Overturning Circulation in the Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean is the place where wind-forced currents allow the deep ocean to connect to the surface, exchanging Carbon Dioxide and heat with the atmosphere.

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Probing Earth's Deep Structure

By digging a hole around half a metre deep, Dr Nick Rawlinson can peer down and figure out the nature of the Earth below to a depth of around 300 km! Well, maybe that's oversimplifying things.

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Mixing in flow between ocean basins

Underwater cascades carrying huge volumes of water are common in the oceans. They occur where water overflows from sea and ocean basins into neighbouring basins over bottom ridges, or through channels and straits.

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RSES Seismic Stations

RSES installs and monitors seismic stations in the Australian Antarctic Territory that enable researchers to learn about the continent deep beneath the ice using energy from distant earthquakes.

RSES Seismic Deployments on Google Maps

The RSES Seismology group has been leading Australian field seismology since the 1990s and has gained impressive coverage of the continent at unprecedented resolution in some areas.

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Earth Physics

The Earth Physics area of the Research School of Earth Sciences investigates the structure and dynamics of the Earth, from the Earth's core to the climate system, applying modern physical and mathematical techniques in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Geodynamics, Geodesy and Seismology. The Division includes the Centre for Advanced Data Inference (CADI).

Research in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics addresses the dynamical processes governing ocean circulation, mantle convection and plate tectonics, magma transport in the crust and volcanic eruptions, using mathematical modelling, laboratory experiments and computational modelling.
Geodynamics and Geodesy research encompasses all aspects of deformation of the solid Earth and its fluid envelope, including development of models of Earth's past ice history, the effects of climate change on polar ice sheets, sea level variations, elastic tidal deformation of the Earth and more conventional studies of tectonic deformation through earthquakes, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, GPS, etc.
Research in Seismology & Mathematical Geophysics uses seismological and electromagnetic probes to understand Earth's internal structure. A major field program of observational seismology is providing new insights into the nature of the three-dimensional structure beneath the Australian continent and its relationship to continental assembly.
The Centre for Advanced Data Inference has been established to exploit the TerraWulf computer cluster. The centre combines state-of-the-art computational techniques developed at ANU and high quality data sets to address fundamental questions in the geosciences.

Contact

Associate Director

Professor Malcolm Sambridge

Area Administrator

Ms. Sherryl Kluver

Phone: +61 2 6125 5502
Fax: +61 2 6257 2737
Email: earthphysics.admin@anu.edu.au

Sub-surface ocean temperature and sea surface height across the Equatorial Pacific Ocean.