Alongside academic publications, I write occasionally for The Conversation, translating research on plate tectonics, the deep Earth and the ocean floor for a public audience.
With Nicolas Flament, Andrew Merdith and Ömer F. Bodur. Computer simulations spanning a billion years show that two continent-sized blobs of hot rock deep in Earth's mantle (one under Africa, one under the Pacific) have assembled and broken apart more than previously thought, in a rhythm not unlike the way continents gather into supercontinents.
Read on The Conversation →With Maria Seton and Joanne Whittaker. Geoscientists identify lost continents by rock composition, not elevation. Many are plateaus of continental crust hidden below sea level. Better ocean mapping and deep-sea sampling are why so many are turning up now.
Read on The Conversation →With Maria Seton and Nicholas Mortimer. Rock samples dredged from Horsehead Seamount during a 2012 research voyage reveal that Lord Howe Island belongs to a 1,500km chain of volcanoes built as the Australian plate drifted north over a stationary mantle hotspot.
Read on The Conversation →With Joanne Whittaker. Less than 10% of the world's seafloor has been mapped in real detail. Ship-based surveys of features like the Batavia Knoll, in the Indian Ocean, do far more than satellites can to reveal how continents broke apart and drifted over millions of years.
Read on The Conversation →