The Australian National University

Giampiero Iaffaldano
Research Fellow in Earth Physics


E-mail: giampiero.iaffaldano@anu.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 612 53424



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- Opportunities for students -


This page summarises some of the topics available for PhD, PhB, M. Sc, Honours, and Internships. Interested and motivated students are invited to contact me directly for more details about ongoing as well as new projects.




Forward and inverse numerical models of the coupled plates/mantle system

Degree types: PhD, PhB, M. Sc, Honours, Internships.

What forces caused the Australian plate to drift away from Antarctica (see figure)? Why lithospheric plates change their motions over time? Questions like these are of fundamental importance to the Geosciences.

Since the groundbreaking ideas of Alfred Wegener, paleomagnetic and geodetic reconstructions have significantly improved our knowledge of past and present plate motions; while seismic tomography allowed us to recognise lithospheric kinematics as the surface expression of convection within Earth's mantle.

Times are mature to explore the dynamics of the lithosphere, and constrain them through the record of plate kinematics. A number of projects are available on performing forward and inverse numerical models of the plates/mantle system, aimed at reconstructing the spatial and temporal patterns of forces acting upon plates.