Postgraduate Students

Jo Whittaker, BSc(Hons)/BCom MSc
PhD Student

Baxter Building, Rm 145
Phone: +61 2 9351 4257
Fax: +61 2 9036 6588
Email: j.whittaker@geosci.usyd.edu.au

Supervisor

Assoc. Prof. Dietmar Müller

Research

Title: “Reconstruction of plate movements in and around the Indian Ocean”
My research to date has focussed on
(1) Seismic stratigraphy in the Adare Basin, Antarctica (Whittaker, J., Müller, R.D., in press, Seismic Stratigraphy of the Adare Trough Area, Antarctica, Marine Geology), and
(2) Subduction kinematics and slab window formation, Sunda Trench, Southeast Asia (paper submitted)
(3)
I am currently focussing on the structure and kinematic history of the conjugate Australian-Antarctic margin. An intriguing feature of these margins are serpentinite ridges and magnetic anomalies embedded in transitional crust. It has been debated whether or not these pre-chron 27 magnetic lineations in fact constitute isochrons (Tikku and Cande, 1999). If taken as isochrons, extremely large overlaps between Tasmania and Cape Adare are the result in reconstructions for these times (Tikku and Cande, 1999), while a "best fit" plate reconstruction between Tasmania and Cape Adare results in mis-matching the magnetic anomalies (Royer and Rollet, 1997). It is therefore possible that the observed magnetic anomalies are not isochrons, and were formed through exhumation and serpentinization of sub-continental mantle and/or intrusions in such mantle, as suggested for the Iberia and Newfoundland margins (Dean et al., 2000; Russell and Whitmarsh, 2003; Whitmarsh and Miles, 1995). In order to accurately reconstruct Australian-Antarctic plate motions and to understand the origin of the wide strip of transitional crust on both conjugate margins, it is crucial to know by what process magnetic anomalies in transitional crust are formed. I aim to reassess interpreted magnetic isochrons on these conjugate margins by reassessing magnetic anomaly data in conjunction with constraints from plate reconstructions, including best-fit of Tasmania and Cape Adare, and triple-junction solutions between the Australian, Indian and Antarctic plates.