Simon Williams – The Conversation

Earth’s interior 80 million years ago with hot structures in yellow to red (darker is shallower) and cold structures in blue (darker is deeper). Ömer Bodur/Nature

March 30, 2022

Volcanoes, diamonds, and blobs: a billion‑year history of Earth’s interior shows it’s more mobile than we thought

Nicolas Flament, University of Wollongong; Andrew Merdith, University of Leeds; Ömer F. Bodur, University of Wollongong, and Simon Williams, Northwest University, Xi'an

Ancient blobs deep inside the Earth gather together and break apart like continents, according to new research.

Lord Howe Island is one of the few places where the lost continent of Zealandia is exposed above sea level. SHUTTERSTOCK

November 24, 2019

What are lost continents, and why are we discovering so many?

Maria Seton, University of Sydney; Joanne Whittaker, University of Tasmania, and Simon Williams, University of Sydney

We undertook a 28-day voyage to explore a possible lost continent in a remote part of the Coral Sea, in an area off the coast of Queensland. Here’s what we found.

Lord Howe Island is part of a volcanic seamount formed around 7 million years ago. Flickr/Roderick Eime

January 31, 2019

How we traced the underwater volcanic ancestry of Lord Howe Island

Maria Seton, University of Sydney; Nicholas Mortimer, GNS Science, and Simon Williams, University of Sydney

Lord Howe Island is part of an underwater volcanic chain much older than first thought, with the possibility of new islands still to form.

So little is known about what lies beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean. AAP/ Richard Wainwright

June 16, 2014

What is it really like under the Indian Ocean?

Joanne Whittaker, University of Tasmania and Simon Williams, University of Sydney

Not long after the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was declared missing, the world’s attention was focused on a remote, poorly known area of the Eastern Indian Ocean as the possible location of the lost…

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