McDougall, Earth Sciences History, 32, 313-331, 2013
Dr Marc Norman
Research interests
•
Cosmochemistry
•
Hawaiian volcanism
•
Ore deposit geochronology
•
Groundwater geochemistry
Current projects
•
Impact history of the inner Solar System
•
Crust-mantle evovlution of the Earth, Moon, Mars, and differentiated asteroids
•
Petrogenesis of Mauna Loa and Kilauea basalts
•
Re-Os dating of molybdenite
•
U-Pb dating and O-isotopes in cassiterite
Prof Daniela Rubatto
Oxygen and boron isotope analyses of metamorphic minerals to trace
fluids in the crust
Tracing the passage of fluids in rocks in not a trivial matter. Fluids commonly escape
the rock leaving behind chemical traces or minute inclusions in the minerals they
interacted with. Variations in the isotopic composition of water-soluble elements
(such as oxygen and boron) can be used to trace the passage of aqueous fluids.
Importantly, using an ion microprobe (e.g. SHRIMP), oxygen and boron isotopes in
minerals can be analyzed at the same micro scale as chemical zoning and age,
making it possible to reconstruct P-T-time-fluid path from complex metamorphic
minerals.
Our group is extending the measurements of oxygen isotopes in-situ to a range of
minerals commonly found in metamorphic rocks.
•
•
•
•
•
•
The measurement of oxygen isotopes in garnet by ion microprobe requires a
reference frame to account for matrix effects due to the variable composition
of garnet: we have defined the necessary correction algorithm for variations in
grossular (Ca) spessartine (Mn) and andradite (Fe+3) components (Martin et
al. 214). Applications to garnet from subducted crust have returned
spectacular results and testify to the robustness of oxygen isotopes in garnet
in this setting (Martin et al. 2014, PhD thesis Laure Gauthiez-Putallaz and
others in progress, Fig. 1).
The diffusion of oxygen isotopes in garnet is under investigation
experimentally (PhD thesis Mari Scicchitano).
Monazite is a common chronometer for metamorphic terranes, and we have
developed standards and protocols for matrix corrections to achieve accurate
oxygen isotope analysis in situ (Rubatto et at. 2014). Fig. 2.
Apatite is a common mineral in crustal rocks and has proven to be an
excellent recorder of oxygen isotope signatures. The fractionation of oxygen
isotopes between apatite-garnet and its record of metasomatism has been
investigated in the blueschists of the Tansvali zone of Turkey (PhD thesis
Laure Gauthiez-Putallaz) and the ore deposit of Cannington (Honours thesis
Maxine Kerr).
Rutile oxygen isotope analysis by ion microprobe is less straightforward.
Whereas matrix effects are not expected large variations in measured values
correlate to grain orientation (PhD thesis Laure Gauthiez-Putallaz).
Serpentine minerals are ubiquitous when mafic and ultramafic rocks interact
with aqueous fluids. We have investigated standards and matrix effects for the
accurate analysis of oxygen isotopes in antigorite, lizardite and chrysotile by
SHRIMP ion microprobe (PhD thesis Mari Scicchitano).
Boron is another element that is highly soluble and thus can be used to trace fluidrock interactions. The analysis of boron isotopes by ion microprobe demands matrix
matched standards for the minerals of interest (e.g. antigorite and mica) and
improvement in the sensitivity and signal stability during measurement (PhD thesis
Morgan Williams).
Figure 1: Complex major element and oxygen isotope zoning in garnet from an eclogite
Figure 2: Reproducible oxygen isotope analyses of monazite by SHRIMP (Rubatto et al. 2014).
Prof Ian Williams
Research interests
The micro-scale behaviour of mineral isotopic systems under diverse geological
conditions. The age, origin and thermal history of the Earth’s crust, with a particular
emphasis on the early Earth, granite genesis, polymetamorphic terranes and
sediment provenance. Palaeoclimate. Instrumentation and techniques for ion
microprobe analysis of geological and biological materials.
Projects
•
Quaternary climate-volcanoenvironment impacts in southern Australasia
Aerial view of the Sensitive High Resolution Ion Microprobe (SHRIMP) in Sao Paulo, Brazil
MARINE BIOGEOCHEMISTRY
Dr Michael Ellwood
Research Interests
•
Trace elements in natural waters and their interactions with phytoplankton
•
Analytical techniques for measuring trace metals and isotopes
•
Trace element speciation in natural waters
•
Trace elements in marine organisms
•
The influence of ocean acidification on marine organisms
A Recent Highlight
The supply and bioavailability of dissolved iron sets productivity for ~40% of the
global ocean. The redox state, organic complexation and phase (dissolved versus
particulate) of iron are key determinants of its bioavailability in the marine realm,
although the mechanisms facilitating exchange between iron species (inorganic and
organic) and phases are poorly constrained. In a recent paper published by our
group we utilised the isotope fingerprint of dissolved and particulate iron to reveal
distinct isotopic signatures for scavenging, photochemical reduction and biological
uptake of iron during a GEOTRACES process study focused on a spring-time
phytoplankton bloom. Prior to onset of the bloom, dissolved iron is isotopically light
relative to particulate iron, consistent with photochemical reduction and dissolution of
particulate iron in the euphotic zone. As the bloom developed, dissolved iron within
the surface mixed layer became isotopically heavy, reflecting the dominance of
biological removal from solution. As stable isotopes have done for major elements
like nitrogen and carbon, iron isotopes offer a new window into its internal cycling
thereby allowing us to disentangle a suite of concurrent biogeochemical
transformations of this key bio-limiting element.
Reference: Ellwood, M.J., Hutchins, D.A., Lohan,
M.C., Milne, A., Nasemann, P., Nodder, S.D., Sander,
S.G., Strzepek, R., Wilhelm, S.W., Boyd, P.W.,
(2015). Iron stable isotopes track pelagic iron cycling
during
a
subtropical
phytoplankton
bloom.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
112(1): E15-E20.
Dr Jimin Yu
Research interests
•
•
•
Carbon cycle and oceanic carbonate system : using trace elements and
isotopic compositions of marine carbonates together with models to understand
interactions between atmosphere, surface and deep oceans, and land biosphere
and their roles in the global carbon cycle on various timescales;
Trace elem ents and isotopes in inorganic and biogenic carbonates :
developing new proxies using marine carbonates to reconstruct oceanic
environments such as seawater pH and carbonate ion contents; understanding
mechanisms that control the incorporation and variation of trace elements and of
isotopes in inorganic and biogenic carbonates;
Ocean circulation changes : using multi-proxies to reconstruct past ocean
circulation changes and their impacts on climate on different timescales.
MARINE GEOLOGY & INTERNATIONAL OCEAN DRILLING PROGRAM
IODP is the world’s largest geoscience research program, and it is at the frontier of
global scientific challenges and opportunities, because ocean drilling is the best
method of directly sampling the two-thirds of our world that is covered by oceans.
IODP seeks to address global scientific problems by taking continuous core of rocks
and sediments at a great variety of sites, from as deep as several kilometres below
the sea bed. Its broad aim is to explore how the Earth has worked in the past, how it
is working now, and how it may work in future. It uses a variety of platforms, and
provides ‘ground truthing’ of scientific theories that are based largely on remote
sensing techniques.
IODP’s key research areas are:
•
Climate and Ocean Change
•
Biosphere frontiers
•
Earth connections
•
Earth in Motion
Australia and New Zealand are partners (www.iodp.org.au; http://drill.gns.cri.nz) in
the ANZIC consortium within IODP, which involves both geoscientists and
microbiologists, supported by an ARC/LIEF grant. Fifteen Australian universities and
two government research agencies were part of ANZIC in 2014. ANZIC scientists are
making important contributions to IODP’s scientific endeavours, and a number of
major coring expeditions in our region and elsewhere have improved and will improve
our understanding of global scientific questions.
Membership of IODP helps us maintain our leadership in Southern Hemisphere marine
research. Our region is vital to addressing various global science problems, and,
accordingly, the Australasian region has seen a great deal of ocean drilling since 1968,
when the first program was established. In 2014, eight Australians took part in IODP
expeditions, including ANU’s Richard Arculus as Co-Chief Scientist on the Izu-BoninMariana Arc Origins Expedition 352 and Gianluca Marino as a stratigraphic correlator
on the Indian Monsoon Expedition 353. There will be one IODP Expedition in
Australia’s region in late 2015, and we expect more in the Australia-New ZealandAntarctica region in 2016 and 2017.
Australian scientists gain in various ways from IODP: by being on international IODP
panels, through shipboard and post-cruise participation in cutting edge science, by
building partnerships with overseas scientists, by being research proponents and cochief scientists who can steer programs and scientific emphasis, and by early access
to key samples and data. Post-doctoral and doctoral students have an opportunity of
training in areas of geoscience and microbiology that could not be obtained in any
other way. Post-cruise ANZIC analytical funding is available for shipboard scientists,
and a 2014 round of special funding for work on legacy ocean drilling material
resulted in ten awards, each of $A20,000, including four to ANU scientists.
The Australian IODP Office at ANU is headed by ANZIC Program Scientist, Professor
Neville Exon and Professor Richard Arculus is the lead Chief Investigator on the
ARC/LIEF grant. Ms Catherine Beasley is the Program Administrator. The 2014
Australian IODP budget was $A3 million of which $US1.5 million went to the US
National Science Foundation (NSF) as a membership fee, and $US300,000 to the
Japanese program.
Prof Richard Arculus
Research currently is focussed on several main strands: 1. processes of island arc
inception represented by the proto-intraoceanic arc of the Izu-Bonin-Mariana system
involving data and samples recovered during Expedition 351 of the International
Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) in mid-2014; 2. understanding redox processes
associated with the development and evolution of island arc magmas and their
sources compared with those in other tectonic settings; 3. Identification of the
multiple mantle sources involved in the development of magmas emplaced in backarc
basins. Activities involve field-based, laboratory, and modelling studies. The research
team at the RSES comprises Richard Arculus, postdoctoral fellows Antoine Benard,
Philipp Brandl, and Oliver Nebel, and PhD students Sarlae McAlpine and Clare
Connolly. Numerous other international colleagues are collaborators in these research
activities.
Magmatic and structural responses accompanying initiation of tectonic plate
subduction are not well known as rocks that are formed are typically obscured by
younger deposits and strata. Induced and spontaneous are two main initiation
models. Induction resulting from externally-driven ridge push or slab pull produces
compression and uplift. Rifting and magmatism in an extensional setting
accompanies spontaneous initiation attributable to subsidence of dense lithosphere
along faults and fractures adjacent to relatively buoyant lithosphere.
IODP
Expedition 351 targeted the Amami Sankaku Basin in the northwestern Philippine Sea
at Site U1438, adjacent to the oldest stratovolcano chain of the intraoceanic IzuBonin-Mariana arc. The Expedition recovered igneous basement and overlying
sediments recording early stages of arc initiation and evolution. The uppermost
Amami Sankaku basement comprises basaltic lavas similar to 52-48Ma “fore-arc
basalts” that were likely first products of subduction initiation, recovered from the
Izu-Bonin-Mariana trench slope. Sedimentary biostratigraphy indicates the Amami
Sankaku basement is broadly coeval with the forearc basalts. All these basalts are
unequivocally subduction-related, derived from mantle sources more prior meltdepleted than tapped at mid-ocean ridges, and require subducted lithospherederived components in their genesis. Trench slope and drilling observations confirm
crust-forming, areally widespread, dyke-supplied magmatism accompanied arc
inception consistent with spontaneous subduction initiation.
Figure 1: Whole thin section and detailed photomicrographs of basement basalts recovered from the
Amami Sankaku Basin at IODP Site U1438, showing different textural types: A) fine-grained basalt
with ophitic texture (351-U1438E-78R-2); B) aphyric microcrystalline basalt (351-U1438E-77R-3); For
A and B, Views on the left are in plane polarized light and on the right are cross-polarized light.
Horizontal dimension of the fields in all images except in bottom right panel is shown by the scale bar
in B (left). C) fine- to medium-grained basalt with ophitic texture, clinopyroxene (cpx) and altered
olivine phenocrysts (ol) (351-U1438E-80R-1) on left, and details of same thin section on right with
cross-polarized (left) and plane polarized (right). Scale bar is for both left and right of this image pair.
The redox state of subduction-associated magmas compared with those erupted at
mid-ocean ridge and ocean island (mantle plume-related) locations is controversial,
and has significance inter alia for global geochemical recycling, and the transport of
sulfur in magmas and hence potential associated ore-forming processes. We have
been pursuing these research problems on a variety of fronts including studies of
arc-associated peridotites from Kamchatka and Papua New Guinea, and Fe isotope
studies of a spectrum of primitive (i.e., high Mg/Fe) arc magmas. The former show
unequivocal evidence of oxidation of refractory, prior melt-depleted sources is
involved in the production of boninite, a uniquely arc-associated magma type.
Among a variety of analytical studies of backarc magma types, Nebel and Arculus
have combined Nd-Hf isotopic studies with previously published noble gas systematics
to show that selective ingress of the mantle plume supplying the Samoan hotspot
chain of islands is occurring southwards into the Lau backarc basin. The most
plausible explanation of the combination of particular 3He/4He and 143Nd/144Nd
characteristics of Lau samples is the entrainment solely of the uprising “Focus Zone
(FOZO)” sheath of the Samoan plume, and none of the other mantle components
(e.g., depleted MORB mantle (DMM), enriched mantle 2 (EM2)) manifest in Samoa.
Prof Neville Exon
I am at ANU as the Program Scientist responsible for Australian and New Zealand
involvement in scientific ocean drilling through the International Ocean Discovery
Program (IODP) and that responsibility takes up most of my time. The main IODP
drillship, the JOIDES Resolution, is pictured below. I can provide advice for those
interested in getting involved in IODP, either by applying for a shipboard position, or
by accessing the massive archives of cores from the world’s oceans.
My research interests are:
•
Studies of Australian onshore and offshore sedimentary basins, with some
emphasis of petroleum prospectivity.
•
An understanding of Australia’s continental margins and plateaus through
swath mapping, seismic profiling and geological sampling
•
Keeping broadly up-to-date with the various aspects of IODP science: plate
tectonics; continental margins; ocean basins including spreading ridges, island
arcs and backarc basins; the nature of oceanic crust and the mantle; climate
and oceanographic change; the evolution of marine and land microorganisms; sub-seafloor microbiology; and geological hazards including
earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
•
Deep sea manganese nodules and crusts.
OCEAN & CLIMATE CHANGE
We research a variety of ocean and climate change topics over different timescales,
but mostly over the past 1 million years, using marine sediment cores. We perform
an array of analyses in wide-ranging collaborations both within ANU and outside,
with a strong international outlook. We routinely include probabilistic statistical
analyses and quantitative assessments in our analyses results and interpretations.
We collaborate with experts in Earth System, ice-sheet, and Glacio-Isostatic
Adjustment modelling, and in geochronology and archaeology. Critical topics
concern sea-level change, climate sensitivity, monsoon changes, impacts on
biogeochemical cycles (especially the carbon cycle), and the processes behind
organic-rich sediment deposition.
In 2014, the group comprised Prof Eelco Rohling, Drs Katharine Grant, Gianluca
Marino, Laura Rodriguez Sanz and Helen McGregor, and PhD students Jess Amies,
Alex Brenner and Rose Manceau. Dr Helen McGregor left the group after only half a
year, as she was successful at securing an ARC Future Fellowship and a permanent
position in Wollongong (congratulations to Helen!). We also hosted two visitors from
Southampton (UK) for a couple of months each: Dr Fiona Hibbert and PhD candidate
Felicity Williams.
In spite of inevitable set-up issues through 2013, the group had good publication
success, including three papers in Nature and Nature Communications. Several
sampling
and
exchange
visits
were
undertaken to Oregon (USA), Bremen
(Germany), Taiwan, Southampton (UK), and
Utrecht (The Netherlands), and we presented
posters and talks at the major EGU (Vienna,
Austria) and AGU (San Francisco, USA)
geoscience conferences, as well as various
smaller meetings and workshops that ranged
in scope from studies of sea-level to climate–
archaeology interactions.
In addition, a new long-term collaboration
was set up through an exchange visit with
ETH, Zurich (Switzerland).
Finally, we purchased an AVAATECH XRF
core-scanner, to be installed early in 2015.
Dr Katharine Grant
I analyse marine sediment cores using a range of analytical techniques (stable
carbon & oxygen isotopes in foraminifera, environmental magnetism, scanning XRF)
to investigate the following:
•
Plio-Pleistocene sea-level/ice-volume variability (e.g., reconstructing past
changes in sea level using Red Sea & Mediterranean sediments, and
investigating these changes in the context of other key climate parameters,
such as polar temperature and monsoon strength)
•
Mediterranean palaeoceanography and palaeoclimate
•
New approaches to age-model development
Dr Helen McGregor
El Niño and rainfall – reconstruct past interactions to inform the present
day El Niño-Southern Oscillation
Formally known as the El NiñoSouthern Oscillation, ENSO (for
short) disrupts rainfall patterns
across the globe, and in Australia,
is
particularly
dominant
in
determining flood and drought
conditions. Crippling drought is
associated with El Niño while,
conversely, the very strong La
Jan 1998
Niñas of 2010/2011 and 2011/2012
Satellite (IGOSS) SST anomaly (°C)
were major factors in the recordbreaking, rainfall and flooding in
2
-4
-3
-2
-1
0
4
3
1
southeast
Queensland.
The
response of ENSO to global
warming though is highly uncertain, and it is unclear whether anthropogenic climate
change will trigger shifts in ENSO, whereby drought and flood thresholds are crossed
more often.
Above. El Niño sea surface temperature anomaly.
How can we better understand the relationship between El Niño and
rainfall?
As part of my research I reconstruct
past El Niño events to investigate rainfall
impacts. We turn to events from the
past few thousand years because there
is evidence that these events develop
differently from today and thereby we
can learn about the natural ENSO and
rainfall relationship. My current projects
will reconstruct individual El Niño and La
Niña events using geochemical records
from fossil corals. The project will also
investigate ENSO-related changes in
ocean temperatures.
Corals (red) faithfully record changes in ocean temperature (blue), rainfall (green), and ENSO
(yellow).
The origins of ice age dust in the equatorial Pacific
Dust in the Earth’s climate system past and present
Dust in the atmosphere is a critical component of the Earth’s climate system. Along
with other aerosols (black carbon, sulphates, and sea salt), dust has a profound
affect on the energy balance of the planet, and efforts are under way to map and
model global dust sources and transport pathways (see image below).
The close relationship between dust and climate is never more apparent than during
global ice ages. High dust levels are observed during ice ages but when does the
dust increase begin relative to the start of the ice ages? Does the increase in dust
play a role in triggering and sustaining ice ages? Where does the dust come from? Is
it drying conditions and a subsequent loss of vegetation that increases the amount of
dust available to be lifted into the atmosphere? Or is it a straight increase in global
wind strength blowing more dust around?
http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/research/aerosol/modeling/nr1_movie/
Image from a global climate model
simulation of emissions and
transport of dust (red/orange),
black and organic carbon (green),
sulphates (white), and sea salt
(light blue). The simulation is a 10
km resolution GEOS-5 "nature run"
using the GOCART model for
August 17, 2006 to April 10, 2007.
Details and full animation available
from
Why are ice ages so dusty?
This project will investigate the relationship
between dust and ice ages based on climate
reconstructions from a sediment core that
spans the past 750,000 years, which includes
nine ice ages cycles. The detailed sediment core
comes from the middle of the tropical Pacific
Ocean and contains a sequence of iron spikes.
The core is too far from the continents for
rivers to have delivered the iron to the marine
environment. Instead, these iron spikes likely
represent a signal of ancient dust. This project will use geochemistry and
paleomagnetism work out the origin of the iron, and offers an exciting opportunity to
pin down how increased dust influences global ice ages and climate.
Prof Eelco Rohling
1.
High-resolution investigation of ocean/climate changes during the Neogene,
and in particular the Quaternary, to determine the nature, timing and magnitude of
natural climate variability. This interest spans the globe, but is generally focussed on
marginal seas and anoxic deposits. Because of their small volume and restricted
communication with the open ocean, marginal seas show virtually immediate
responses to climatic perturbations, in an amplified fashion, and they therefore
represent excellent monitoring sites for even the smallest climate perturbations.
Anoxic sediments are of interest because of the lack of bioturbation, which allows
very high sampling resolutions, and because they represent an extreme response to
(climatic) changes in buoyancy forcing. Studies of the Mediterranean and Red Sea
basins have provided many insights that transcend regional boundaries, such as:
timing, phasing and intensity of variability in the monsoons and the westerlies;
sensitivity of thermohaline systems to climatic variability; nutrient storage and
recycling in stratified systems; ecological responses to adverse conditions; and
quantitative assessments of the applicability of stable oxygen isotopes for
palaeosalinity reconstructions. The immediate global impact of marginal-seas
research is especially evident from our new, independent, high-resolution (~200
years) method for global sea-level reconstruction, based on Red Sea and
Mediterranean d18O records. Recent attention has shifted strongly toward studies of
palaeo-climate sensitivity, quantification of the relationship between past greenhouse
gas forcing and sea level, assessment of past rates of change in major climate
parameters (e.g., ice volume, temperature, monsoon strength, etc.) and their timing
relationships.
2.
Theoretical and applied (integrated with proxy records) modelling of presentday and past states of circulation and property distribution. This aspect focusses
especially on the potential for quantification of natural processes from (palaeo-)
oceanographic proxies, including realistic confidence intervals. The work ranges
across purely theoretical (“what if”) considerations, targeted simulation of observed
changes, and aspects concerned with quantitative interpretation of proxy data. A
strong component in this modelling concerns the robustness of simulated results,
since a solution that depends too much on small changes/uncertainties in the
essential assumptions may not be very significant. Hence, sensitivity testing and
expression of confidence limits play a key role in the modelling efforts.
3.
Theoretical and practical/analytical research on the use of conservative
properties and d18O to trace deep-water formation, advection and mixing processes
in the modern ocean. This mainly concerns theoretical arguments and new
interpretations of existing data sets. Collaborative examples include: an evaluation of
the nature of salinity changes in the Mediterranean Sea during the last 50 years; a
study of deep-water formation processes in the Japan Sea based on using a
combination of noble gas and stable isotope analyses; and assessments of the
potential for use of oxygen isotope ratios to track temporal changes in salinity. Part
of the latter included the compilation of a global stable oxygen isotope distribution
database that was used in validation of a present-day to last glacial maximum global
modelling study, and which now forms part of a database held for public access at
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/o18data/.
4.
Assessment of changes in
deep-sea ventilation states and
nutrient
distribution
mechanisms, the interactions
with the organic and inorganic
carbon cycle, and the impact of
ecological responses on proxy
records. This work concerns
fundamental
aspects
that
underlie the reconstructions and
modelling projects listed above.
It specifically focusses on
climate-driven changes in the
mechanisms and timing of
nutrient loading and availability
for production (by nutricline
shoaling). This includes the
development of non-steady state
arguments between nutrient
recharge and nutrient utilisation,
and the development of a
deeper understanding of carbon
burial fluxes and their ecological
impacts at the sea floor.
5.
Integration of Holocene palaeoclimate research with archaeological records.
There now exist sufficient high-resolution palaeoceanographic/climatic records from
the eastern Mediterranean to Arabian Sea region to allow accurate comparisons of
the signals with those in the archaeological record of the Near and Middle East.
Correlations between the different types of records are established by using a
combination of radiocarbon dating, ash-layer correlations, pollen records, and
(climatic) event stratigraphy, involving experts from all relevant disciplines. This line
of work offers interesting feedback from an entirely different line of science, which
improves communication and interaction across disciplinary boundaries and helps to
fuel new ideas and re-evaluation of traditional interpretations.
ORE GENESIS
Three new students joined the Group during 2014: Mimi Chen from Peking
University, Hongda Hao from the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing, and Jo
Ward, who will work on pyrite as a monitor of processes leading to gold deposition.
Helen Cocker transferred to the University of Durham to join her partner and will
complete her PhD there. Dominique Tanner, Irina Zhukova and Yunxing Xue
completed their PhDs. Dr Tanner is currently at the Royal Holloway University
London, Dr Xue has joined 3D Resources in Western Australia and Ms Zhukova has
moved to the University of Tasmania to be with her partner. Dr Park been appointed
Assistant Professor at Seoul National University, Korea’s most prestigious university.
Marion Louvel is completing an 18 month postdoctoral fellowship on magmatic gas
and will then move to the University of Bristol.
Professor Campbell, Dr Park and their students (Jessica Lowczak, Helen Cocker and
Hongda Hao) have been studying the geochemistry of the platinum group elements
(PGEs) in evolving granitic systems with the aim of determining why some systems
produce Cu or Cu-Au deposits while other, apparently similar systems, are barren.
Copper and Au are chalcophile or sulphur-loving elements and the timing of sulphide
precipitation controls their geochemistry in fractionating magma chambers. If
sulphide precipitation occurs early the sulphides, and the chalcophile elements they
contain, including Cu and Au, are trapped in a parent intrusion deep in the crust and
are unavailable to enter the hydrothermal fluid when the magma become fluid
saturated.
PGE geochemistry is the best method of determining the point of sulphide saturation
in an evolving magma system because they are over a thousand times more
sensitive to sulphide saturation than Cu or Au and because they are less mobile in an
ore environment. Detailed studies of two seafloor suites of mafic to felsic rocks,
three porphyry systems and three barren systems show that the PGEs can be used to
identify the timing of sulphide saturation with a high level of confidence (Fig. 1), and
to distinguish between ore-bearing and barren suites.
Figure 1: A plot of Pd v MgO for samples
collected near a hydrothermal vent in the
Lau Basin.
The red arrow indicates
sulphide saturation, which occurs shortly
after magnetite saturation (blue arrow).
Note the dramatic drop in Pd at sulphide
saturation.
Professor Cox's research in the area of ore genesis focuses on the dynamics of
fracture-controlled flow systems, especially the coupling between fluid pressurization,
brittle failure, permeability enhancement and fluid flow, with applications to orogenic
gold and intrusion-related hydrothermal ore systems.
The research integrates field studies of ore deposits and other fluid-active settings
with microstructural studies, rock mechanics and numerical modelling of fluid-driven
growth of fracture systems (Fig. 2). Styles of seismicity in contemporary, fluid-active
setting are also being used to explore the dynamics of fluid-driven fracture systems,
rates of fluid migration, and rates of ore deposit formation.
Figure 2: Visualisation of a segment of a 3D model of the fluid pressure distribution associated with
discharge of overpressured fluid from igneous cupola (pink cone, bottom left). The orange zones are
areas of pervasive, fluid-driven failure analogous to the core of a porphyry-copper system. In the
blue-green domains fluid pressurization has re-activated existing faults and led to localisation of flow.
Prof Ian Campbell
Platinum group element geochemistry in granitoids as a fertility indicator
for gold and copper mineralization
The principal research interest of the Group is using the platinum group elements
(PGE) to distinguish between ore-bearing and barren suites of granitoid intrusions.
Research activities include ultrahigh precision analyses of the PGE by isotope dilution
in clean laboratories, major and trace element analyses, U-Pb dating of zircons by
LA-ICP-MS, and O and Hf analyses of zircon. The research team comprises Ian
Campbell and students Helen Cocker, Jessica Lowczak, Hongda Hao and Nicole Eriks.
External collaborators include Jung-Woo Park (Soule National University), Charlotte
Allen (Queensland University of Technology) and Anthony Harris (Newcrest Mining).
The link between copper, copper-gold and felsic rocks is well known. What is not
known is why some felsic suites are ore-bearing whereas other, apparently similar,
suites are barren. What is the fundamental difference between barren and fertile
granitic systems? The hypothesis we are testing is that if a magma becomes
saturated with an immiscible sulfide melt and precipitates a significant amount of
sulfide prior to becoming volatile-saturated, the chalcophile elements (Cu, Au, Pt, Pd
etc) are locked in a sulfide phase in an underlying magma chamber where they are
unavailable to dissolve in a hydrothermal fluid and form a Cu or Cu-Au deposit.
Alternatively, if the magma becomes volatile-saturated before significant sulfide
precipitation occurs, the chalcophile elements remain in the melt and are available to
be collected by the potentially ore forming volatile phase.
PGE geochemistry has been used to identify the timing of sulfide saturation in
evolving magma systems, in preference to copper and gold, because they are more
sensitive indicators of sulfide saturation and less susceptible to later hydrothermal
overprinting. Preliminary results show that barren suites are subject to a high rate of
sulfide precipitation early in their evolution when compared with the ore-bearing
suites. Furthermore the timing and rate of sulfide precipitation appears to determine
not only whether a suite is ore bearing, but also whether the mineralization is Cu,
Cu-Au or Cu-Au-Pd. If our hypothesis is supported by further testing, PGE
geochemistry can be used to distinguish barren felsic suites from potentially orebearing suites and to assess the tenor of ore-bearing systems.
Figure 1: Variation in Pd against MgO (as a measure of fractionation) of basalt to dacite samples from
the Niuatahi-Motutahi sub-marine volcanoes of the Lau Basin. The red arrow indicates the point of
sulphide saturation and the blue arrow magnetite saturation.
PALAEO & ENVIRONMENTAL MAGNETISM
Two new research projects commenced during 2014. Andrew Roberts began a three
year ARC Discovery Project: “Driving a palaeomagnetic revolution: geophysical and
environmental signals from magnetic biominerals” and Liao Chang, David Heslop and
Andrew Roberts commenced an ANZIC project: “Constraining the origin and
environmental impacts of Eocene hyperthermal events by mineral magnetic
analyses”.
The group hosted several International Visitors & Collaborators including
Pengxiang Hu, joint ANU and Chinese Academy of Science PhD student,
working on the magnetism of Australian soils.
Xiaoqing Pan, PhD student from Zhejiang University, working on Late
Cretaceous mafic dyke swarms in coastal southeastern China.
Dr Bin Wang, lecturer from Northwest University, Xi’an, working on Paleozoic
reconstructions of Pangea.
Prof Yongxin Pan & Dr Wei Lin from the Chinese Academy of Science,
performed fieldwork to collect magnetotactic bacteria from lakes in Victoria,
New South Wales and the ACT.
We welcomed Dr Xiao Zhang, who joined the group as Scientific Officer at the Black
Mountain Palaeomagnetism Laboratory.
Invited Conference Presentations were delivered by
A. P. Roberts, Asia Oceania Geosciences Society, 11th Annual Meeting,
Sapporo, Japan.
D. Heslop, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, USA.
D. Heslop, 10th Santa Fe Meeting on Rock Magnetism, Santa Fe, USA.
L. Chang, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, USA.
L. Chang, 10th Santa Fe Meeting on Rock Magnetism, Santa Fe, USA
In addition, Prof Andrew Roberts, co-convened the Environmental Magnetism session
at the AGU Meeting, San Francisco, USA and the Paleomagnetism session, Asia
Oceania Geosciences Society, 11th Annual Meeting, Sapporo, Japan.
In collaboration with Malcolm Sambridge and Rhys Hawkins from the Seismology &
Mathematical Geophysics group, Lizzie Ingham used a novel method to test for a link
between geomagnetic field intensity and polarity reversal frequency. Lizzie employed
a new tool for objectively analyzing paleomagnetic time series to test the hypothesis
of an inverse correlation between reversal frequency and paleointensity.
Transdimensional Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques were applied to a qualityfiltered version of the global paleointensity database for the last 202 million years to
model long-term paleointensity behavior (Figure 1). Statistical tests indicate no
significant correlation between reversal frequency and field intensity. However, this
result may due to the characteristics of the database and concerted efforts to
increase the number of high-quality, well-dated paleointensity data are required
before conclusions can be confidently drawn. This work was published in Ingham, E.,
D. Heslop, A. P. Roberts, R. Hawkins and M. Sambridge (2014), Is there a link
between geomagnetic reversal frequency and paleointensity? A Bayesian approach,
Journal
of
Geophysical
Research:
Solid
Earth,
119,
5290-5304,
doi:10.1002/2014JB010947.
Figure: (a) Paleomagnetic reversal frequency for the last 170 Myr, calculated from the Geomagnetic
Polarity Timescale (striped bar). (b) Mean geomagnetic field intensity model (blue) derived from the
global paleointensity database (diamonds). Although reversal frequency varies through time, the
geomagnetic field intensity is effectively constant within the model uncertainties.
Dr David Heslop
My research focuses on rock magnetism and its application to environmental
problems. I'm also working on a number of collaborative projects to develop
statistical methods appropriate for palaeomagnetic and rock magnetic analysis. The
following sections describe my current research.
Tracing Australian dust
The impact of Australian dust on climate is poorly known even though Australia is a
major continental-scale dust source. Wind-transported dust is rich in iron-bearing
minerals that can be quantified using rock magnetic techniques. These minerals
provide key information concerning dust sources areas, transport and deposition,
which in turn reflect large-scale environmental processes. Through the
characterization of dust preserved in marine sediments cores, we are providing
detailed reconstructions of Australian climate change over the last two million years.
Sedimentary Magnetizations
During their formation in the geological past, sediments preserved information
concerning the ambient geomagnetic field. Although this information is used
commonly for palaeomagnetic purposes, our understanding of how sediments
preserve a geomagnetic signal remains limited. We are currently constructing an
empirical and numerical framework in which to represent sedimentary
magnetizations, with the aim of understanding signal formation and the
palaeomagnetic information it can provide. This project has involved studying a
number of sediment cores from different environments to elucidate how the
geomagnetic field is recorded in sediments.
Magnetic Biominerals
Specific forms of bacteria produce magnetic nanoparticles so they can use the Earth's
magnetic field for navigation. Such bacteria are ubiquitous in aquatic environments,
so their presence can provide important environmental information. The magnetic
particles produced by bacteria can be preserved in ancient sediments and are termed
“magnetofossils”. These inorganic remains carry important information concerning
the past geomagnetic field. We are investigating three major themes:
1) the mechanisms by
palaeomagnetic signals,
which
magnetofossils
contribute
to
sedimentary
2) if magnetofossil occurrences provide information about the marine carbon cycle,
3) if magnetofossil chemistry can constrain the depth of sedimentary palaeomagnetic
signal acquisition.
Figure 1: Transmission electron microscope image of marine sediment containing abundant magnetite
magnetofossils. The magnetic particles have a variety of regular morphologies that are characteristic
of the type of bacteria they came from.
Magnetic Mineral Unmixing
Natural materials typically contain a number of magnetic mineral subpopulations with
different origins that reflect a complex history of multiple environmental processes.
Thus, it is essential that the information carried by such mixed magnetic mineral
assemblages can be quantified in terms of environmentally meaningful parts.
Magnetic unmixing techniques are designed to perform this quantification and can
thus act as a cornerstone for the interpretation of complex environmental magnetic
data. Over the past decade I have developed a number of numerical methods for
magnetic unmixing that are based on so-called "unsupervised" approaches.
PALEOBIOGEOCHEMISTRY
In 2014, PhD student Amber Jarrett handed in her PhD thesis and landed a job in the
graduate program at Geoscience Australia. Former PhD student Richard Schinteie
(2007 - 2010), after three years as a postdoc at Caltech, is now also back in
Australia, working as a research scientist at CSIRO Petroleum in Sydney. In 2015, the
group will be joined by two new students. Ilya Bobrovskiy will join us as a PhD
candidate in February 2015. Ilya won Russia’s Geology Olympiads and completed a
Masters in Geology at Russia’s elite research institute Lomonosov Moscow State
University. He will work on biomarkers and ancient Ediacaran environments of the
White Sea area. Eva Sirantoine, who completed a ten week internship in our lab in
2014, will return to do a Masters on molecular fossils, life and ecology in the period
leading into the great Snowball Earth glaciations. Eva comes from the prestigious
graduate program of the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) Lyon, France’s number one
Earth science study program.
2014 saw some major discoveries by
students of the group! Amber Jarrett
discovered molecular fossils that
point to the emergence of the first
predators during the Bitter Springs
Stage carbon isotope anomaly, in the
lead up to the great Snowball Earth
glaciations about 800 million years
ago. Nur Güneli discovered the
oldest intact and coloured pigments
of the geological record, 1 billionyears-old bright-red and crimson
coloured porphyrins. In 2015, using
enormous Fourier Transform mass
spectrometers, she will elucidate the structures of these amazing molecules, gaining
a first glimpse of the forms of life that inhabited Proterozoic microbial mats.
Benjamin Bruisten discovered amazing incredible patterns of 1.6 billion years old
molecular fossils and marine redox indicators that draw a picture of ancient seas that
fluctuated between blooms of purple and green bacteria, with waters rapidly
alternating between toxic-sulfidic and rich in dissolved iron. The findings may
revolutionize our thinking about links between ancient life and environments, and
also may give clues about how some of Australia’s largest base metal deposits had
formed.
Dr Jochen Brocks
I like to call my field of research ‘Paleobiogeochemistry' because I am fascinated by
biological processes in deep time such as the origin of life, mysterious ecosystems in
Earth's earliest oceans and environmental cataclysms that may have spawned the
emergence of complex life. To find clues to ancient ecosystems, I study molecular
fossils of biological lipids (biomarkers) that can be preserved in sedimentary rocks for
billions of years. In our laboratory at the Research School of Earth Sciences, we
specialize in the detection of traces of biogenic molecules using the most sensitive
techniques available.
The first predators emerge during the Bitter Springs Stage carbon isotope
anomaly, 800 million years ago
Jochen J. Brocks and Amber J. M. Jarrett
The Neoproterozoic, 1,000 to 541 million years (Myr) ago, was the most tumultuous
period in Earth history. It saw the greatest perturbations of the carbon cycle, the
most massive ice ages (“Snowball Earth” events), a rise of atmospheric oxygen, the
advent of animal life followed by the rampant diversification of animals in the
‘Cambrian Explosion’. The diversity of shapes and forms of single-celled eukaryotes –
the ancestors of all animals, plants, protists and algae - also massively increased
around 800 million years ago, and there may be links between these intriguing
evolutionary events and the large carbon isotopic excursions that characterize this
time.
The oldest of the Neoproterozoic excursions is the enigmatic Bitter Springs Stage
Anomaly (BSSA), dated to ~825 Ma. We investigated biological and environmental
changes across the Anomaly by studying redox chemistry, sedimentology and
molecular fossils of a particularly well preserved section in central Australia. Over
~200 meters of carbonate stratigraphy, the BSSA records a negative carbon isotope
shift from +5‰ to -4‰ and back to +5‰. The isotopes recovered to positive
values when the environment changed from relatively deep, partly stratified and
anoxic waters to very shallow pools surrounded by exposed land. Intriguingly,
molecular fossils recovered from the deep waters of the negative excursion contain
the lipid remains of anaerobic predatory eukaryotes, possibly the oldest genuine
biomarker signal of modern eukaryotes in the geological record. The anaerobic
predator signal diminishes at the end of the carbon perturbation and is replaced by
the emergence of what we interpret as the oldest known signal of modern oxygenbreathing eukaryotes. The diversification of eukaryotic fossils around 800 million
years ago has been attributed to an expansion of eukaryotic algae. However, the
biomarkers that emerge at the dawn of the Bitter Springs Stage Anomaly have an
unusual primitive distribution, indicating that the shallow pools were not inhabited by
photosynthetic algae but by heterotrophs, organisms that consume carbon and are
more akin to amoebae.
Figure 1: Amber, the PhD student whose thesis is based on this work and who made the amazing
discoveries, in front of a giant stromatolite (microbial mat) of the ~825 million year old Bitter Springs
Formation near Alice Springs.
PAST CLIMATES & ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
2014 has been an exciting and productive year for the Past Climates & Environmental
Impacts group. Our research builds on the field of environmental geochemistry to
answer fundamental questions about past climate change and environmental
impacts, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere and tropical Australasia. Group
members are prominent in the use of geochemical signals in corals, cave formations,
and ice cores to reconstruct temperature, precipitation and vegetation dynamics, and
natural hazards such as volcanic eruptions and great earthquakes. The production of
these comprehensive natural histories is underpinned by world-class mass
spectrometer facilities in the RSES Earth Environment Stable Isotope Laboratory, and
a wealth of analytical tools housed elsewhere in the School. While our over-arching
goal is to produce new knowledge about Earth’s environment, our findings also
provide the scientific basis required for successful adaption to society’s most
challenging environmental threats, including anthropogenic climate change.
The Group’s well-established research in Indonesia centres on Dr Mike Gagan’s longterm collaboration with Professor Wahyoe Hantoro and Dr Danny Natawidjaja at the
Indonesian Institute of Sciences. This program uses cave formations and raised-reef
corals to produce long-term perspectives of the Australasian monsoon, the Indian
Ocean Dipole, catastrophic volcanic eruptions, and great-earthquake cycles. ARC
Discovery grant funding supports a cohort of five RSES PhD students working on
Indonesia: Ms Julie Mazerat, Mr Nicholas Scroxton, Ms Claire Krause, and Ms Alena
Kimbrough (supervised by Dr Gagan), and Ms Jennifer Wurtzel (supervised by ARC
QEII Fellow Dr Nerilie Abram). Ms Mazerat was awarded her PhD in 2014 on the
climatic impacts of the so-called 8.2 ka event, and Mr Scroxton submitted his
dissertation on Late Pleistocene environmental impacts on Flores where remains of
Homo floresiensis (the Hobbit) were discovered in 2003.
Dr Abram is Chief Investigator on a new ARC Discovery grant for 2014-2016
designed to quantify the combined impact of Antarctic and tropical climate variability
on southern Australian rainfall over the last millennium. This grant strengthens her
collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey, and builds new links with the
Australian Antarctic Division and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology
Organisation. In 2014, Dr Abram undertook fieldwork for the Australian-led Aurora
Basin ice core drilling program in East Antarctica as part of these collaborations.
Strong progress along several important research fronts this year highlights the
diversity and impact of the Group’s endeavours. Dr Abram’s novel reconstruction of
the evolution of the Southern Annular Mode of climate variability since 1000AD was
published in Nature Climate Change. Dr Helen McGregor and Dr Gagan worked with
an international team on Great Barrier Reef corals recovered by Integrated Ocean
Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 325.
The results, published in Nature
Communications, reveal a dramatic increase in ocean temperature after the last ice
age (~20,000 years ago) that gave rise to the World Heritage listed ecosystem we
know today. Dr Bradley Opdyke co-authored a paper in Nature Communications with
an all-Australian team who discovered that dolomite accumulation in coralline algae
(brought about by greenhouse conditions) could weaken coral reefs as oceans acidify
in the future. Around the same time, Dr Bob Burne led the discovery of a rare
smectitie mineral called stevensite in modern microbialites from Lake Clifton,
Western Australia. This new understanding of stevensite as the structural “backbone” of microbialite formation was published in Geology.
The high standing of group members was recognized with awards and honours
during the year. Dr Abram received the Australian Academy of Science 2015 Dorothy
Hill Award for early-mid career female researchers in the earth sciences for
advancing our understanding of Earth’s climate system. The quality of her science
writing was recognized via the inclusion of her essay on Antarctic ice melt and sea
level rise in The Best Australian Science Writing 2014. Dr McGregor was awarded a
prestigious ARC Future Fellowship for 2015-2018. Dr Burne was made an Honorary
Professor in the School of Earth Sciences, University of Queensland and appointed
Guest Professor in the Centre of Advanced Physics, University of Chongqing, China.
Ms Claire Krause, one of our PhD scholars, won the best student speaker prize at the
Australian Quaternary Association biennial conference and was an invited speaker at
the 7th International Conference Climate Change: The Karst Record.
No summary of our successes could be complete without expressing sincere thanks
to our Professional Officers, Mr Joe Cali, Mrs Joan Cowley and Mrs Heather ScottGagan. Their dedication and technical capabilities in the Earth Environment Stable
Isotope Laboratory make it all possible.
Left: The discovery team in Liang Luar cave, Flores, Indonesia (Photo credit: Garry K. Smith).
Right: The RSES drill-rig on a giant raised-reef coral in Alor, Indonesia.
Dr Nerilie Abram
Evolution of the Southern Annular Mode during the past millennium
The winds that circle around the Southern Ocean determine how much rainfall falls
over southern parts of Australia. These winds also affect the temperature of the
ocean and air around Antarctica. This study shows that increasing greenhouse gas
levels are causing the Southern Ocean winds to get stronger and pull in tighter
around Antarctica, meaning that Australia misses out on winter rain and making
parts of the Antarctic ice sheets more susceptible to melting.
Abram et al., (2014) Nature Climate Change, 4, 564-569.
Dr Michael Gagan
My research builds on the field of environmental geochemistry to answer
fundamental questions about past climate change and environmental impacts,
particularly in the Southern Hemisphere and tropical Australasia. The primary “tools”
I use are geochemical signals preserved in cave stalagmites and raised-reef corals,
which reveal the history of temperature, rainfall and vegetation change, and natural
hazards such as volcanic eruptions and great earthquakes. My focal point is
Indonesia where I work with Professor Wahyoe Hantoro and Dr Danny Natawidjaja
of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. Four of our current research interests are:
Palaeomonsoons in Australasia
Recent advances in understanding geochemical
signals preserved in cave stalagmites has opened-up
an exciting new era in tropical climate change
research. Stalagmites from the karst terranes of
Indonesia provide an unprecedented opportunity to
reconstruct Australasian monsoon variability over the
last 500,000 years. These lengthy records will provide
“hard evidence” for how monsoon rainfall responds to
warmer and rapidly changing climates at time-scales
relevant to the societies of densely populated
Australasia.
Photo: Dan Zwartz
Environmental impacts on Hom o floresiensis
What caused the remarkably recent disappearance of
the dwarf hominin Homo floresiensis (the Hobbit) from
the island of Flores about 18,000-12,000 years ago is
an intriguing question. One possibility is that the
Hobbit was pushed beyond its adaptive capabilities
during an ecosystem collapse brought about by a
massive volcanic eruption. Stalagmites from Flores
will provide a 90,000-year history of volcanic
catastrophes and environmental “turning points” that
could have played a role in the demise of the Hobbit.
Photo: Garry K. Smith
Great-earthquake cycles in Sumatra
The gigantic earthquake and tsunami disaster in
Sumatra on 26 December 2004 shocked the world.
More large Sumatran quakes may be imminent, but
their recurrence intervals remain unknown. By stroke
of luck, we recently found that geochemical tracers in
long-lived corals record the history of vertical crustal
deformation.
Work is underway to deploy this
newfound technique to reconstruct recurrence
intervals and the patterns of crustal deformation
leading to great-earthquakes in Sumatra over the last
7,000 years.
The Indo-Pacific ocean-atmosphere system
The Indo-Pacific ocean-atmosphere system has a
profound influence on global climate. Knowing how it
will respond to greenhouse-gas forcing is critical for
predicting patterns of change in life-giving rainfall.
Geochemical signals in raised-reef corals from
Indonesia offer remarkably detailed archives of past
ocean temperature and rainfall.
Our goal is to
quantify the tropical rainfall response to Indo-Pacific
climates that were warmer or cooler than today, and
changing rapidly during century-scale time-slices over
the last 135,000 years.
Photo: Stewart Fallon
Dr Bradley Opdyke
My Research has followed two main themes; the first is Paleoceanography and the
second is investigating Coral reef ecosystems to assess the impact of higher pCO2 on
reef sustainability into the future, not just in Australia, but globally. These
investigations led my research team to discover that Dolomite is being deposited in
crustose Coralline Algae on the margins of reef platforms. Following up on this
discovery continues at pace with detailed studies progressing with local collaboration
with the Research School of Physics as well as geochemical mass-balance studies
under way. We continue to take advantage of the Coral Reef coring that I did in the
previous decade to construct detailed climate records that extend back thousands of
years with one objective to be able to compare Early and Late Holocene climate
records from Northern Australia.
My Paleoceanography research has focused
on the Glacial-Interglacial climate dynamics
of the surface waters in the tropical regions
to the north of Australia. We now have a
core library of dozens of cores to investigate.
Additionally we are researching samples from
the Late Eocene of the North Atlantic. The
later involves analyzing samples that were
recovered during IODP Expedition 342 to the
South East Newfoundland Ridge. Our Late
Eocene research also includes studies of
coastal sections that include the Eocene –
Oligocene boundary along the southern
Australian coastline.
PLANETARY SCIENCE
Dr Charley Lineweaver
My research fields are astrobiology and planetary science. My research focuses on
trying to answer several big questions:
1) How common are Earth-like planets?
2) What can the origin and evolution of life on Earth tell us about life elsewhere in
the universe?
These questions can be divided up into: How did the Earth form? What is the
chemical relationship between the Earth and the Sun? What is the age distribution
of stars in the universe with enough refractory elements to make protoplanetary
disks out of which a wet rocky planet could be made? What can the statistics of
multiple planet systems recently discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope tell us
about the architectures of planetary systems? My approach to answering these
questions often involves the compilation and comparison of data from different fields
(e.g. see Figure)
The names on the left are the names of 31 Kepler exoplanetary systems. The blue
dots are exoplanets detected by Kepler. Red and gray squares are our predictions
based on the Titius-Bode relation. The green horizontal band are the circumstellar
habitable zones in these systems. For comparison, the first system (at the top) is our
Solar System. The Earth is in the middle of the habitable zone. Figure from Bovaird,
Lineweaver and Jacobsen, 2015, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
448, 3608.
RADIOCARBON DATING LABORATORY
Dr Stewart Fallon
Examining Ocean Acidification in a natural coral reef setting, Milne Bay,
PNG
Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) affects marine ecosystems not only by
altering the global climate such as increasing sea surface temperatures, storm
intensity and rainfall variability, but also by changing the chemistry of seawater, a
process called ‘ocean acidification’ (OA; Raven et al. 2005). There is reliable
observational time series documenting that seawater carbonate chemistry (partial
pressure of dissolved inorganic carbon including CO2, pH and alkalinity) is changing
rapidly due to uptake of anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere. Current CO2
concentrations (393 ppm) already exceed pre-industrial levels (~280 ppm) by 40%,
reducing global mean oceanic pH by ~0.1 units. This rate of change is ~100-times
faster than what occurred during the last >2 Mio years (Hönisch et al. 2009). It is
predicted that CO2 will continue to rise, without drastic global mitigation strategies,
possibly to up to 1000 ppm by year 2100 (IPCC 2007: Solomon et al. 2007).
Porites coral cores have been collected along a pH gradient from unique volcanic
CO2 seeps in Milne Bay Province, Papua New
Guinea. The CO2 gas bubbles
emerging from the reefs provide local ocean acidification conditions similar to those
predicted for the middle to the end of this century, and beyond. Volcanic CO2
bubbling through the seawater
in Milne Bay is free of radiocarbon, resulting a unique
signal that is preserved in the coral skeleton. We have
measured the radiocarbon
content of the coral skeleton back through time from sites heavily impacted by CO2
and ”control” sites not impacted by CO 2 seeps. Three impacted sites show an
increase of CO2 into the DIC by
4%, 10% and 14% (Figure 1).
Figure 1: This figure shows the
amount of 14C in the CO2
impacted vs. control sites in PNG.
The impacted sites have 4, 10,
14% addition of CO2, this
corresponds to a significant
decrease in pH at the impacted
sites.
ROCK PHYSICS
Research activities in the Rock Physics Group focus on two areas: (1) high pressure
and high temperature experimental studies of low strain, non-elastic deformation of
upper mantle and crustal materials, and (2) experimental, field-based,
microstructural and modelling studies of the coupling between deformation
processes, fluid pressurization, fluid flow and reaction in the Earth's crust.
The experimental studies of low strain, non-elastic deformation processes have
applications for the interpretation of seismic wave speeds and attenuation. One focus
is to develop understanding of processes influencing seismic wave attenuation in the
mantle lithosphere and asthenosphere. It has been demonstrated that low strain
plastic deformation processes play a major role in controlling attenuation. Recent
work has also focused on achieving an understanding of the fundamental, grain-scale
processes involved in governing variations in seismic wave speed and attenuation in
analogues of fluid-containing, porous sedimentary rocks. This work will assist the use
of seismological techniques to quantify the nature of pore structures and pore fluids
in potential hydrocarbon reservoirs in sedimentary basins.
Experimental studies are also being used to explore the role of reactive pore fluids on
the strength and mechanical behaviour of fault zones at elevated temperatures and
pressures comparable to those near the base of the continental seismogenic
regime. This research seeks to develop knowledge of how fluid pressurization and
fluid-rock reaction influence both earthquake slip processes and higher temperature,
aseismic deformation. The experimental studies are complemented by projects
examining deformation processes and fluid flow in natural fault zones, and by
numerical modelling of fluid-driven failure processes. The latter projects are
providing new insights about processes involved in formation of several types of
hydrothermal ore deposits.
Prof Stephen Cox
Coupling between fault mechanics, permeability and fluid flow in
deforming rocks
Research focuses on understanding coupling between seismic slip processes, fault
strength, permeability enhancement and genesis of hydrothermal ore deposits in
deforming rocks. Activities involve experimental, field-based, microstructural and
modelling studies. The research team comprises Stephen Cox, Emeritus Fellow John
Fitz Gerald, M.Phil student Kathryn Hayward, and technical staff Hayden Miller and
Harri Kokkonen. Honours students Laura Fry and Adam Carmichael have also
contributed. Collaborators include Janos Urai (RWTH-University of Aachen,
Germany), and Arnd Flatten and David Beck (Beck Engineering, Berlin and Sydney
respectively). During 2014, activities focussed on the following topics.
The role of fluids in fault slip processes: Experimental studies explored the strength
and mechanical behaviour of faults, and especially the role of reactive pore fluids in
influencing slip processes on bare interfaces in quartz sandstone. A highlight has
been the recognition of frictional melting of quartz during small stick-slip events in
dry environments. We are also investigating the transition from purely frictional
sliding in low temperature hydrothermal regimes to slow episodic slip processes
during dissolution-moderated sliding at elevated temperatures. The experiments
may shed light on processes influencing episodic tremor and slip phenomena down
dip from the seismogenic regime in the continental crust and along subduction
interfaces.
Seismicity styles in high fluid flux faults: Seismicity styles associated with deep fluid
injection experiments indicate that swarm seismicity is the characteristic response to
injection of large fluid volumes into low permeability rock. The response of rock
masses to fluid injection is being used to better understand the dynamics and rates
of formation of hydrothermal ore deposits in high fluid flux regimes in fault zones. In
particular, results indicate that mid-crustal, fault-controlled gold deposits, such as
illustrated in Figure 1, form via fluid-driven earthquake swarm sequences involving
up to thousands of microseismic ruptures during each of thousands of separate
swarm sequences. Relationships between seismic moment release, net slip, swarm
recurrence and injected fluid volumes indicate that large gold deposits can form in
104-105 years.
Figure 1: Fault-hosted, gold-quartz vein system, Argo gold deposit, Kambalda, WA. Field of view is 5
m wide.
Fluid pathways in intrusion-related hydrothermal ore systems: Growth of large arrays
of mineral-filled fractures (veins) and reactivation of faults both play a key role in the
generation of copper and gold resources in magmatic-hydrothermal systems. Fieldbased and numerical modelling studies are examining how fluid-driven failure
processes influence vein formation, the generation of fracture-controlled fluid
pathways, and distribution of metal resources in intrusion-related hydrothermal
systems. Modelling has, for the first time, explored how fluid pressurization and
related failure influences the dynamics of fluid pathways, stress states, and ore
distribution in intrusion-related systems (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Visualisation of a segment of a 3D model of the fluid pressure distribution associated with
discharge of overpressured fluid from igneous cupola (pink cone, bottom left). The orange zones are
areas of pervasive, fluid-driven failure analogous to the core of a porphyry-copper system. In the
blue-green domains fluid pressurization has re-activated existing faults and led to localisation of flow.
Prof Ian Jackson
Seismic wave speeds and attenuation: towards a robust lab-based
understanding
Non-elastic strains resulting from the motion of crystal defects and/or the stressinduced migration of fluids contribute an inevitable frequency dependence to seismic
wave speeds and attenuation. Accordingly, locally developed low-frequency (mHzHz) forced-oscillation methods and related creep tests, along with intermediatefrequency (kHz) resonance and high-frequency (MHz) wave propagation methods,
are being used in conjunction with computational approaches to develop a robust
lab-based framework for the interpretation of seismic wave speeds and attenuation.
At ANU, the research ream comprises Faculty members Ian Jackson and Andrew
Berry, Emeritus Fellow John Fitz Gerald, postdoctoral researcher Emmanuel David,
PhD students Yang Li, Richard Skelton and Chris Cline, and technical staff Harri
Kokkonen and Hayden Miller. Key international collaborators are Ulrich Faul (MIT),
Doug Schmitt (University of Alberta, Edmonton), Andrew Walker (University of
Leeds), Seiji Nakagawa (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory), and Shun Karato (Yale
University).
Figure 1
A recent highlight is the first experimental indication (Figure 1) of strong shear
modulus relaxation and associated strain-energy dissipation in a synthetic olivine
polycrystal tested under water-undersaturated conditions - with potentially important
implications for seismic wave propagation in the Earth’s upper mantle.
During the past year, we have also demonstrated frequency-dependent behaviour of
cracked sintered glass-bead aggregates in the presence of argon, and especially,
water as pore fluid. The presence of pore fluid results in significant stiffening of the
cracked medium when tested at 1 MHz (Figure 2), but not at sub-Hz frequencies.
The different seismic properties for these two regimes are interpreted in terms of
stress-induced fluid flow at sub-Hz frequencies between adjacent cracks, that is
precluded at the higher MHz frequency – with implications for the seismic exploration
of the Earth’s typically fractured and fluid-saturated crust.
Figure 2
SEISMOLOGY & MATHEMATICAL GEOPHYSICS
During 2014 members of the Seismology and Mathematical Geophysics group were
engaged in a range of research studies in structural and source seismology from the
lithosphere to the core, Lithospheric and mantle dynamics and inverse theory as well
as community outreach. Summaries of some individual projects appear below. 2014
is the final year of the Australian Geophysical Observing system (AGOS) infrastructure
program funded through AuScope. The group has been heavily involved with this
program since 2011 leading three separate components of the program, Earth
sounding, the Inversion Laboratory, and the Australian Seismometers in Schools
network. All programs have accomplished their original aims and delivered unique
research infrastructure for the nation.
A notable highlight was successful completion of a procurement program to build a
fleet of Ocean Bottom Seismometers for the nation with access through competitive
proposal. The instruments were funded as part of the AGOS Earth Sounding program
and will be housed in Geoscience Australia. Sea trials conducted through the year
demonstrated the utility of the OBS fleet, which were commissioned in October and
immediately put to use in the Southern Ocean.
The group’s seismic instrument pool has been deployed under the auspices of ANSIR,
the national research facility for Earth sounding, in several field projects this year.
These include the SPIRA array in Queensland, the SQUEAL2 deployment on the
NSW/Queensland border, AQ3 in Southwest Queensland and Northwest NSW, both
part of the Wombat Transportable array; and the ALFREX array in the Albany Fraser
Orogen. In addition the group was active in seismic experiments in Indonesia and
also loaned instruments to Victoria University in Wellington and Macquarie University
for deployment in the Alpine Fault region, N.Z. and N.W western Australia
respectively. ANSIR itself has been renewed into a fourth incarnation through a new
five year community agreement between 11 institutions in Australia and New
Zealand, who agree to share their instrumentation through ANSIR access programs.
The Terrawulf computational facility, run by the group saw, its most intensive use
ever in its 11 year history with 14279 compute jobs completed by 31 distinct users
4.8 million CPU hours consumed across projects in Earth Imaging, Geospatial, and
seismic and other inversion studies. Group members also made extensive use of the
National Computational Infrastructure facility.
Group members were successful in obtaining funding from multiple sources this year
including the ARC Discovery and Linkage programs, NCRIS-2 and EIF3 through
AuScope Ltd., DFAT/AuSAID and the US Dept. of Energy. A highlight was the award
of a Future Fellowship to Dr. Rhodri Davies. Dr. Davies was also awarded an
Outstanding Young Scientists Award from the geodynamics division of EGU. Several
members of the group gave invited and keynote lectures at meetings throughout the
world. Staff changes include the arrival of Drs. Babak Hejrani and Seongryong Kim in
the group while Dr. Michelle Salmon moved from her position as a Research Fellow to
a Senior Technical officer role with responsibility for seismic instrumentation, projects
and fieldwork. After 40 years of service to the group and the school, Mr. Tony Percival
retired from his technical position having spent the last 18 months as station manager
at the Warramunga Array in the Northern Territory. Mr. Sam Prakash Rayapaty was
appointed as his replacement.
There were many research successes during the year as is evident from the research
highlights section of the RSES annual report. A selection of research projects pursued
by the group during the year is included below.
Seismic Field Campaigns 2014
The maps below show deployments of seismic instruments in three of the four major
field campaigns carried out by the group during 2014 on the Australian continent.
SQUEAL2
Part of WOMBAT transportable array of 52 short
period seismometers across the NSW Queensland
border. These pulled out midway through the year
after 12 months recording duration. Information
from this array and AQ3 will add to the extensive
data base of observations from the Wombat project
to constrain Lithospheric structure beneath the
continent using teleseismic earthquake recordings
and ambient seismic noise.
SPIRA
A spiral array in Queensland using 16
broadband trillium seismometers. This
was an experimental array to test
optimal array design. This array is
embedded in the SQUEAL2 array. The
instruments were deployed for about
a year and are about to be redeployed
in Western Australia. Novel methods
were used with this data exploiting
different facets of the seismic
wavefield
to
provide
structural
controls on heterogeneity, caused by
dynamic processes, in the mantle and
near the core-mantle boundary.
Information extracted
on
shallow
features in the neighbourhood of the
arrays has yielded valuable insight
into the structure and composition of the Australian lithosphere.
AQ3
Part of the WOMBAT transportable array. 52
short period seismometers were deployed in
Southwest Queensland and Northwest NSW.
This array operated between May and August.
Some Research Contributions from the Seismology and Mathematical
Geophysics group in 2014
Realistic tsunami modeling with seafloor loading and density stratification
S. Allgeyer and P. Cummins
To better understand how large tsunamis are generated, it is important to be able to
accurately model the sea level signals they generate. A number of researchers have
identified systemic discrepancies between observed and modelled tsunami wave
speeds for two recent major tsunamis, the 2010 Maule and 2011 Tohoku events. To
account for these discrepancies, we developed a numerical tsunami propagation code
solving the shallow water equation and including the effects of elastic loading of the
sea-floor by the tsunami as well as a linear density profile in the sea water column.
We found that both effects are important to explain the commonly observed
difference between observations and simulations. We conclude that the density
variation in the sea water column affects the wave speed without changing the
waveform, whereas the loading effect has an effect on the wave speed and the
waveform showing a negative phase before the main arrival due to the depression of
the sea floor surrounding the tsunami wave. The combination of both effects is
needed to achieve a better match between observations and simulations.
Snapshot of the tsunami generated by the 2010 Maule after 16 hours of propoagation. (Left)
Numerical results from the ‘standard’ shallow-water wave equations (rigid substrate); (middle)
Numerical results from the new equaitons tat account for tsunami self-loading and density
stratification; (right) the vertical seafloor dislacement caused by tsunami loading of the sealfoor. (from
Allgeyer S., Cummins P.R. (2014) Numerical tsunami simulation including elastic loading and seawater
density stratification, Geophysical Research Letters 41 (7), 2368-2375).
Localization of Intraplate Deformation through Fluid-assisted Fault
Reactivation in the Lower-Crust: The Flinders Ranges, South Australia
N. Balfour, P. Cummins, S. Pilia
Understanding the interplay between continental intraplate seismicity, stress and
deformation is important for elucidating the forces driving plate tectonics and the
tectonic processes that shape the continents, as well as for reliably assessing
earthquake hazard. But this interplay is still poorly understood. The Flinders Ranges
region is unusual for an intraplate environment in experiencing concentrated and
sustained seismic activity, relatively high neotectonic slip rates inferred for rangebounding faults, pronounced topography and high heat flow. For these reasons the
Flinders Ranges have been the subject of many studies trying to understand why
deformation of the Australian continent appears to be localized there. While many
previous these studies have remarked on the high seismicity, none of them have
considered the information provided by earthquake data - spatial and depth
distribution of hypocentres, arrival time anomalies, and focal mechanisms - in any
detail. Using data from a temporary seismometer deployment in the Flinders Ranges,
we found that earthquakes cluster in elongated low vp/vs anomalies that extend to
depths exceeding 20 km, and are aligned with the axis of the Flinders Ranges. In the
northern Flinders Ranges these low vp/vs anomalies separate two cratonic blocks, the
Gawler Craton to the west and the Curnamona Province in the east. We argue that
the compressive earthquake focal mechanisms are compatible with the regional
stress field, that there is no evidence for stress concentration, and that the
occurrence of earthquakes at mid- to lower crustal depth in an area of high heat flow
can only be explained by high pore fluid pressure in the lower crust.
(a) Earthquake locations and focal mechanisms; (b) tomographic imaging of vp/vs, and (c) Flinders
and non-Flinders earthquake depths vs. continental geotherm.
Finite Fault inversion using the W-Phase
R. Benavente and P. Cummins
The W-phase is an ultra-long period seismic wave that arrives as early as the firstarriving P-wave. It’s early arrival, low amplitude and stability with respect to details
of earth structure make it ideal for rapid determination of source characteristics
especially for large, tsunamigenic earthquakes. We are exploring the ability of Wphase waveform inversions to recover a first-order coseismic slip distribution for
large earthquakes, because it promises to be simpler than most other methods and
mayhave applications in tsunami warning systems. We have applied W-phase finite
fault inversion to seismic waveforms recorded following the 2010 Maule earthquake
(Mw = 8.8) and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake (Mw = 9.0). As indicated in the figure,
our results describe well the main features of the slip pattern previously found for
both events. This suggests that fast slip inversions may be carried out relying purely
on W-phase records.
W-phase fault slip distributions for the Maule event. (left) Waveform fits are shown for selected
stations. Observed displacements and their respective synthetics are indicated by a continuous green
line and a dashed blue line, respectively. (middle) A reference model is plotted from Koper et al.
[2012]. (right) the W-phase result. (from Benaventa, R. and Cummins, P..R. (2013) Simple and
reliable finite fault solutions for large earthquakes using the W-phase: The Maule (Mw = 8.8) and
Tohoku
(Mw = 9.0) earthquakes, Geophys. Res. Lett., 40, 3591–3595, doi:10.1002/grl.50648).
Transdimensional Bayesian finite fault inversion
J. Dettmer, R. Benavente, J. Hossen, P. Cummins and M. Sambridge
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 as fault
discretisation on uncertainties has not been studied. We have developed a
probabilistic Bayesian approach to this problem that includes rigorous uncertainty
estimation. We show that model choice is fundamentally linked to uncertainty estimation and can have profound effects on results. The approach developed here is
based on a trans-dimensional self-parametrization of the fault, avoids regularisation
constraints and provides rigorous uncertainty estimation that accounts for modelselection ambiguity associated with the fault discretisation. In particular, the fault is
parametrized using self- adapting irregular grids which intrinsically match the local
resolving power of the data and provide parsimonious solutions requiring few
parameters to capture complex rupture characteristics. The inversion is applied to
simulated and observed W-phase waveforms from the 2010 Maule (Chile)
earthquake. The results are compatible with previous studies, but higher slip maxima
suggest that other studies may be influenced by regularization.
Inversion results for the Maule earthauke: (a) Posterior mean slip magnitude and 7.5-m slip contours
(white), (b) 95% CI width for slip magnitude on the fault, (c) rake for posterior mean model, and (d)
Voronoi- node position probability (darker values correspond to higher density). Point-source
hypocentre location (⋆) and MAP hypocentre location (∗) are also shown. (From Dettmer J., Benavente
R., Cummins P.R., Sambridge M. (2014) Trans-dimensional finite-fault inversion, Geophysical Journal
International 199 (2), 735-751).
Dynamics and structure of Earth’s lithosphere and mantle.
G. Iaffaldano and R. Davies
A theoretical framework for the interpretation of short-term plate-motion changes
has been proposed by group members this year. Traditionally it has been difficult to
disentangle the various components of the plate torque balance, and such a
framework exploits kinematic changes, rather than absolute plate velocities, to derive
information on the dominant controls of lithosphere dynamics. Functional to these
goals is the ability to identify plate-motion changes from noisy records of the oceanfloor magnetisation. Dr Iaffaldano, along with collaborators at RSES and abroad,
developed REDBACK - open-source software for noise reduction in plate motion
histories that is based on Bayesian inference.
The Newer Volcanics Province (NVP) of South-eastern Australia is an intra-plate
volcanic province that stretches more than 500 km, from Mount Gambier in South
Australia to Melbourne in Victoria. By examining how seismic waves, generated by
distant earthquakes, propagate through this region, and combining this with state-ofthe-art computational modelling on Australia’s largest supercomputer – Raijin, at the
National Computational Infrastructure – Dr. Davies and colleagues were able to
demonstrate, for the first time, how the unique interaction between convective
currents in the mantle, topography at the base of the Australian continent and the
rapid northward movement of Australia towards Indonesia combines to generate a
focused region of upwelling directly beneath the NVP (Davies & Rawlinson, 2014).
This study solves the long-standing puzzle of why step changes in lithospheric
thickness, which occur along craton edges and at passive margins, produce
volcanism only at isolated locations.
Also was tested was the statistical significance of a proposed correlation between
volcanic hotspot locations and the reconstructed eruption sites of large igneous
provinces at Earth’s surface with deep mantle large low shear-wave velocity
provinces (LLSVPs). These rigorous tests demonstrate that the observed distribution
of African and Pacific hotspots/reconstructed LIPs is consistent with the hypothesis
that they are drawn from a sample that is uniformly distributed across the entire
areal extent of each LLSVP. This result differs to the predictions of previous studies
and has significant implications for our understanding of lowermost mantle dynamics,
its surface expression and its long-wavelength seismic structure (Davies et al. 2015).
Finally, utilizing a multi-scale numerical approach, in collaboration with colleagues in
the UK and the USA, Dr. Davies quantified the key controls on: (i) the dynamics of
subduction and the interaction of subducted slabs with the mantle transition zone, in
a study that has important implications for material transfer between Earth’s upper
and lower mantle (Garel et al. 2014); and (ii) the mantle wedge’s transient flow
regime and thermal structure, in a study that has important consequences for the
spatial and temporal distribution of island arc volcanism (Le Voci et al. 2014).
Figure 1: Variations in P-wave velocity
beneath the Newer Volcanics Province of
South-eastern
Australia
(Davies
&
Rawlinson, 2014).
Time-Reverse imaging of the tsunami source
J. Hossen, P. Cummins, S. Roberts, and S. Allgeyer
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, or slip on
splay faults - have contributed to the tsunami generation. We are proposing a new
method that can be used to derive source models without requiring the assumption
of slip on a fault of pre-determined geometry or even knowing the earthquake source
area, but inverts directly for sea surface displacement without regard to faulting or
source complexity. The proposed method is based on ”Time Reverse Imaging (TRI)”
technique, which has been used in underwater acoustic and medical imaging. We
have applied TRI to recover the initial sea surface displacement associated with the
tsunami source. To show the application of this method we have chosen the tsunami
triggered by the March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake, for which an unprecedented
number of high-quality observations are available. We compare the findings of the
TRI result with other more conventional methods of source inversion.
Refocused source (left) obtained by using real observations which are retransmitted through the
medium simultaneously. The height of the refocused source is determined by the uniform scaling
approach. The heavy, red curve denotes the axis of the Japan Trench. The maximum height in the
refocussed image is located between the epicenter (red star) and the Trench axis. (right) Agreement
of tsunami waveforms calculated using this source (green) are compared with observed tusnami
waveforms (red). (From Hossen J., Cummins P.R., Roberts S.G., Allgeyer, S. (2014) Time-reverse
imaging of the tsunami source, accepted by Pure and Applied Geophysics).
Geophysical Inversion: Methods, applications and software
M. Sambridge, R. Hawkins, J. Dettmer, S. Sagar, E. Saygin, G. Iaffaldano, R. Davies
and M. Salmon, L. Ingham, N. Rawlinson.
This year a primary thrust of the research has been the continued development and
application of trans-dimensional inversion methodologies to geophysical inference
problems. Trans-dimensional approaches involve treating the number of unknowns
as an unknown in a parameter estimation or inversion problem. This year we have
applied these techniques in a variety of geophysical settings including the seismic
imaging of the Earth from crust to core; finite fault inversion for earthquake sources;
estimation of sea-level rise from global ice volumes; data noise reduction in
kinematic reconstructions of tectonic plate motion estimation; detection of
paleomagnetic intensity; and remote sensing of sea floor bathymetry and
environmental properties.
Other applications of statistical inference this year have been to resolve questions of
significance in the apparent correlation between eruption sites of large igneous
provinces at Earth’s surface with deep mantle large low shear-wave velocity
provinces, and yet another has occurred in Palaeogeography and in particular to Useries analysis of fossilized bones and teeth.
The Inversion Laboratory software portal was launched to provide access to the
group’s locally developed software packages arising out of research projects. This
has seen rapid take up with 178 registrations to date globally and more than 230
downloads.
This year also saw the development of a new framework of trans-dimensional
inversion which involves replacing the Voronoi parametrization structure used
successfully to date in 1-D and 2-D imaging with a new wavelet based tree algorithm
which promises to be more efficient and allow extensions of trans-D inversion
approach to larger 3-D geophysical imaging problems. An earlier example is seen in
the figure showing an application to regression in a spherical shell. An important
feature of the new approach in addition to efficiency is its versatility in that physical
problems in one, two or three dimensions are handled within a single Bayesian
sampling algorithm. The spherical 3-D regression example in the figure overleaf was
completed with a single random sampling Markov chain on a laptop taking just 6.6
hrs. This project will continue to develop over coming years.
Reconstructing a 3-D field using from 2000 random measurements using a 1.6 degree lateral
resolution and 24 radial layers. Here the true model is on the right and the ensemble mean obtained
by the Trans-D sampling algorithm is shown on the left.
Seismographic Studies on Basin Effects in the Amplification of Seismic
Waves in Indonesia
E. Saygin, P. Cummins, A. Cipta
The amplification of seismic waves in sedimentary basins is an important aspect of
seismic hazard that is often poorly understood. This is particularly important in
Indonesia, where most major cities are built on basins filled with young alluvial
sediments and/or volcanic tuff. The architecture of these basins, and their ability to
amplify seismic waves, is poorly unknown. We are collaboration with universities and
government technical agencies of Indonesia to deploy dense, temporary networks of
seismometers in selected urban areas: Jakarta an Bandung in Java, and Palu in
Sulawesi. The objective of these experiments is to determine the 3D structure of the
basin well enough to enable the deterministic simulation of earthquake waves with
periods as short as 1 sec. Such simulations can improve our understanding of the
effects seismic waves may have on large buildings and infrastructure, and can be
combined with stochastic simulations to include shorter periods that may affect
residential structures. By helping to accurately forecast the damaging effects of
earthquake waves, the project will inform mitigation efforts towards reducing
earthquake fatalities.
Prof Phil Cummins
Most of my research focusses on understanding earthquakes and how they affect us.
This includes understanding why earthquakes occur where they do, how big they can
be, and how efficiently they generate seismic waves. It also involves the study of the
generation and propagation of tsunamis, and the focusing and attenuation of seismic
waves by earth structure. The topics my group is actively researching include:
1) Rapid, accurate and reliable estimation of earthquake slip distributions and
sea surface displacement associated with undersea earthquakes.
2) The effects of sedimentary basins (mainly in Indonesia) on the focusing and
amplification of seismic waves.
3) Characterisation of earthquake potential through measurement of crustal
strain accumulation.
4) Improving tsunami warning systems through rapid and reliable earthquake
source characterization and tsunami forecasts.
5) Earthquake source effects on ground motion and building damage.
Through my work at Geoscience Australia, I am also involved in efforts to assist
developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region to improve their ability to assess
earthquake and tsunami hazard.
Figure 1: Comparison of modeled sea
surface displacement with seafloor
measurements for the 2011 Tohokuoki earthquake.
(a)
Cumulative
sea
surface
displacement
estimated
from
inversion of tsunami waveforms, with
locations of seafloor measurements
indicated and colored according to the
value
of
vertical
displacement,
corrected for horizontal movement.
(b) Cumulative seafloor displacement
calculated for different tsunami source
models, plotted as red, green and
blue bars. Also plotted are observed
seafloor displacement: vertical uplift,
and vertical uplift adjusted for
horizontal displacement in order to
compare
with
sea
surface
displacement (orange and yellow
bars, respectively). Hatched yellow
bars indicate OBP data adjusted for
horizontal displacement calculated from a fault slip model; non-hatched yellow bars are GPS
observations adjusted using measured horizontal displacement.
Dr Rhodri Davies
Keywords:
Solid Earth geophysics; mantle dynamics; thermal and thermo-chemical mantle
convection; large igneous provinces, volcanic hotspots/intra-plate volcanism; mantle
plumes; links between Earth's surface and its deep interior; subduction dynamics;
subduction-zone magmatism; adaptive mesh numerical methods for geophysical
flows.
Research Overview:
Over the past 5 years, I have developed sophisticated tools for simulating mantle
convection, whilst also demonstrating the power of these to improve our
understanding of mantle dynamics.
I have worked closely with computational engineers to develop adaptive mesh
refinement techniques for mantle convection models. Such schemes use intelligent
algorithms to modify the computational grid automatically, placing enhanced
resolution only where required, thus dramatically reducing the cost of a simulation
(Davies et al. 2007, 2008, 2011).
I have since utilized these powerful techniques to provide significant new insights
into a range of processes, for example: (i) mantle plume dynamics (Davies & Davies,
2009); (ii) controls on the distribution of volcanic hotspots (Davies & Goes, 2015);
(iii) the origin of intra-plate volcanism beneath the Australian continent (Davies &
Rawlinson, 2014); (iv) the flow regime and thermal structure of the subduction zone
mantle wedge (Le Voci et al. 2014; Davies et al. 2015); (v) subduction dynamics
(Garel et al. 2014); and (vi) the dynamical interpretation of seismic images (Styles et
al. 2011), particularly relating to Earth’s deep mantle (Davies et al. 2012; 2015).
Although my research focuses on geodynamical modeling, I also use other research
avenues. For example, I have exploited Geographical Information Science (GIS)
methods to provide a revised estimate of Earth’s surface heat flux (Davies & Davies,
2010). This estimate exceeds the predictions of previous studies, with important
implications for Earth’s internal energy budget and thermal evolution. I have also
worked closely with experimentalists, in an attempt to bridge the gap between
experiment and simulation (e.g. Hunt et al. 2012). Furthermore, I have worked with
applied mathematicians and statisticians to examine the geographical relationship
between volcanic hotspot locations, the reconstructed eruptions sties of large
igneous provinces and deep mantle seismic structure (Davies et al. 2015).
The tools I have at my disposal now include a next-generation computational
modeling framework, Fluidity, developed in collaboration with colleagues at Imperial
College London and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, New York (Davies et al.
2011, Kramer et al. 2012). Fluidity: (i) uses an unstructured mesh, which enables the
straightforward representation of complex geometries; (ii) dynamically optimizes this
mesh, providing increased resolution in areas of dynamic importance, allowing for
accurate simulations, across a range of length-scales, within a single model; (iii) is
optimized to run on parallel processors and is able to perform parallel mesh
adaptivity; (iv) has solvers that can handle the sharp variations in viscosity that occur
within Earth’s mantle and lithosphere; (v) incorporates a free-surface; and (vi) has
been extensively validated for geodynamical simulation (Davies et al. 2011, Kramer
et al. 2012). To put it simply, the code’s functionality opens up a new class of
problem to geodynamical research.
A series of thermal profiles, displaying the temporal evolution of a mantle convection simulation, with
free-slip and isothermal boundaries, at a Rayleigh number of 10^9. Snapshots are spaced 30 Myr
apart and are surrounded by a latitude-longitude grid. The scale illustrates the temperature, away
from the lateral average. Each snapshot shows a radial surface just above the CMB and a hot
isosurface, representing regions of the mantle that are 500K hotter than average for their depth. The
most prominent features are hot upwelling plumes. These display a range of characteristics. The
majority are long-lived and migrate slowly across the mantle. Others are more mobile and ephemeral.
New plumes form and old ones fade, some of which eventually cease. Smaller plumes merge together
and coalesce over time, while long-lived plumes often pulse or vary in intensity (Davies & Davies,
2009).
Shear wave velocity perturbations beneath Africa from: (a) tomographic model S40RTS (Ritsema et al.
2011); (b) a purely-thermal model; and (c) a thermo-chemical model, where the dense chemical
component represents only 3% of the mantle volume (Davies et al. 2012). In the isochemical model,
(T,P,X) is converted into seismic velocity assuming a pyrolitic composition, whilst the thermo-chemical
model illustrated assumes a pyrolitic composition for background mantle and an iron-rich composition
for the dense chemical component. The structure of a thermo-chemical model with a basaltic dense
component has similar characteristics. We account for the geographic bias, smearing and damping
inherent to tomographic models using the resolution operator of S40RTS, thus allowing for direct
comparison between our models and S40RTS. All images include a radial surface at 2850-km depth
and an isosurface at -1.0%, clipped above 1400-km to allow visualisation of lower mantle features.
Continental boundaries are included for geographic reference.
A 2-D thermo-mechanical dynamic subduction simulation from Fluidity. Temporal snapshots of: (a)
temperature; (b) viscosity; (c) the dominant deformation mechanism; and (d) the underlying
computational mesh, from a case where subducting/overriding plates are initially 100/20 Myr old at
the trench, respectively (black squares indicate initial trench location). White lines in panel (a) mark
isotherms from 600-1400 K at 200 K intervals. Black (b/c) and red (d) lines mark the location of the
1300K isotherm. In this class of subduction model, the slab’s buoyancy and distinct rheological
properties arise self-consistently, through variations in temperature, pressure and strain-rate, with
deformation accommodated through a composite diffusion creep (diff), dislocation creep (disl), Peierls
creep (P) and yielding (YS) law. In the example shown, the slab’s excess density drives subduction
and trench retreat over time. Upon interaction with the transition zone, the descending slab
temporarily stalls and deforms (b/c), before slowly sinking into the lower mantle (d). Note that
throughout its descent, the slab maintains a strong core (b), which is a requirement from observations
of Benioff seismicity. The underlying computational mesh is adapted at fixed intervals during the
simulation, with zones of high resolution analogous to regions of dynamic significance. A local
resolution of 500m is required to resolve the slab’s strong core and the interface between subducting
and overriding plates (Garel et al. 2014).
Variations in P-wave velocity at 100 km depth, beneath the Newer Volcanics region of Southeastern
Australia. The horizontal limits of volcanic outcrop at the surface is denoted by a yellow dashed line
(Davies & Rawlinson, 2014).
Dr Jan Dettmer
My research interests involve the quantitative study of Earth structures and processes
which can only be probed remotely through the inversion of geophysical data, and
developing computational methods to truly understand data information content to
resolve the Earth. I work on several geophysical inference problems across disciplines
and at a variety of scales ranging from studying the fine structure of shallow Earth
and seabed to ultra-low velocity zones near the core-mantle boundary.
Figure 1: Tsunami-source inversion results for the 2011 Tohoku-Oki (Japan) earthquake (Mw =9.1).
The trans-D approach results in a simpler source model while fitting the data
My work includes point-source and finite-fault inversion to estimate earthquake
source parameters with implications for tsunami generation, tsunami waveform
inversion for initial seasurface states, teleseismic receiver-function inversion to
resolve crust/upper-mantle structure, and seismic waveform inversion to study
mantle and core structure. At smaller scales, my work includes seismic noise
inversion for earthquake-hazard site assessment (e.g., Dettmer et al. GJI 2012),
seismoacoustic inversion for seabed structure including poro-elastic effects such as
sound-velocity dispersion (e.g., Dettmer et al. Geophysics 2013), and matched field
inversion/full field acoustic tomography (e.g. Dettmer and Dosso 2013).
My research concentrates on developing and applying probabilistic (Bayesian)
inversion methods to gain deeper understanding of Earth processes. This work is
computationally intensive and includes advanced algorithm development, bridging
with the statistics community, and the use of novel hardware (CPU/GPU hybrid
computer clusters) to advance geophysical data analysis. Much of the numerical work
is carried out on the supercomputer Raijin at the National Computational
Infrastructure facility.
Geophysical inverse problems, such as the above, are inherently nonlinear and
nonunique, such that a range of solutions (Earth models) may fit the data and must
be rigorously accounted for in a meaningful interpretation. Simply considering
optimal models (i.e., the model that best fits the observations) is insufficient to study
parameter variability, where variability is a measure of the inherent spatial and/or
temporal heterogeneity of a geophysical property. Rather, parameter uncertainties,
which are a measure of the knowledge of an environmental parameter value, need to
be considered. Uncertainty arises from observation errors and limitations in the
model (e.g., theory and parametrization) to fully explain the complexity of the
observations (i.e., the model approximates reality). Quantifying uncertainty is a
prerequisite to studying variability and can be achieved using linear, linearized, and
nonlinear probabilistic (Bayesian) methods.
Figure 2: Trans-D finite fault inversion results for the 2010 Maule (Chile) earthquake (Mw =8.8): Wphase data for 30 global stations are inverted for a spatiotemporal trans-D rupture model. (a)
Schematic of finite fault model applied to a megathrust fault. (b) Rake, (c) slip, and (d) slip standard
deviation estimates on the megathrust. The inversion requires no regularisation/smoothing.
Dr Babak Hejrani
Earthquake source parameter estimation:
My main research interest, currently, lies in rapid (near real-time) estimation of
earthquake source parameters, such as moment tensor components, Centriod depth
and location (CMT solution). In the presence of reasonable resolution of CMT
solution and hypocenter location, the question of estimating the fault plane (strike,
dip and rake of the fault plane) is of great interest. The result of moment tensor
inversion highly depends on the accuracy of the velocity structure between the
source and the receiver. Here, my goal is to use 3D velocity structure of Australia
and sorrounfing regions to calulcate the CMT in a semi-authomated procedure.
If the velocity structure is well-known, then addressing complexity in earthquake
source can be more relaible. Complexity in tectonic earthquakes is an exciting, still
young and not well addressed issue. In complex tectonic regions, where different
tectonic regimes meet, occurrence of close lying events (one may trigger another)
with few seconds delay, provides great opportunity to study the nature of complex
earthquakes with tectonic origin. Here, more advanced non-linear inversion
methods, such as Bayesian inference is of great interest.
Prof Brian Kennett
3-D structure of Australian Continent
Involvement in a wide range of studies of the nature of the Australian continent in
three dimensions exploiting seismological and potential field data sets. A major
synthesis has been provided in digital form in AuSREM (Australian Seismological
reference model) with specification of seismic wavespeeds and density for both crust
and mantle in the Australasian region. Continuing projects include exploitation of fullcrustal scale reflection profiles in conjunction with other data sets to improve the
characterization of the crust and the Moho and their relation to tectonic units. Such
active seismic results are also being combined with studies using passive seismic
deployments to resolve crustal and mantle variations on a wide variety of scales
Variation of Moho thickness across Australia and its environs using data from a wide variety of
Sources superimposed on the major tectonic divisions.
Nature of Lithospheric Heterogeneity
The broad scale variations if seismic properties in the lithosphere are well mapped
using seismic tomography. Yet, the propagation characteristics of high-frequency
seismic phases such as Pn, Sn travelling in the mantle lithosphere, indicate the
presence of widespread scattering from fine-scale variations in both the oceanic and
continental environments. The combination of extensive observations of the nature
of such high-frequency phases and the numerical modelling using high-performance
computers indicates that an important role is played by low amplitude quasi-laminate
heterogeneity with much longer horizontal than vertical correlation length.
In the oceanic domain the efficiency of propagation of the high-frequency phases is
highest in the oldest lithosphere. The guided waves can overcome localized structural
barriers but are strongly affected by attenuation in warmer materials, which provides
an explanation of the wave characteristics across the Pacific basin.
Variation in the efficiency of propagation of high-frequency guided waves in the oceanic lithosphere
superimposed on the age of the lithosphere. Poor propagation is associated with younger regions that
are hotter and have stronger seismic attenuation
In the continents, many different scales of variability in seismic properties influence
the detailed character of the seismograms, and work continues on unraveling the
distribution of fine-scale heterogeneity by combining many different types of
seismological information with numerical modeling.
Mr Surya Pachhai
Bayesian inference for ultralow velocity zones in the Earth’s lowermost
mantle: Complex ULVZ beneath the east of the Philippines
Surya Pachhai, 1 Hrvoje Tkalčić1, and Jan Dettmer
1,2
1
Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
2
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria BC Canada V8W 3P6
Ultra low velocity zones (ULVZs) are small-scale structures sitting on the top of the
Earth’s core-mantle boundary, with a sharp decrease in S-wave velocity, P-wave
velocity, and an increase in density. The ratios of S- and P-wave velocity reduction
and density anomaly are important to understanding whether ULVZs consist of
partial melt or chemically distinct material. Core-reflected waves (i.e., PcP and ScP,
Fig. 1a) have been extensively utilized to constrain the ULVZ structure (Fig. 1b).
However, existing methods such as forward waveform modeling that utilize 1-D and
2-D Earth-structure models face challenges when trying to uniquely quantify ULVZ
properties because of inherent non-uniqueness and non-linearity.
We developed a Bayesian inversion for ULVZ parameters and uncertainties with
rigorous noise treatment to address these challenges. The posterior probability
density of the ULVZ parameters (the solution to the inverse problem) is sampled by
the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. To improve sampling efficiency, parallel tempering
is applied by simulating a sequence of tempered Markov chains in parallel and
allowing information exchange between chains. The Bayesian inversion is applied to
the observed data sampling the lowermost mantle under the Philippines Sea (Fig.
1c). Cluster analysis and visual waveform inspection suggests that two distinct
classes of ScP waves exist in this region. The distinct waves likely correspond to
lateral variability in the lowermost-mantle properties in a NE-SW direction. For the NE
area, a Bayesian model selection identifies a two-layer model with a gradual increase
in density as a function of depth as optimal (Fig. 1d). This complex ULVZ structure
can be explained with the percolation of iron-enriched, molten material in the
lowermost mantle. For more details, we refer to Pachhai et al. (2014).
Figure 1: Waveform inversion of core-reflected phases (ScP) for a ULVZ beneath the Philippine Sea
(Pachhai et al., 2014). (a) Ray-path geometry, (b) wave conversions without (left) and with (right)
ULVZ, (c) ray-paths and sampling of the CMB region used in our study. (d) Inversion results compared
to the background 1D model (dashed lines). Results suggest strong positive density and negative Swave velocity anomalies; the bottom layer is dense, melt-rich iron material. (e) Data (black line), best
fit (red), and predictions (grey).
Reference: Pachhai, S., H. Tkalčić1, and J. Dettmer (2014), Bayesian inference for
ultralow velocity zones in the Earth’s lowermost mantle: Complex ULVZ beneath the
east of the Philippines, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 119, 8446-8365,
doi:10.1002/2014JB011067.
Prof Malcolm Sambridge
Inverse problems and data inference: I have spent quite some timestudying how
to image of the internal structure of Earth. I work on a range of projects which
involve the development andapplication of mathematical and computational
techniques for geophysical inference. I'm particularly focused on developing new
approaches forrobust inference from Earth Science data; Computational geophysics
and numerical algorithms. An area of specialization has been assessment of
uncertainty using randomized search algorithms including Markov chain Monte Carlo.
The study of the Earth interior through use of seismic information and other
geophysical observations. I am also interested in the theory and computation of
seismic wave propagation in hetergeneous media. Mathematical geophysics is the
broad subject area that covers these activities.
My students are drawn from a range of backgrounds including Physics, Mathematics,
Computer Science, and the Earth Sciences. I regularly offer student research projects
at ASC, Honours and Ph.D. levels. Typically these will involve application of a new
algorithm to a particular geophysical problem, or testing out of some mathematical
or computational ideas in geophysical inference.
Dr Erdinc Saygin
Seismographic Studies on Basin Effects in the Amplification of Seismic
Waves in Indonesia
The amplification of seismic waves in sedimentary basins is an important aspect of
seismic hazard that is often poorly understood. This is particularly important in
Indonesia, where most major cities are built on basins filled with young alluvial
sediments and/or volcanic tuff. The architecture of these basins, and their ability to
amplify seismic waves, is poorly unknown. We are collaboration with universities and
government technical agencies of Indonesia to deploy dense, temporary networks of
seismometers in selected urban areas: Jakarta, Bandung in Java, and Palu in
Sulawesi. The objective of these experiments is to determine the 3D structure of the
basin well enough to enable the deterministic simulation of earthquake waves with
periods as short as 1 sec. Such simulations can improve our understanding of the
effects seismic waves may have on large buildings and infrastructure, and can be
combined with stochastic simulations to include shorter periods that may affect
residential structures. By helping to accurately forecast the damaging effects of
earthquake waves, the project will inform mitigation efforts towards reducing
earthquake fatalities.
So far, we have conducted three seismic broadband different experiments across
Jakarta, Bandung and Palu. Configurations of experiments are given in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Configuration of Jakarta, Bandung and Palu seismic experiments. Each of the experiments is
shown with a rectangle in the globe (red, blue and green).
Dr Christian Sippl
3D lithospheric structure of a craton edge: The Albany-Fraser Orogen
C. Sippl, H. Tkalcic, B.L.N. Kennett – Research School of Earth Sciences, ANU
C.V. Spaggiari, K. Gessner – Geological Survey of Western Australia, Perth
The crustal and lithospheric properties of Archean cratons, both in Australia and
elsewhere, have been studied in some detail, and although many questions are still
to be answered, a basic model of cratonic lithospheric structure has emerged.
Archean crust is exempt from the general trend that crustal thickness increases with
continent age, instead is on average significantly thinner than in most Proterozoic
regions, not deviating far from the global average thickness of continental crust (35
km). Receiver function studies at different cratons have shown an overall absence of
intracrustal velocity discontinuities and a clearly defined, sharp Moho. Below that,
cold and chemically depleted mantle lithosphere of an age comparable to the
overlying crust extends to depths of about 200 km.
The margins of these cratons, usually suture zones from the collisions between
different cratonic blocks, have not been studied very extensively, and the processes
of craton reworking and accretion are not well understood. The sparse data that
exist show thicker crust and a more diffuse Moho in these regions, which often
exhibit considerable structural complexity.
In this experiment, we want to resolve the detailed 3D crustal and lithospheric
structure of the Albany-Fraser orogen in Western Australia, which is situated along
the southeastern rim of the Yilgarn craton (see Figure 1). Since its formation by the
collision between the Western Australian Craton and the Mawson Craton about 1.3
Ga ago, there have been virtually no major tectonic events in that region that could
have overprinted the old suture zone signature, i.e. the original structure of this
orogen is extraordinarily well preserved.
Figure 1: Station locations plotted
on top of a regional gravity map
(red: gravity high, blue: gravity
low).
An array of 40 seismometers has been set up in the Albany-Fraser region in
November 2013, and continuous three-component waveform data will be recorded
for two years, with a southward shift of the array at midterm (October 2014; see
Figure). Passive seismic methods will be employed to complement the results from
two active seismic profiles that have been shot in 2012 directly to the north and
south of the array and extend lithospheric imaging to the third dimension.
Analysis methods include ambient noise tomography (see Figure 2), receiver function
analysis, joint inversion of receiver function and surface wave dispersion data and
possibly direct imaging of subsurface discontinuities with station autocorrelograms.
Transdimensional Bayesian Inversion methods, recently developed at RSES, will be
applied to this large dataset, and obtained results will be interpreted in conjunction
with aeromagnetic and -gravity data and magnetotelluric sounding results in an
effort to derive a detailed model of the current crustal structure of the region.
Figure 2: Preliminary results from ambient noise tomography. The upper image shows Rayleigh wave
group velocity maps for 4 different periods (2, 5, 10 and 20 seconds), contours of the central gravity
high of Figure 1 are overlain for orientation. The lower subfigure shows two west-east profiles
(positions marked in the upper right group velocity map) through a 3D shear wave velocity model
derived by pointwise inversion of dispersion curves.
Dr Hrvoje Tkalcic
Seismological probing of the deep Earth
Tkalčić, H., Pachhai, S., Young, M.K., Muir, J.B., Yee, T-G., Pejić, T., Stephenson, J.,
Stipčević, J., Sippl, C., Dettmer, J., Sambridge, M., Kennett, B.L.K., Cormier, V.F.,
Reading, A.M., Rhie, J., Mattesini, M., Tanaka, S.
We have continued with the collection of new seismological data and development of
new methods and techniques to probe the deep Earth structure and dynamics, most
notably the inner core and the lowermost mantle. In parallel, we have continued with
expanding our observational infrastructure to aid imaging the deep Earth.
Earlier this year, we demonstrated the existence of regional scale heterogeneity in
the inner core of the Earth near its boundary with the outer core using a dense
network of seismic stations in Japan. Continuing topics of interest are mapping of
attenuation and anisotropy structure in the inner core to increase constraints on its
dynamics and evolution, and to understand a possible connection with lowermost
mantle structure, which are linked through the process of convection in the outer
core. We have improved the method of measuring splitting functions of Earth’s
normal modes to infer inner core structure.
This year has also seen improvements in P-wave tomographic imaging of the
lowermost mantle, which confirmed the existence of multi-scale heterogeneity. We
obtained preliminary results for the core mantle boundary topography inverted jointly
with P-wave velocity structure. Better understanding of short-scale features such as
ultra low velocity zones (ULVZs) is relevant in the context of improving the
understanding of their enigmatic origin and role. Due to their limited lateral extent
and thickness, it is hard to image them using modern tomographic methods thus
waveform modeling is used. Some of the highlights this year include the
advancement in methods for probing ULVZs in the lowermost mantle. We confirmed
that at least some ULVZs have complex morphology, with multi-layered structure.
This research is continuing with further improvements in the inversion technique,
now within a Bayesian transdimensional framework, and through the expansion of
the lowermost mantle area sampled by our seismological probes.
Last but not least, we installed a spiral array of instruments in Queensland, which
returned a vastly improved array response in comparison with other existing short
aperture arrays of the comparable size. We plan to relocate the spiral array to a
location in Western Australia. A simultaneous use of multiple arrays will be utilised to
provide structural controls on heterogeneity in the deep Earth, for example in the
deep mantle near the core-mantle boundary.
STRUCTURE TECTONICS
2014 saw the Structure Tectonics Team engaged in three research activities: i) an ARC
Discovery Project concerned with the dynamics of Closing Tethys; ii) an AISRF project
concerned with comparing the timing of tectonic processes from east to west in the
Himalaya; and iii) an ARC Linkage Project “The 4D porphyry project” that uses the
very active tectonic environment in SE Asia to understand the geodynamic factors
that control the localisation of mineral deposits.
The Structure Tectonics Team also engaged in significant research infrastructure
development projects during 2014:
i) Dr MA Forster and Technical
Officer Mr Davood Vasegh
brought
the
new
Argon
Laboratory
into
operation,
entailing
considerable
development work on a new
extraction system in conjunction
with the RSES Mechanical and
Electronic
Workshops.
Considerable effort and time was
also expended in characterising a
new reactor (at UC Davis) to
allow sample irradiation. The
image adjacent shows Dr MA
Forster, the Facility Manager, with the completed extraction line. Cost overruns
exceeded $0.1M but external collaborative research commitments during 2015 will
soon see the laboratory back in the “black”. This is the only facility in the
southern hemisphere set up for research using Arrhenius dating. Significant
accomplishments challenge established concepts about “closure temperatures”. Kfeldspar can be as retentive as zircon, getting the same age as U-Pb using SHRIMP.
ii) Prof GS Lister engaged in a program of software development including Pplates (for
4D tectonic reconstruction), eQuakes (for the structural analysis of seismotectonic
data, and eArgon (for the analysis of Arrhenius data from laboratory step-heating
experiments designed to extract age-temperature information). A routine tryout of the
new eQuakes capability led to proof that oceanic transforms are localised by ductile
faults [see research highlight]. Prof Lister was part of an international panel assessing
geological risk factors associated with the deadly Kedernath debris flow in the Himalaya,
in India. The image (next page) shows the difficulty of road reconstruction in this
mountainous terrane.
Other 2014 highlights included Dr Jonathan Pownall joining the team as a PostDoctoral Fellow. Dr Pownall has the distinction of having worked on the youngest
hottest rocks on Earth (in Seram, in the Banda Arc). His PhD was awarded from
Royal Holloway University of London, where he worked with Professor Robert Hall in
the South East Asia Research Group.
PhD candidates Oleg Koudashev, Sareh Rajabi, Fang Fang (co-supervised by Dr
Forster with Professor Rainer Grün) and Musri Mawaleda (co-supervised by Dr
Forster with Professor Emmy Suparka, ITB) and Honours student Jiadong Shi also
made outstanding contributions. ANU Summer Scholar Jeremy Lee joined us in late
2014 for several weeks as a research intern. All members of the team engaged in
the provision of culinary delights at our regular Monday morning meetings.
A road destroyed by the debris-filled
river at the start of the pilgrims trek
to the temple of Kedernath. Scale is
evident from the workers.
Dr Marnie Forster and Mr Musri Mawaleda engage
in outreach with a team of geology students
from a local Indonesian university.
Graduation day 2014 saw Clemens Augenstein, JiaUrnn Lee Iona Stenhouse and (honorary team member)
Kate Boston awarded their PhD degrees. As remarked by
Edgeworth-David, nothing pleases the professor more
than enthusiasm in the field.
Dr Marnie Forster
40
Ar/39Ar geochronology using crushed alkali feldspar dates shear zone
movement
Dating movement in shear zones is of particular interest to structural geology and
tectonics, but timing something as intangible as movement can be difficult unless
there are specific phenomena that can be attributed to the associated deformation.
Processes such as recrystallisation and/or the growth of new fabric forming minerals
are candidate processes for which 40Ar/39Ar geochronology can be used to constrain
the timing. However the new grown minerals need to be sufficiently retentive of
radiogenic argon to allow those ages to escape significant modification during
subsequent events. My work has shown that K-feldspar is retentive enough to allow
such measurements. K-feldspars from the Wyangala Batholith, N.S.W. Australia
were analysed, from mylonite shear zones and proto-mylonite zones (Fig 1).
Arrhenius data allowed diffusion parameters to be estimated, showing mylonitisation
caused argon systematics to reset because diffusion distances were reduced by
cataclasis, deformation and/or recrystallisation. However, the mineral lattice
remained sufficiently retentive to allow subsequently produced radiogenic argon to
be retained. 40Ar/39Ar geochronology was thus able to constrain operation of these
biotite-grade ductile shear zones to the period from ca 380 Ma to ca 360 Ma, at the
end of the Tabberabberan Orogeny. Retentivity decreases from proto-mylonite to
mylonite, implying that these parameters dynamically adjusted during deformation
(Fig 2). Cooling was taking place while the mylonite continued to deform, resulting in
both the age and the microstructure being frozen into the rock.
Figure
1: Representative
microphotographs of samples:
(a) the proto-mylonite; and
(b) the mylonite. In (a), the
sampled groundmass (P1)
grains are distortion-free, and
bounded by microshear zones
defined by quartz and mica,
while
the
sampled
porphyroclastic
K-feldspar
(P2) is preserved as single
grains with twinning and
minor crushing and fracturing
of grains. The mylonite (b)
has undergone considerably
greater
deformation,
but
again
the
sampled
groundmass K-feldspar (P3)
does not show significant
distortion, and grains are
wrapped by ribbon quartz and fine-grained mica that define the mylonite foliation, while the sampled
K-feldspar porphyroclasts (P4) are intensely cataclased. From Forster, Lister and Lennox 2014.
Figure 2: Plots of show that retentivity decreases from proto-mylonite to mylonite, implying that these
parameters dynamically adjusted during deformation. (a) plot of activation energy vs closure
temperature, for a 20°C/Ma cooling rate; and (b) plot of frequency factor vs activation energy. The
dashed lines link data from porphyroclasts with data from the adjacent groundmass. The dotted lines
link data for the intermediate-sized diffusion domains to those from the smallest diffusion domains, for
each sample. From Forster, Lister and Lennox 2014.
Reference: Forster, M.A., G.S. Lister and P.G. Lennox. 2014. Dating deformation
using crushed alkali feldspar: 40Ar/39Ar geochronology of shear zones in the
Wyangala Batholith, NSW, Australia. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08120099.2014.916751
Prof Gordon Lister
My interest is in all aspects of structural geology and tectonics.
I am part of the Satellites, Seismometers and Mass Spectrometers initiative by which
we link the occurrence of natural hazards to present movements on structures
formed in deeper time.
I am involved in projects currently in progress that include the Closing Tethys
project, the 4D porphyry project, and an AISRF project comparing the timing of
tectonic events in the Himalaya.
My efforts in the field have involved work in the Himalaya, trying to understand the
underlying geodynamic reasons for the complicated oscillations of tectonic mode that
occur in this terrane,
In the 4D porphyry project we try to understand the geodynamic factors that lead to
the localisation of important classes of copper and gold deposits, both in time, as
well as determining where they are to be found. SE Asia is being used as a
tectonically very active laboratory in order to make the link between known deposits
and geodynamics as inferred from modern-day processes.
In the AISRF project we attempt to demonstrate the synchroneity of tectonic
processes from one side of the Himalaya to the other.
My main contribution during 2014 in terms of research infrastructure comes from the
development of software: Pplates, 4D tectonic reconstruction including of the
subducted lithosphere; ii) eQuakes, structural analysis of seismotectonic data; iii)
eArgon, analysis of data from step-heating experiments for 40Ar/39Ar geochronology,
and inversion; and iv) MacArgon, for forward modelling.
The image below shows seismotectonic data from oceanic spreading centres in
comparison with that from adjacent oceanic transforms. This proves that the P- and
T-axes of the centroid moment tensor are not parallel to the regional stress axes. In
addition is shown that the oceanic transforms must be localised by deep ductile
faults.
See Lister, Tkalčić, McClusky and Forster, Journal of Geophysical Research,
DOI: 10.1002/2013JB010706
The image (b) above shows seismotectonic data from oceanic spreading centres in comparison with
that from adjacent oceanic transforms. This proves that the P- and T-axes of the centroid moment
tensor are not parallel to the regional stress axes. In addition is shown that the oceanic transforms
must be localised by deep ductile faults.
See Lister, Tkalčić, McClusky and Forster, Journal of Geophysical Research,
DOI: 10.1002/2013JB010706
Dr Jonathan Pownall
(Ultra-)high temperature metamorphism and mantle exhumation on
Seram, eastern Indonesia
Eastern Indonesia presents a rare snapshot in time of a complex tectonic system
responding to the on-going collision of two continents. It therefore is an ideal region
to investigate the mechanics of active subduction and the tectonic controls of crustal
metamorphism.
Episodes of ultrahigh-temperature (UHT, ≥900 °C) granulite
metamorphism have been recorded in mountain belts since the Neoarchean.
However, evidence for the tectonic mechanisms responsible for the generation of
such extreme thermal conditions is rarely preserved. On Seram, 16 Ma UHT
granulites—the youngest identified at the Earth’s surface—were recently discovered
in the Kobipoto Mountains (Pownall et al., 2014). The generation of UHT conditions
were attained through slab rollback–driven lithospheric extension caused core
complex–style exhumation of hot subcontinental lithospheric mantle. Overlying
continental crust, heated and metamorphosed by exhumed lherzolites, developed
spinel + quartz (Fig. 1) and sapphirine-bearing residual assemblages, shown by
phase equilibria modeling to have required temperatures of ~925 °C at ~9 kbar
pressure. These findings would suggest that Seram may be a possible modern
analogue for ancient orogens that incorporate UHT granulites.
Figure 1: Coexisting spinel + quartz as inclusions within garnet provide mineralogical evidence for
UHT metamorphism in the Kobipoto Complex granulites, central Seram.
Tectonic Evolution of Seram and the Banda Arc, Eastern Indonesia
The Banda Arc of Eastern Indonesia is one of the most striking
topographic(/bathymetric) features on Earth, not only because of its extreme 180˚
curvature, but also because it encloses the 7 km Weber Deep – Earth’s deepest
forearc basin. Subduction beneath the arc has been critical in accommodating the
later stages of Australia–Southeast Asia collision, which initiated around 23 million
years ago; however, disputes over whether one or two concave slabs comprise the
subducted lithosphere, and the extent to which slab rollback operated during
subduction has led to conflicting interpretations for how the arc evolved. On Seram,
an episode of major lithospheric extension (Pownall et al., 2013; Pownall & Hall,
2014) that exhumed the upper mantle and drove UHT metamorphism (Pownall et al.,
2014) attests to subduction rollback has having achieved the present-day slab
geometry (Fig. 2). Rollback may also explain the formation of the enigmatic Weber
Deep.
Figure 2: Structure of the Banda Arc, inferred from slab seismicity and mantle tomography. Eastward
rollback of the arc is attributed to lithospheric extension across Seram (Pownall et al., 2013) and
associated UHT metamorphism (Pownall et al., 2014).
Subduction in Indonesia
Indonesia exhibits numerous active tectonic subduction zones that are for the most
part seismically active (Fig. 3), allowing structural analysis of the slabs to be
performed using information from earthquake hypocentres. The link between the
subduction of hydrous oceanic crust and the generation of porphyry-forming magmas
and fluids is well recognised although, at present, not fully understood. The aims of
this project are firstly to investigate the tectonic controls of fluid release from slabs
and the generation of porphyry-forming magmas in the slab and/or mantle wedge.
Secondly, the project aims to decipher the tectonic evolution of the overlying plate
across, for instance, Java and Nusa Tenggara in order to investigate the mechanisms
of individual porphyry emplacement events.
Both these aims require the
investigation of the larger-scale tectonic evolution of the Indonesian region, which in
addition to geological evidence may be inferred through interpretation of seismic
tomographic models. Geochronology is the final element of the project, with
40
Ar/39Ar dating of deposits and associated metamorphic and magmatic rocks
providing important constraints on the timing of porphyry emplacement with respect
to metamorphic and deformational events in the upper plate. The ultimate aim is to
build a 4 dimensional (3 spatial dimensions + time) plate reconstruction for the
Indonesia region as a tool to better understand how the ripping and tearing of slabs
may lead to the generation and emplacement of Cu ± Au and other deposits, in
addition to further understanding how the region has responded during the on-going
collision between Australia and SE Asia.
Figure 3: Seismicity beneath Eastern Indonesia. Individual earthquake hypocenters define the
morphologies of slabs beneath the Banda and Sunda arcs.
Pownall, J.M. & Hall, R., 2014. Neogene extension on Seram: A new tectonic model
for the northern Banda Arc. Indonesian Petroleum Association, Proceedings, 38,
IPA14–G–305.
Pownall, J.M., Hall, R. & Watkinson, I.M., 2013. Extreme extension across Seram and
Ambon, eastern Indonesia: evidence for Banda slab rollback. Solid Earth, 4, 277–
314. doi:10.5194/se-4-277-2013
Pownall, J.M., Hall, R., Armstrong, R.A. & Forster, M.A., 2014. Earth’s youngest
known ultrahigh-temperature granulites discovered on Seram, eastern Indonesia.
Geology, 42, 279–282. doi:10.1130/g35230.1.
WATER AND REGOLITH SCIENCE
Dr Penny King
Research interests
My current research focuses on the origin and evolution of planetary surfaces; and
the roles of volatiles, pH, and gases on minerals and melts/glasses at high and low
temperatures. I am particularly interested in the interface between volcanic and
sedimentary rocks and the atmosphere. Our group uses techniques in micro-analysis
(especially infrared spectroscopy), performs high and low temperature experiments,
and examines geology in the field. I am especially interested in the planet Mars and I
am a Science Co-Investigator on the Curiosity rover, Mars Science Laboratory
mission.
Available Projects
•
Evolution of the salts in the solar system
•
Development of new techniques to explore the solar system and the
subsurface
•
Gas-solid reactions at high temperature
•
Evaluating minerals as sensors for low temperature conditions
Prof Bradley Pillans
Regolith-landform evolution in Australia
1. Where did all the quartz come from?
Many Cenozoic gravel deposits in SE Australia are dominated by quartz clasts (>95%
quartz; Fig. 1) , whereas modern stream gravels are polymict (various lithologies
with ~10-15% quartz; Fig. 2). Two scenarios might explain the overwhelming
dominance of quartz in older gravels: firstly, sediment supply may have been quartz
dominated either through deep weathering of source rocks or breakage and loss of
weaker (non-quartz) clasts during transport, or, secondly, polymict gravels may have
been weathered after deposition to leave residual quartz clasts. The research is
aimed at evaluating which scenario is most likely.
Figure 1: Quartz dominated Cenozoic gravels
Figure 2: Polymict modern bedload gravels
2. The age and origin of zebra rock and print stone in Western Australia
Two unusual, decorative rocks, known as zebra rock and print stone occur near
Kununurra and Mt Tom Price in Western Australia. Both rocks are characterised by
distinctive red banding caused by hematite pigmentation, within variably silicified
siltstone (Figs. 3 and 4). A paleomagnetic study of the print stone (Abrajevitch,
Pillans & Roberts. 2014. Geophysical Journal International v.199, 658-672) allows the
age(s) of pigmentation to be determined. By comparison with the Australian
apparent polar wander path, magnetic remanence directions in a uniformly
distributed pigment yield a Miocene age (15-25 Ma), while there are two age options
for the distinctive ‘newsprint’ pigmentation – Mesoproterozoic (~1.5 Ga) or middle
Carboniferous (~320-310 Ma). A paleomagnetic study of the zebra rock is underway.
Figure 3: Zebra rock, Mt Tom Price, WA
Figure 4: Print stone, Mt Tom Price, WA
RESEARCH SUPPORT
ELECTRONICS GROUP
Andrew Latimore, Tristan Redman, Norm Schram, Derek Corrigan, Daniel Cummins,
David Cassar, Hideo Sasaki.
Introduction
The Electronics Group provides technical support to all Earth Sciences’ academic
research. The Group consists of one engineer, two senior technical offers and four
technical officers. The Group holds the responsibility for maintaining and servicing
electronic systems within RSES and offers a development facility able to engineer
innovative electronic solutions. The Group provides a fast electronic circuit production
facility utilising an automated component placement machine and reflow oven. This
facility has improved our capability and allows us to construct new electronic designs
in appropriate time. The Electronics Group endeavours to ensure the Research
School of Earth Sciences remains a state of the art institution.
Engineering Developments
This period the Electronics Group operated steadily on development tasks, the main
projects are outlined under their groups below. In parallel with engineering
developments, the Group has provided electronic engineering consultation and
maintenance support for the school throughout the year.
Electronics Group Labour distribution 2014
Outside Total,
7.70%
Workshop
Total,
11.12%
Admin Total,
12.47%
Admin Total
Geochemistry Total
GeoPhysics Total
GeoPhysics Total,
12.42%
Geochemistry Total,
50.99%
Ocean & Climate GeoScience Total
Outside Total
Workshop Total
Ocean & Climate
GeoScience Total,
5.12%
GeoChemistry
• AMS Slit motor upgrade
• Tesla Tamer construction
version 4
• Mat261 Upgrade
• Digital motor controller
• ARGUS VI furnace
• ARGUS VI Sample controller
• ARGUS VI Valve Controller
• ARGUS VI Cryocooler bake out
controller
• One Atmosphere furnace
interface
• 200T Gen II Piston Cylinder
press automation
• cVar electrometer
GeoPhysics
• Attenuation apparatus computer
control upgrade
• Rig #1 Control upgrade
• Rig #1 Mains synchronised
variable frequency source
• Seismic Recorder
• Seismometers in Schools
Ocean & Climate Change
• Graphitization Furnace Version 2
• Laser Ablation Cell
• Ocean bottom Seismometer
trials
• Cell spectrometer pump/valve
controller
• Seismology fieldwork SQEAL 1,
Jakarta
• MicroMill upgrade
• Magnetic Separator
• Rotating adjustable laser slit
Outside RSES
• Ste micro2-0 construction
• ASI VMS construction
• ASI Iflex construction
• ASI Electrometer controller
• Field Controller Version 4 for
ASI
• High speed analogue buffer
Administration
• 4D database replacement
ENGINEERING WORKSHOP
Andrew Wilson, David Thomson, Geoff Woodward, Carl Were, Brent Butler, Hayden
Miller (1/2 time share with Rock Physics)
Workshop highlights
Completion of the Argus front end was achieved during 2014. A new pressure
intensifier for Rock Physics commenced along with the groups usual sample
preparation work. Numerous repairs and refurbishments of high pressure apparatus
for Experimental Petrology took place as well as some SHRIMP maintenance and
modified Faraday cups for SHRIMP SI. The usual number of smaller jobs accounted for
well over a quarter of our time outside of the above mentioned work.
A relatively high percentage of time (10.2%) was spent on work external to RSES.
One third of workshop salaries are funded by the internal recharge and other
workshop earnings. The move to 50% salary recovery will occur in 2015.
Internal charge rate for 2014: $40/hour + materials, consumables and running costs.
The core work undertaken in 2014 is listed below:
•
Completion of high temperature furnaces and sample changers for Argus6 Mass
Spectrometer, Dr Marnie Forster (D Thomson, B Butler, C Were, G Woodward,
H Miller)
•
SHRIMP Development and Maintenance. New faraday cup design for SHRIMP SI
(D Thomson, H Miller, B Butler, C Were)
•
Consumables and precision grinding of samples Rock Physics, Prof Stephen Cox
(G Woodward, H Miller, A Wilson)
•
New Intensifier for Rock Physics, Prof Stephen Cox (B Butler, H Miller, C Were,
A Wilson)
•
Vessel refurbishments, consumables and repairs, Prof Hugh O’Neill (G
Woodward, B Butler, C Were)
Table1
RSES Engineering Workshop Resource Distribution
Labour Totals
Hours
%
Uncharged Jobs
2082
28.4
Research Support
4499
61.4
External Work
752
10.2
Total
7333
Uncharged Distribution
Staff Training
444
21.7
Administration
870
42.6
Workshop Infrastructure
158
7.7
Machine Maintenance
456
22.3
Other
115
5.7
Total
2043
Research Support Distribution
Earth Chemistry
1131
23.8
Earth Environment
574
12.1
Earth Materials
2668
56.3
Earth Physics
40
0.8
Other ANU Clients
331
7.0
Total
4744
Tungsten Carbide vessel cores being prepared for refurbishment.
RESEARCH GRANTS AWARDED IN 2014
Dr N.J. Abram, Dr S.E. Lewis, Dr S.J. Phipps. ANU Computational Merit Allocation
Scheme, Testing the drivers of southern annular mode changes over the last
millennium, 100,000 CPU hours equivalent to ~$10,000 (2015).
Dr R. Armstrong (with Dr D. O’Reilly, Dr L. Shewan, Dr L. Samsung, Dr N. Chang,
Dr K. Domett, Dr S. Halcrow), ARC Discovery Project, Unraveling the mystery of the
Plain of Jars, Laos, $425,100 (2015-2019).
Dr V. Bennett, Prof. S. Eggins, Dr M. Norman (with A. Dosseto, A. Chivas, C.
Murray-Wallace, M. Aubert, A. Nutman, D. White, R. Joannes-Boyau, E. Burton, S.
Johnston, A. Scheffers, L. Sullivan, I. Cartwright, D. Fink, D. Cendon, A. Baker, I.
Graham, D. Cohen, P. Hesse, K. Westaway, I. Goodwin), ARC Linkage Infrastructure,
Equipment and Facilities, Innovative isotopic techniques to study the response of soil
and water resources to modern and past climate change, $360,000 (2014).
Dr A.J. Berry (with G.M. Yaxley and H.St.C. O'Neill) was awarded beamtime at
the Australian Synchrotron (4 days), Diamond Light Source, UK (3 days), European
Synchrotron Radiation Facility, France (3 days), and Advanced Photon Source, USA (3
days). This beamtime has an in-kind value in excess of $200,000 (2014).
Dr L. Chang, Dr D. Heslop, Prof. A.P. Roberts, ANZIC Special Analytical Funding,
Constraining the origin and environmental impacts of Eocene hyperthermal events by
mineral magnetic analyses, $20,000 (2014).
Prof S. Cox (with M. Roach, P. King et al.), Office of Learning and Teaching grant,
Immersive visualisation for field-based sciences, $225,000 (2015-2016).
Dr D. R. Davies, ARC Future Fellowship, From plume source to hotspot: quantifying
mixing in mantle plumes and its implications for the nature of lower mantle
heterogeneity, $683,700 (2015-2018).
Dr M. Duval, Marie Curie - International Outgoing Fellowship (IOF). Developing High
Resolution Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) dating of fossil teeth: contribution to the
chronology of early hominid occupations in the Mediterranean area (HR_ESR).
Funded by: European Union (ref. 626474), €174,242 (2014-2016).
Dr B. Gayen, ARC Discovery Early Career Research, A new understanding of
Antarctic ice melting, $371,151 (2014-2016).
Prof R.W. Griffiths, Dr B. Gayen, ARC Discovery Project, Interactions of processes
for Southern Ocean dynamics, $420,000 (2014-2016).
Dr A.McC. Hogg, Dr B. Gayen, Dr S. Downes (with Prof A. Pitman, et al.) ARC
LIEF, Connecting big data with high performance computing for climate system
science, $490,000 (2015).
Dr M. Honda, Prof D. Phillips, Dr A. L. Jaques, Dr D.P. Araujo, ARC Discovery
Project, Diamond window into the ancient mantle – dynamic earth evolution, $370,000
(2014-2016).
Hughes, G.O. (with Pye, J., Lipinski, W., Arjomandi, M., Dally, B., Ho, C., Burgess,
G., Kim, J.-S. & Coventry, J.), Australian Renewable Energy Agency Research and
Development Program Project, Bladed receivers with active airflow control, $1.36M
(2014–17).
Prof T. Ireland, ARC Discovery Project, Sulfur isotope fractionations in Earth
evolution, $468,498 (2014-2016).
Prof T. Ireland, Prof J. Hermann, Dr V. Bennett, Prof S. Cox, and Prof I.
Williams, ANU MEC Grant, The third dimension in the microanalysis of geological
materials, $140,000 (2014).
Dr P.L. King, ARC Discovery Project, Gas–solid reactions in earth and planetary
systems, $287,500 (2015-18).
Dr P.L. King, ARC Future Fellowship, Tracking water on planetary surfaces using data
from the Curiosity Rover, the laboratory, meteorites and Australian field sites,
$755,000 (2014-18).
Dr P.L. King, Dr H. McGregor, Dr V. Bennett, ANU Gender Institute, Developing a
strategy to improve career pathways for women at the Research School of Earth
Sciences (RSES), $9,000 (2014-15).
Dr G. Marino, Dr J. Yu, Prof E.J. Rohling, Dr L. Rodriguez-Sanz, IODP
Analytical Funding, Carbonate chemistry and temperature variability in the deep
Indian Ocean, $20,000 (2014-2015).
Dr J.A. Mavrogenes, Prof R.J. Arculus, ANZIC (IODP) Grant, Precious metal and
isotopic systematics of quenched boninitic glasses of the Izu-Bonin forarc, $20,000
(2015).
Dr S. McClusky, Prof I.S. Williams, Prof. Dr R. Grun, Dr T.P. Denham (with N.
Stern, Z. Jacobs, C.V. Murray-Wallace), ARC Discovery Project, Landscape
archaeology at Lake Mungo, $472,300 (2015-2018).
Dr H.V. McGregor, ARC Future Fellowship, El Niño in a changing climate: novel
long-term perspectives from Pacific corals and model simulations, $771,360 (20152018).
Dr D.C. “Bear” McPhail, AINSE Research Award, The tritium composition of
rainwater, surface water and groundwater in the Lake George basin, NSW, $7,200
(2014).
Dr O. Nebel, ARC Future Fellowship, Identifying the secular evolution of chemical
heterogeneity in the mantle as probed by deep mantle plumes, $767,544 (20152019).
Prof B. Pillans, Dr D.C. McPhail, Prof P. Hiscock, Dr A. Dosseto, Dr E. Papp, Dr
B. Opdyke, ARC Linkage Project, From ancient to modern environments in
southeastern Australia: evidence from the unique natural archives of Lake George,
$450,000 (2014-2016).
Prof A.P. Roberts (with Z. Li, E. Tohver, et al.), Australian Research Council (LIEF),
A fully automated, fully shielded palaeomagnetic system (Palaeomagnetic facility at
UWA), $560,000 (2014-2015).
Dr L. Rodriguez-Sanz, with Bernasconi, S. 3-Month exchange/training visit to ETH
Zurich, Swiss NSF, CHF 11,000 (2014).
Dr E. Saygin, CTBTO Young Scientist Award Grant, Imaging Crustal Structure of
Southeast Asia from Seismic Noise, $55,000 (2014-2015).
Dr P. Tregoning, Dr S. McClusky (with M. King, A. Reading, C. Watson, E.
Domack, E. Petit), ARC LIEF, Earth's response to ice unloading: a unique GPS
measurement from Antarctica, $190,000 (2015)
Dr P. Tregoning, (with AIJM van Dijk, V. Pauwels, E. Wood, J. Sheffield, R. DeJeu),
ARC Discovery Project, Forecasting drought impacts months ahead using satellite
data, $450,000 (2014-2016).
Dr R. Wood, ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, Radiocarbon dating
enamel and the first domestic pigs in South East Asia, $370,807 (2015-2018).
A/Prof G.M. Yaxley, Prof J. Hermann, Dr A.J. Berry, Prof H.St.C O'Neill, Dr
R.P. Rapp, (with S. Boger, J. Woodhead, A. Gleadow, L. Aye, R.J. Sloggett, D.L.
Huston, A.G Tomkins, A.P. Nutman, J.A. Webb, S.W. McKnight, S.K. Florentine), ARC
Linkage Project, A new national electron microprobe facility, $970,000 (2015).
Dr J. Yu, ARC Future Fellowship, Deep-sea carbonate cycles and their role in glacialinterglacial atmospheric CO2 changes, $758,724 (2014-2018).
Dr J. Yu and Prof H. Elderfield, ARC Discovery Project, Constraining the origin of
mysterious old waters at mid-depths of the North Atlantic during the last
deglaciation, $303,000 (2014-2017).
PEER REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
Abrajevitch A., Pillans B.J., Roberts A.P. (2014) Haematite pigmentation events
and palaeomagnetic recording: implications from the Pilbara Print Stone, Western
Australia, Geophysical Journal International, 199, 658-672.
Abrajevitch A., Roberts A.P., Kodama K. (2014) Volcanic iron fertilization of
primary productivity at Kerguelen Plateau, Southern Ocean, through the Middle
Miocene Climate Transition, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 410,
1-13.
Abram N.J., Mulvaney R., Vimeux F., Phipps S.J., Turner J., England M.E. (2014)
Evolution of the Southern Annular Mode during the past millennium, Nature Climate
Change, 4, 564-569, doi:10.1038/nclimate2235.
Acosta Vigil A., Rubatto D., Bartoli O., Cesare B., Meli S., Pedrera A., Azor A.,
Tajcmanova L. (2014) Age of anatexis in the crustal footwall of the Ronda peridotite, S
Spain, Lithos, 210-211, 147-167.
Allgeyer S., Cummins P.R. (2014) Numerical tsunami simulation including elastic
loading and seawater density stratification, Geophysical Research Letters, 41, 23682375.
Álvarez-Fernández E., Carriol R.P., Jordá J.F., Aura J.E., Avezuela B., Badal E., Carrión
Y., García-Guinea J., Maestro A., Morales J.V., Perez G., Perez-Ripoll M., Rodrigo M.J.,
Scarff J.E., Villalba M.P., Wood R. (2014) Occurrence of whale barnacles in Nerja
Cave (Málaga, Southern Spain), an indirect evidence of whale consumption by humans
in the Upper Magdalenian, Quaternary International, 337, 163-169.
Amelin Y. (2014) Uranium-Lead, Extraterrestrial, Early Solar System, In: Rink, W.J.,
Thompson, J.W. (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods, Springer-Verlag,
Berlin-Heidelberg.
Amelin Y. (2014) Meteorites (U–Pb), In: Rink W.J. and Thompson J.W. (Eds.)
Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods, Springer-Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg.
Arndt M., Virgo S., Cox S.F., Urai J.L. (2014) Changes in fluid pathways in a calcite
vein mesh (Natih Formation, Oman Mountains): Insights from stable isotopes,
Geofluids, doi: 10.1111/gfl.12083.
Balfour N., Salmon M., Sambridge M. (2014) The seismometers in schools
network: education, outreach and monitoring, Seismological Research Letters, 85,
1063–1068, doi:10.1785/0220140025.
Barker S. J., Wilson C. J. N., Smith E. G. C., Charlier B. L. A., Wooden J. L., Ireland T.
R. (2014) Post-supereruption magmatic reconstruction of Taupo volcano (New
Zealand), as reflected in zircon ages and trace elements, Journal of Petrology, 55,
1511-1533.
Bennett V.C., Nutman A.P. (2014) The Geochronology of the Isua Supracrustal Belt,
southwest Greenland, In: Hanan, B. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods.
Springer.
Berger J.A., King P.L., Gellert R., Campbell J.L., Boyd N.I., Pradler I., Perrett G.M.,
Edgett K.S., Schmidt M.E., Lee R.E.H., Van Bommel S.J.V., the MSL Science Team
(2014) MSL APXS titanium observation tray measurements: laboratory experiments
and results for the Rocknest Fines at the Curiosity Field Site in Gale Crater, Mars,
Journal of Geophysical Research – Planets, 119, 1046–1060.
Binns R.A. (2014) Bikpela – A large siliceous chimney from the PACMANUS
hydrothermal field, Manus Basin, Papua New Guinea, Economic Geology, 109, 22432259.
Blaney D.L., Wiens R.C., Maurice S., Clegg S.M., Anderson R.B., Kah L.C., Le Mouélic
S., Ollila A., Bridges N., Tokar R., Berger G., Bridges J.C., Cousin A., Clark B., Dyar
M.D., King P.L., Mangold N., Meslin P.-Y., Newsom H.E., Schroder S., Rowland S.,
Johnson J., Edgar L., Gasnault O., Forni O., Schmidt M., Goetz W., Stack K., Sumner
D., Fisk M., Madsen M.B. (2014) Chemistry and texture of the rocks at Rocknest, Gale
Crater: Evidence for sedimentary origin and diagenetic alteration, Journal of
Geophysical Research, 119, 2109-2131, doi: 10.1002/2013JE004590.
Boger S.D., Hirdes W., Ferreira C.A.M., Jenett T., Dallwig R., Fanning C.M. (2014)
The 580–520 Ma Gondwana suture of Madagascar and its continuation into Antarctica
and Africa, Gondwana Research, doi: 10.1016/j.gr.2014.08.017.
Boger S.D., Hirdes W., Ferreira C.A.M., Schulte B., Jenett T., Fanning C.M. (2014)
From passive margin to volcano-sedimentary forearc: the Tonian to Cryogenian
evolution of the Anosyen Domain of southeastern Madagascar, Precambrian Research,
247, 159-186.
Bray P.S., Brocks J.J., George S. (2014) 14C analysis of aliphatic hydrocarbon
fractions from the hypersaline Lake Tyrrell, southeast Australia, Organic Geochemistry,
73, 29-34.
Brocks J.J., Hope J.M. (2014) Tailing of chromatographic peaks in GC–MS caused by
interaction of halogenated solvents with the ion source, Journal of Chromatographic
Science, 52, 471-475.
Brown J.L., Christy A.G., Ellis D.J., Arculus R.J. (2014) Prograde sulfide
metamorphism in blueschist and eclogite, New Caledonia, Journal of Petrology, 55,
643-670.
Burne R.V., Moore L.S., Christy A.G., Troitzsch U., King P.L., Carnerup A.M.,
Hamilton J. (2014) Stevensite in the modern thrombolites of Lake Clifton, Western
Australia: A missing link in microbialite mineralization? Geology, 42, 575-578,
doi:10.1130/G35484.1.
Burnham A.D., Berry A.J. (2014) The effect of oxygen fugacity, melt composition,
temperature and pressure on the oxidation state of cerium in silicate melts, Chemical
Geology, 366, 52-60.
Cady L.P., Brack A., Bueno Prieto J.E., Cockell C., Horneck G., Kasting J.F.,
Lineweaver C.H., Raulin F., Schopf J.W., Sleep N., von Bloh W., Westall F., Deamer
D., Lehman N., Perez-Mercader J. (2014) Where do we go from here? Astrobiology
14, 629-644, doi:10.1089/ast.2014.1405.
Campbell I.H., Griffiths R.W. (2014) Did the formation of D’’ cause the ArchaeanProterozoic transition? Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 388, 1-8, doi:
org/10.1016/j.epsl.2013.11.048.
Campbell J.L., King P.L., Burkemper L., Berger J.A., Gellert R., Perrett G.M., Pradler
I., Thompson L., Edgett K.S., Yingst R.A., the MSL Science Team (2014) The Mars
Science Laboratory APXS calibration target: comparison of first Martian measurements
with the terrestrial calibration, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research
Section B, 323, 49-58.
Campbell I.H., Stepanov A. S, Liang H-Y., Allen C. M., Norman, M. D., Zhang Y.
Q., Xie Y. W. (2014) The origin of shoshonites: new insights from the Tertiary highpotasium intrusions of eastern Tibet, Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 167,
1-22.
Carilli J.E., McGregor H.V., Gaudry J.J., Donner S.D., Gagan M.K., Stevenson S.,
Wong H., Fink D. (2014) Equatorial Pacific coral geochemical records show recent
weakening of the Walker Circulation, Paleoceanography, 29, 1031-1045.
Chambefort I., Lewis B., Wilson C.J.N., Rae A.J., Coutts C., Bignall G., Ireland T.R.
(2014) Stratigraphy and structure of the Ngatamariki geothermal system from new
zircon U-Pb geochronology: implications for Taupo Volcanic Zone evolution. Journal of
Volcanology and Geothermal Research 274, 51-70.
Chamberlain K.J., Wilson C.J.N., Wooden J.L., Charlier B.L.A., Ireland T.R. (2014)
New perspectives on the Bishop Tuff from zircon textures, ages and trace elements.
Journal of Petrology 55, 395-426.
Chang L., Roberts A.P., Winklhofer M., Heslop D., Dekkers M.J., Krijgsman W.,
Fitzgerald J.D., Smith P. (2014) Magnetic detection and characterization of biogenic
magnetic minerals: A comparison of ferromagnetic resonance and first-order reversal
curve
diagrams,
Journal
of
Geophysical
Research,
119,
6136-6158,
doi:10.1002/2014JB011213.
Chang L., Vasiliev I., van Baak C.G.C., Krijgsman W., Dekkers M.J., Roberts A.P.,
van Hoesel A., Winklhofer M. (2014) Identification and environmental interpretation of
diagenetic and biogenic greigite in sediments: A lesson from the Messinian Black Sea,
Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 15, 3612-3627, doi:10.1002/2014GC005411.
Cho D-L., Lee S.R., Koh H.J., Park J-B., Armstrong R., Choi D.K. (2014) Late
Ordovician volcanism in Korea constrains the timing for breakup of Sino-Korean Craton
from Gondwana, Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 96, 279-286.
Clarke S, Hubble T, Airey D., Boyd R., Yu P, Webster J.D., Keene J, Exon N, Gardner
J., Ward S.N., Shipboard Party SS12/2008 (2014) Morphology of Australia’s eastern
continental slope and related tsunami hazard, In: Krastel S. et al (Eds.), Submarine
Mass Movements and Their Consequences, Advances in Natural and Technological
Hazards Research, 37, 529-538.
Colli L., Stotz I., Bianchi M.C., Bunge H.-P., Smethrust M., Clark S., Iaffaldano G.,
Tassara A., Guillocheau F (2014) Rapid South Atlantic spreading changes and coeval
vertical motion in surrounding continents: evidence for temporal changes of pressuredriven upper mantle flow. Tectonophysics, 32, 1304-1321.
Cooper A.F., Ireland T.R. (2014) The Alpine Schists, a new Cretaceous exotic terrane
in Zealandia, tectonically emplaced, deformed and metamorphosed during collision of
the LIP Hikurangi Plateau, Gondwana Research, doi: 10.1016/j.gr.2013.11.011.
Cooper G.F., Wilson C.J.N., Charlier B.L.A., Wooden J.L., and Ireland T.R. (2014)
Temporal evolution and compositional signatures of two supervolcanic systems
recorded in zircons from Mangakino volcanic centre, New Zealand, Contributions to
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