Sabin Zahirovic – The Conversation

Thingvellir national park, where two tectonic plates meet in Iceland. Tina Zupancic/Getty Images

January 19, 2026

The way Earth’s surface moves has a bigger impact on shifting the climate than we knew

Ben Mather, The University of Melbourne; Adriana Dutkiewicz, University of Sydney; Dietmar Müller, University of Sydney, and Sabin Zahirovic, University of Sydney

Earth has experienced many icehouse and greenhouse climates. A new study shows how they connect to plate tectonics.

Salvatore Allegra / AP

May 25, 2022

How plate tectonics, mountains and deep‑sea sediments have maintained Earth’s ‘Goldilocks’ climate

Dietmar Müller, University of Sydney; Adriana Dutkiewicz, University of Sydney; Andrew Merdith, University of Leeds; Ben Mather, University of Sydney; Christopher Gonzalez, The University of Western Australia; Sabin Zahirovic, University of Sydney; Tobias Keller, ETH Zurich; Weronika Gorczyk, The University of Western Australia, and Jo Condon, The University of Melbourne

New modelling shows how tectonic plate movements, carbon-rich deep-sea sediment, and mountain weathering have regulated Earth’s climate.

Scientists have pieced together Game of Thrones’ geology as the show draws last breath on television. Kal242382 from Wikimedia Commons

May 20, 2019

We made a moving tectonic map of the Game of Thrones landscape

Sabin Zahirovic, University of Sydney and Jo Condon, The University of Melbourne

Even in this fantasy world, geological processes like tectonic plate movement, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions would have built the mountains, carved the rivers, and created vast oceans.

Photographed on Kangaroo Island, this rock – called a ‘zebra schist’ – deformed from flat-lying marine sediments through being stressed by a continental collision over 500 million years ago. Dietmar Muller

May 8, 2019

How Earth’s continents became twisted and contorted over millions of years

Dietmar Müller, University of Sydney; Maria Seton, University of Sydney, and Sabin Zahirovic, University of Sydney

Giant forces slowly move continents across a viscous layer of the Earth, like biscuits gliding over a warm toffee ocean. This stresses the continents, and twists and contorts the crust.

Ten-year-old Stanton in the ruins of his home following the earthquake that hit Papua New Guinea in February. EPA/Thomas Nybo/UNICEF

April 9, 2018

Aftershocks hit Papua New Guinea as it recovers from a remote major earthquake

Sabin Zahirovic, University of Sydney; Gilles Brocard, University of Sydney; John Connell, University of Sydney, and Romain Beucher, The University of Melbourne

Fresh earthquakes and aftershocks hit parts of Papua New Guinea following February’s deadly quake. It’s Australia’s slow push north that’s part of PNG’s seismic activity.

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