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Doctoral graduate wins 2004 Mollie Holman Medal

Wouter Schellart, now at the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University, won the 2004 Mollie Holman Medal for his PhD thesis, "Subduction Rollback, Arc Formation and Back-Arc Extension". Experiments for the thesis were carried out in the Earth Processes Simulation (EPSILON) Laboratory, a joint Geoscience/ Mathematical Science facility.

Dr Schellart's research involved scaled three-dimensional analogue modelling of the tectonic plate processes of subduction and extension, to gain qualitative and quantitative insights into the large scale tectonic processes that have shaped the some of the largest features on the Earth. He examined the geometrical and structural evolution of plates involved in plate tectonic movements, such as the collision of the Australian plate, North D'Entrecasteau Ridge and West Torres Plateau near Fiji in the Pacific Ocean.