Summary:  

Compared to other main continents on Earth, Australia has captured a large fraction of our planet history. From the mechanisms of granite-greenstone formation in the Pilbara region that preserves some of the oldest vestiges of continental production, to the current subduction of the Australian continent beneath Papua-New Guinea, Australia offers unique insight into tectonic processes, continental formation, and crustal recycling. In this talk I will outline how and when the Australian continent was built into a patchwork of crustal blocks. We will start with an outline of crustal overturning that allowed continental masses to stabilize and amalgamate, a process I like to call “From Croutons to Cratons”. Then I will address the evidence for atmospheric oxygenation as it is preserved in the rock record of Australia and will highlight the “Boring Billion” (between 2 and 1 billion years ago), pointing out that it was not boring at all! I will talk about late Precambrian glaciation events that hold beautiful names such as Sturtian and Marinoan and make the Cryogenian period that lasted 200 million years during which our planet, from space, would have looked like a snowball. Then we will move to the Phanerozoic that built the whole eastern side of the continent, while plants and animals invaded land. The Lachlan Fold Belt that includes the Snowy Mountains and stretches all along eastern Australia, teaches us how a continent can grow by accretion of sediment and intrusion of granite to solidify it along a long-lived subduction zone. Starting with the dazzling production of Cretaceous opal in the great basins of Australia, we will witness the tearing apart of the Gondwanaland supercontinent, including the split of Antarctica from Australia and the rifting and drifting of continental ribbons off the coasts of both Australia and Antarctica to form the enigmatic and mostly submerged Zealandia continent. We will end with a discussion of seismic and volcanic activity that epitomizes modern plate tectonics all around one of the oldest continents on Earth, and we will discuss climate patterns that are unique to Australia, including the El Niño – La Niña events.  

Thankyou Australia for keeping this wonderful record of the history of rocks and life on Earth!

Biography: 

Education  Ph.D., 1986, Monash University, Australia  Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies, 1981, Université de Montpellier II, France  Maîtrise es Sciences, 1980, Université de Montpellier II, France

Positions University of Minnesota  2018-2023:   George and Orpha Gibson Chair of Geoscience  2003 - present:  Distinguished Teacher and Professor  1997- present:   Professor  1991- 1997:    Associate Professor  1985- 1991:    Assistant Professor 

University of Lausanne, Switzerland (on leave from UMN) 2006- 2008: University of Lausanne, Switzerland - Professor   

 Awards • George and Orpha Gibson Chair of Geoscience • 2003 University of Minnesota Distinguished Teaching Award  (Award for Outstanding Contributions to Post-Baccalaureate, Graduate, and Professional Education) • 2001 Best Paper Award, Structural Geology and Tectonics Division, Geological Society of America, for paper "W.J. Dunlap, G. Hirth, and C. Teyssier (1997) Thermomechanical evolution of a ductile duplex, Tectonics, 16, 983-1000" • Elected Chair, Structural Geology & Tectonics Division of the Geological Society of America (2000-01) • Fellow of the Geological Society of America- since October 1997 • McKnight-Land Grant Professorship, University of Minnesota, 1989-1992

Advising • 31 PhD students  • 19 Masters students

Publications • 156 published papers (peer reviewed) • citations: 6,218; h-index: 42