Shaping a sunburnt country: fire, climate and the Australian landscape. Fire shapes Australia’s landscape, biodiversity and resources. This project aims to quantify the recent history of fire intensity and severity using several novel proxies in the fire-prone landscapes of south-eastern Australia. Calibration of these new proxies to recent wildfires will be used for a better characterisation of fire regimes. This research will be applied to sedimentary archives to investigate how fire regimes h ....Shaping a sunburnt country: fire, climate and the Australian landscape. Fire shapes Australia’s landscape, biodiversity and resources. This project aims to quantify the recent history of fire intensity and severity using several novel proxies in the fire-prone landscapes of south-eastern Australia. Calibration of these new proxies to recent wildfires will be used for a better characterisation of fire regimes. This research will be applied to sedimentary archives to investigate how fire regimes have evolved over the past 100 years. The outcomes will inform debates about the relationship between climatic variability and fire severity, and this will contribute to increase the preparedness of natural resource management to potential future climate and land-use scenarios.Read moreRead less
High value biocoke for low emission steel production. This project aims to discover methods to fill nanopores that form during conversion of biomass to biocoke through controlled adsorption and carbonisation of tar compounds. By filling nanopores, their disruptive effects during coke-making will be avoided. Coke will remain a vital ingredient for steel production in the future and is currently produced from coal. The expected outcome is breakthrough knowledge to enable, for the first time, te ....High value biocoke for low emission steel production. This project aims to discover methods to fill nanopores that form during conversion of biomass to biocoke through controlled adsorption and carbonisation of tar compounds. By filling nanopores, their disruptive effects during coke-making will be avoided. Coke will remain a vital ingredient for steel production in the future and is currently produced from coal. The expected outcome is breakthrough knowledge to enable, for the first time, technologies for incorporating biomass materials into coke-making operations. Key benefits are for Australia to provide essential technologies for the world’s steel industries to lower CO2 emissions in addition to creating high value carbon products from its agricultural wastes. Read moreRead less
Fluid chemistry and critical mineral enrichment in salty metamorphic belts. Several geological regions in Australia are worth billions of dollars to our economy in their contained copper-goldcobalt and uranium-rare earth element mineral deposits. These regions will continue to be important to Australia as the world transitions to a renewable energy economy because they can provide some of the most critical metals needed for that transition: Cu, Co, rare earth elements. This project aims to provi ....Fluid chemistry and critical mineral enrichment in salty metamorphic belts. Several geological regions in Australia are worth billions of dollars to our economy in their contained copper-goldcobalt and uranium-rare earth element mineral deposits. These regions will continue to be important to Australia as the world transitions to a renewable energy economy because they can provide some of the most critical metals needed for that transition: Cu, Co, rare earth elements. This project aims to provide a fundamental quatitative understanding of the geological processes that form these deposits. We will conduct experiments to generate quantitative models of the metamorphic and structural processes that control the liberation and migration of highly saline fluids, which are ideal for transporting a large range of metals.Read moreRead less
The carbonate geology of the critical metal niobium. This project aims to understand how pyrochlore, the major ore mineral of the critical metal niobium, forms in
Earth’s crust. Niobium is exclusively mined from carbonatite magma bodies in Brazil and Canada, despite proven
Australian resources. It is used in high strength steel alloys in the construction and transport industries. Expected
research outcomes include understanding how pyrochlore forms in carbonatites, development of exploration too ....The carbonate geology of the critical metal niobium. This project aims to understand how pyrochlore, the major ore mineral of the critical metal niobium, forms in
Earth’s crust. Niobium is exclusively mined from carbonatite magma bodies in Brazil and Canada, despite proven
Australian resources. It is used in high strength steel alloys in the construction and transport industries. Expected
research outcomes include understanding how pyrochlore forms in carbonatites, development of exploration tools
to locate niobium ore bodies which are unexposed at the surface, and investigation of environmentally and
economically sustainable technologies for metallurgical extraction of niobium from ore. The research is intended
to benefit Australia’s critical metals exploration and mining industries.Read moreRead less
Understanding and modelling of interannual hydroclimatic variability in the context of historic streamflow. Recent persistently dry conditions in Australia have triggered water restrictions in major cities and re-emphasised the importance of water to this country. This project represents an integrated package of research that will enhance our understanding of interannual hydroclimatic variability, and its implications for land and water resources systems. The methodologies and model developed he ....Understanding and modelling of interannual hydroclimatic variability in the context of historic streamflow. Recent persistently dry conditions in Australia have triggered water restrictions in major cities and re-emphasised the importance of water to this country. This project represents an integrated package of research that will enhance our understanding of interannual hydroclimatic variability, and its implications for land and water resources systems. The methodologies and model developed here will directly lead to more informed decision making for sustainable use and management of Australia's increasingly scarce natural resources to cope with changing climate over a range of time scales. This is particularly important for Australia because of its higher interannual hydroclimate variability compared to elsewhere in the world.Read moreRead less
The Antarctic ice sheet through the Last Glacial Cycle - numerical modelling constrained by field evidence. The response of the world's largest ice mass to climate change is important because melting leads to a rise in sea level. Our ability to predict changes in ice volume and sea level under a warming climate, will be enhanced by better understanding of past ice sheet responses to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Improved numerical models now exist that allow realistic simulations of Ant ....The Antarctic ice sheet through the Last Glacial Cycle - numerical modelling constrained by field evidence. The response of the world's largest ice mass to climate change is important because melting leads to a rise in sea level. Our ability to predict changes in ice volume and sea level under a warming climate, will be enhanced by better understanding of past ice sheet responses to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Improved numerical models now exist that allow realistic simulations of Antarctic ice. These models will be developed further and constrained against existing and new field evidence for the Last Glacial Cycle (last 125,000 years), the period for which we can best define past ice sheet behaviour.Read moreRead less
Geomorphological development of coral reefs, southern Great Barrier Reef: an integrated record of Holocene palaeoecology and palaeoclimate from cores. Very little is known about how the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) has responded or may respond to predicted environmental change and/or degradation. The project will reconstruct the recent biological and physical history of reefs in the southern GBR in order to better understand how they may react to future environmental changes.
Eruption and disruption: how Earth’s deep interior and surface communicate. Massive volcanic eruptions are a fundamental part of the Earth System, responsible for globally disruptive events, from airspace disturbance, to extinction of the dinosaurs. This project will reveal relationships between hot, deep sources of volcanic material, and the tectonic processes at the Earth's surface. Expected outcomes of this project include assembling an unprecedented set of new observations from underwater vo ....Eruption and disruption: how Earth’s deep interior and surface communicate. Massive volcanic eruptions are a fundamental part of the Earth System, responsible for globally disruptive events, from airspace disturbance, to extinction of the dinosaurs. This project will reveal relationships between hot, deep sources of volcanic material, and the tectonic processes at the Earth's surface. Expected outcomes of this project include assembling an unprecedented set of new observations from underwater volcanoes offshore Eastern Australia, and the development of innovative geodynamic models of how the deep Earth interacts with the surface to form these volcanoes. This will provide significant benefits by advancing our understanding of the deep Earth, and its impact on Earth’s surface, natural hazards, and mineral systems.Read moreRead less
An Ensemble Modelling Framework for Prediction in Ungauged Catchments. An important issue facing the water sector is a rationale for modeling flows in catchments having no prior measurements. Current approaches for modeling flow in ungauged catchments assume a rigid specification which is adopted for all catchments, irrespective of differences in regions and soil types. We propose here a modeling philosophy that better characterises the variability in the flow generation mechanism, with differen ....An Ensemble Modelling Framework for Prediction in Ungauged Catchments. An important issue facing the water sector is a rationale for modeling flows in catchments having no prior measurements. Current approaches for modeling flow in ungauged catchments assume a rigid specification which is adopted for all catchments, irrespective of differences in regions and soil types. We propose here a modeling philosophy that better characterises the variability in the flow generation mechanism, with different mechanisms being represented through different models in a probabilistic sense. We expect our approach to address the limitations of current schemes, and provide a much improved basis for estimating flows for design and management applications.Read moreRead less
Unravelling vanadium biogeochemistry in modern marine sediments. This project aims to unravel the biogeochemistry of vanadium in modern marine sediments for use as a tracer of ancient oxygen concentrations in the oceans of the early Earth. This project will generate fundamental knowledge on the behaviour of vanadium in modern marine sediments by applying advanced analytical tools for imaging its concentration and chemical form at ultra-high resolution. This information is critical for accurate i ....Unravelling vanadium biogeochemistry in modern marine sediments. This project aims to unravel the biogeochemistry of vanadium in modern marine sediments for use as a tracer of ancient oxygen concentrations in the oceans of the early Earth. This project will generate fundamental knowledge on the behaviour of vanadium in modern marine sediments by applying advanced analytical tools for imaging its concentration and chemical form at ultra-high resolution. This information is critical for accurate interpretation of the geological record to infer the oxygen concentration of the oceans at various points in Earth's history. This interdisciplinary project will facilitate strong collaboration between Australian and Danish researchers in the field of marine geochemistry and paleoceanography.Read moreRead less