GPlately is an open-source Python package built on pyGPlates that accelerates spatio-temporal data analysis for plate tectonic reconstructions. It provides a simplified, object-oriented interface for reconstructing geological data through deep time, interrogating plate kinematics, comparing multiple plate models, and visualising results on maps—all designed to be parallel-safe for high-performance computing.
This talk presents an update on geodynamic modelling efforts focused on understanding the origins of intraplate volcanism in eastern Australia. We discuss recent advances in linking mantle dynamics with the distribution of volcanic activity, including insights from the Glass House Mountains volcanic province in Queensland.
Mantle plumes are buoyant upwellings rising from the Earth’s core-mantle boundary to its surface, generating hotspot chains that track the direction of plate motion. Eastern Australia contains three contemporaneous volcanic chains (1 onshore, 2 offshore) that have long been held to be formed by three separate plumes, however, this fails to explain their geochemical similarity and close spacing. Surrounding these plume-related volcanoes are hundreds of smaller volcanic edifices which exhibit no correlation with plate motion. Armed with numerical models of mantle convection, plate reconstructions, seismic tomography, and geochemistry of eruption products, we aim untangle the complex history of volcanism in eastern Australia and offshore. In this talk, I will discuss how plume-slab interaction can lead to plume branching, potentially forming parallel hotspot chains, and the influence of slab flux on driving non-age progressive volcanism.
Did you know there are hundreds of volcanoes in our backyard? Volcanoes have been active across eastern Australia for over 100 million years, which have shaped the landscape and produced the rich volcanic soil we use for growing food. Most volcanoes are found at the edges of tectonic plates, but not in the case of Australia’s volcanoes. Using coffee, Sesame Street, and pancake mix we will unravel the origins of Australia’s enigmatic volcanoes on a voyage through deep time.
Numerical models of groundwater flow play a critical role for water management scenarios under climate extremes. Large‑scale models play a key role in determining long range flow pathways from continental interiors to the oceans, yet struggle to simulate the local flow patterns offered by small‑scale models. We have developed a highly scalable numerical framework to model continental groundwater flow which capture the intricate flow pathways between deep aquifers and the near surface. The coupled thermal‑hydraulic basin structure is inferred from hydraulic head measurements, recharge estimates from geochemical proxies, and borehole temperature data using a Bayesian framework. We use it to model the deep groundwater flow beneath the Sydney–Gunnedah–Bowen Basin, part of Australia’s largest aquifer system. Coastal aquifers have flow rates of up to 0.3 m/day, and a corresponding groundwater residence time of just 2,000 years. In contrast, our model predicts slow flow rates of 0.005 m/day for inland aquifers, resulting in a groundwater residence time of ∼ 400,000 years. Perturbing the model to account for a drop in borehole water levels since 2000, we find that lengthened inland flow pathways depart significantly from pre‑2000 streamlines as groundwater is drawn further from recharge zones in a drying climate. Our results illustrate that progressively increasing water extraction from inland aquifers may permanently alter long‑range flow pathways. Our open‑source modelling approach can be extended to any basin and may help inform policies on the sustainable management of groundwater.
“Subduction angle exerts a fundamental control on volcanism, mountain building, and ore deposit formation, yet the factors governing slab dip remain debated. We combine the Slab2 earthquake model with subduction kinematics extracted from plate tectonic reconstructions using pyGPlates to systematically investigate what controls slab dip and how it influences the spatial distribution of porphyry copper deposits along convergent margins.”
Exploring the interaction between mantle plumes and subducting slabs in the Tasman Sea region, focusing on the three parallel hotspot tracks — Tasmantid, Lord Howe, and Cosgrove — and how their anomalous spacing and age progression challenge the canonical mantle plume model.
Deep mantle plumes are buoyant upwellings rising from the Earth’s core-mantle boundary to its surface, and describing most hotspot chains. Mechanisms to explain dual chains of hotspot volcanoes for the Hawaiian-Emperor and Yellowstone chains fail to explain the geochemical similarity and large distances between contemporaneous volcanoes of the Tasmantid and Lord Howe chains in the SW Pacific. Using numerical models of mantle convection, we demonstrate how slab-plume interaction can lead to sustained plume branching over a period of >40 million years to produce parallel volcanic chains that track plate motion. We propose a three-part model. first, slabs stagnate in the upper mantle, explaining fast upper mantle P-wave velocity anomalies; second, deflection of a plume conduit by a stagnating slab splits it into two branches 650-900 km apart, aligning to the orientation of the trench axis; third, plume branches heat the stagnating slab causing partial melting and release of volatiles which percolate to the surface forming two contemporaneous volcanic chains with slab-influenced EM1 signatures. Our results highlight the critical role of long-lived subduction on the evolution and behaviour of intraplate volcanism.
A four-day workshop introducing participants to GPlates and pyGPlates for plate tectonic reconstructions and spatio-temporal data analysis. The course covers the GPlates desktop application, the pyGPlates Python library, and the GPlately package for accelerating research workflows in tectonics and geodynamics.
“We present a numerical model of groundwater flow within the Great Artesian Basin, developed in collaboration with Geoscience Australia using the Underworld parallel computing framework. The model integrates regional geological complexity into a whole-of-basin simulation, enabling estimation of flow pathways and residence times across one of Australia’s most important groundwater resources.”