Past events
The Significance of Serpentine »
The mineral serpentine is the result of low-grade metamorphic reactions between ultramafic rocks and water. Given that the rocky envelopes of the terrestrial planets and moons are mainly ultramafic, and water is a common molecule, especially on the outside of these bodies, serpentine assumes a position of...
Glacial sea ice variability in the Norwegian Sea during abrupt climate changes 32–40 ka »
The last glacial period was marked by pronounced millennial-scale climate changes that were first documented in Greenland ice core records and thereafter in numerous ocean and climate records from around the world. This so-called Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) climate variability comprises one of the most pronounced and...
The evolution of the Great Barrier Reef: a decade of progress & future directions. »
Predicting how the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) will respond in the face of future global climate changes is both poorly constrained and controversial. This relates to our incomplete understanding of how reef systems respond to environmental changes but also the lack of baseline data — particularly on centennial to...
Towards a pretreatment for radiocarbon dating tooth enamel »
Radiocarbon dating bone that is more than a few thousand years old in tropical and arid regions of Australia and South East Asia is hampered by the rapid degradation of the protein normally targeted for dating. In the best-case scenarios, a few bones with a little protein can be found when large numbers of bones...
Volcanoes, mantle temperature and lithospheric thickness through space and time »
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Numerical Modelling of Subduction zones »
Numerical models of subduction zones have advanced to the point where we can consider how to move beyond the notion of simple conceptual model towards something that we could call a simulation. This requires a process of data assimilation to tune generic models so that they can address questions regardin a...
The effects of Mediterranean sea surface temperature evolution on the Mediterranean sea-level reconstruction »
In 2014, Rohling et al. presented a new method of reconstructing sea level which utilised a planktic foraminiferal oxygen isotope (δ18O) stack from the Mediterranean to create a sea-level record spanning the last 5.3 million years. Prior to this, all continuous, millennially resolved sea-level...
The bulk elemental composition of the Earth and Sun with uncertainties: what can this comparison tell us about the composition of rocky exoplanets...
We have performed the most detailed and up-to-date comparison of the bulk elemental composition of the Earth and Sun by comparing terrestrial rocks with meteorite and solar photospheric compositions. This comparison yields a wealth of information about the way the Earth formed (Wang, Lineweaver...