17th November 2023
New paper alert! By correcting ancient shoreline elevation across Australia for mantle-flow-driven vertical motions, we obtain a more accurate estimate of global mean sea level during the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period (~3 million years ago). This new estimate implies that some recent high-end sea-level projections may be excessively pessimistic but is consistent with mid-range forecasts. Many thanks to my amazing team of co-authors—Sophie Coulson, Mark Hoggard, Jacky Austermann, Blake Dyer and Jerry Mitrovica—for all their help!
17th December 2022
New paper alert! By reconciling a suite of geodynamic, geodetic, seismic, and geochemical constraints, we show that the basal sections of LLVPs likely contain a 100–200 km thick layer of dense material, whose physical properties are most compatible those expected for remnants of Earth’s early crust. We also find that long-wavelength thermal anomalies associated with LLVPs extend no more than 900 km depth above the CMB. Many thanks to Mark Hoggard, Sia Ghelichkhan, Paula Koelemeijer, and Harriet Lau for their help with this one!
8th November 2022
New preprint alert! This paper analyses the elevation of Australian sea-level indicators from the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period (MPWP; ~3 million years ago), the last time in Earth history that atmospheric CO2 and temperature levels were similar to those predicted in the near-future. By accurately correcting for the post-depositional deflection of these palaeo sea-level markers induced by mantle dynamics, we are able to determine that global mean sea levels were somewhat lower in the MPWP than estimated in recent studies, implying a more stable Antarctic Ice Sheet and effectively ruling out the most pessimistic recent projections of 21st century sea-level rise.
28th September 2022
Excited to be co-supervising Matthew Morris. Matthew completed his MSci in Geology here at Imperial in 2019, before a three-year stint in the insurance industry. He will be working with Gareth Roberts and I on deciphering the record of continental dynamic topography evolution that is preserved in modern landscapes.
17th March 2022
Massive congratulations to James for winning an AGU OSPA award for his first ever conference presentation. A wonderful achievement!
25th February 2022
Very honoured to have received this year’s William Smith Fund from the Geological Society of London. Many many thanks to the Society, to those who nominated me, and to my colleagues and collaborators.
17th December 2021
Had a great AGU in New Orleans, wonderful be able to catch up with some old friends. I gave a presentation on the structure and dynamics of LLVPs (preprint available here) and James gave an excellent talk on new methodologies to determine Antarctic upper mantle thermomechanical structure (recording available here).
1st August 2021
Really enjoyed organising and chairing the RAS Early Career Network’s ‘Finding Your First Postdoctoral Role’ panel event. We had fantastic speakers who gave excellent, frank perspectives on their experience of making this career transition. A brilliant article setting out the best advice given by our panellists, published in Astronomy & Geophysics, is available here. Big thanks to Dominic Bowman for doing most of the heavy lifting in putting this summary together!
26 July 2021
New paper alert! Led by Jackie Austermann, this work demonstrates how three-dimensional variations in Earth’s viscosity, and their impact on rates of glacial isostatic adjustment, significantly impact Last Interglacial sea-level estimates and may help to reconcile discrepancies between palaeo sea-level markers from Western Australia and the Seychelles. Well done to the whole team!
1st February 2021
Was great working with the rest of the RAS Early Career Network committee to put together our inaugural online poster exhibition. With the pandemic-related cancellation of many conferences, our aim was to give early-career researchers a chance to showcase and get recognition for their work. There were many excellent entries and you can read all about them and the exhibition in this article we wrote for Astronomy & Geophysics
26th November 2020
Enjoyed writing this short piece on dynamic topography for EGU’s Geodynamics blog, have a read if you want to know more about mantle-driven vertical motions, what we still don’t know about them, and why it’s important to know more.
21st October 2020
Icarus paper explaining why ice age effects and mantle convection mean Earth’s precession ‘constant’ is highly time-dependent is now in press. Congratulations to the rest of the team: Sia Ghelichkhan, Jocelyn Fuentes, Mark Hoggard and Jerry Mitrovica!
1st October 2020
EPSL paper on the evolution of continental domes is now out in its final form. It was great working with the whole team, thanks to Marthe Klöcking for getting me involved!
28th September 2020
Excited to have James Hazzard joining the group as a PhD student. James recently completed his MSci in Natural Sciences (Physics) at the University of Cambridge.
28th July 2020
PEPI paper I wrote with Mark Hoggard, Alistair Crosby, Nicky White, and Sia Ghelichkhan on the oceanic lithosphere-asthenosphere system is now available here.
6th July 2020
JGR paper on constraining the temperature, density and viscosity structure of the upper mantle is now available. Thanks to co-authors Mark Hoggard, Nicky White, and Sia Ghelichkhan!
30th June 2020
Extended abstracts for Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future program have just been published, including two I contributed to that are available here and here. It’s been amazing to learn more about the cutting-edge research being carried out as part of this visionary initiative.
29th June 2020
Nature Geoscience paper on locating giant sediment-hosted mineral deposits is now published. Kudos to the rest of the team – Mark Hoggard, Karol Czarnota, David Huston, Lynton Jaques, and Sia Ghelichkhan – it’s been a real pleasure to work with you all!
1st May 2020
New review paper on dynamic topography and its impact on palaeoclimate is now available. Big thanks to Jerry Mitrovica and the rest of the team for having me on board.
