Wonder

Bubbling mud? The origins of life? Field expeditions into Malaysian jungle? On this episode of Wonder, we're joined by the Mud Volcano Guy himself and we cover it all! With Dr Mark Tingay we expore the weird and wonderful world of mud volcanoes, and Mark shares his unbelievable saga to find a long-lost mud volcano hidden in the thicket of Malaysian jungle... This episode is supported by the ⁠⁠...

Well hello there! On todays show, Holly and Anthony sit down with Dr Ross Chandler to figure out how to find Australian orebodies... We break down the world of mineral exploration, covering everything from why and how we find new deposits to the ways we can think about their value. We chat about those critical metals that you hear about in the news like lithium and rare earth elements (REEs), and...

So ... what are the rock blocks that built Australia? And if we lived in the times of the Gondwanan or Pangean supercontinents, what would our world map look like? And finally, what's this about mountains on the deep undersides of Earth's continents? In this episode of Wonder Podcast, we synthesise the fascinating earth science we've learned from our latest guests, and share with our n...

Welcome to another cracking geological conversation with Dr Sabin Zahirovic (or should we say, welcome to today's episode of ' what is Sabin 3D printing today'....!!??!! ) Here we explore the great Australian tilt , what the mantle has to do with it, and what this continental tilt has meant for the natural evolution of our country. Sabin continues to show us some unbelievable data visu...

Ever noticed that the coastlines of Africa and South America match up like perfect puzzle pieces? Turns out we need to investigate Earth's youngest supercontinent, Pangea, to explain that one! In this episode of Wonder we're joined by the brilliant Dr Sabin Zahirovic, who shows us some mindblowing visual reconstructions of the Pangean supercontinent and the geologic mega-events that ripple...

Welcome to the ultimate deep time exploration Down Under! With Professor Pete Betts from Monash University, Holly & Anthony imagine the Australian continent as a geologic mosaic of stone. We ask about the origins of these cratonic blocks, and how they came together to form the Australian jigsaw we know and love today. Prof Betts walks us through it all, from missing ocean basins to that time h...

Welcome to Kīlauea, one of the planet's most active volcanoes in the heart of Hawaii. You've likely seen its incredible lava fountains and ongoing eruptions in the news, or all over your social feeds ... Well, on today's show, we crossed live to geochemist and volcanologist Dr Abigail Nalesnik to talk everything Hawaiian volcanoes . What's up with lava fountains?? What do eruptions sound like (obv...

Welcome to the rock bottom of the Australian continent. Here, hundreds of kilometres underground, there are inverted mountains and valleys beyond anything at our country's land surface. With Dr Caroline Eakin we find out how earthquakes paint pictures of Australia's deep roots, why our country experiences earthquakes, and finally, why those Western Australian's are building an epic &#3...

Today's show begins deep in Earth's mantle. It's mostly a beautiful, green place ... but, apparently, also much like a marble cake? On todays show, Holly & Anthony are joined by the ultimate mantle legend Dr Isra Ezad, who's an igneous experimental petrologist at the University of Western Australia. Dr Ezad walks us through the dark side of Earth's mantle, the kind of exper...

WOW, we've spoken to some incredible scientists over the last few episodes. We think it's time to hit pause and absorb what we've learned? From the ceaseless cycles of Nature to the evolution of flora and fauna, from Holly's field travels into living landscapes and Anthony's curiosity about Gondwanan ice sheets— let's reflect on the spectacular stories of our recent guests...

"A nation that loses its connection to its country either culturally , emotionally or scientifically loses. That is our biggest societal and human challenge... how we understand and connect with our planet. As Australians, we have responsibility for our bit of the earth. It's what sustains us as people and everything else we share our planet with..." Here is part 2 of our conversatio...

In today's show we traverse iconic Australian landscapes and uncover their roots in deep time. Dr Steve Hill shows us how 'reading landscapes' reveals their formation - by fire, by ice, by water - thus allowing us to imagine the ancient sculpture of todays world. We find out that encoded in our landscapes today are ancient inland seas, Australia's slow drift across the face of the...

In our second episode with Dr Andrew Merdith, we ask why the rise of land plants pushes the pendulum swing of Earth’s climate (who knew moss was so cool? Or that if you're a plant, you can actually have too much of a good thing, *cough cough atmospheric combustion??!!!?* ). During these fascinating Phanerozoic moments in Earth evolution, Dr Merdith also shows us what the ancient landmasses were do...

How is our planet's surface — from the creation and disintegration of mountains, to the first breaths of flora — related to the geologic evolution of Earth's climate? In this episode of Wonder, Holly Cooke and Dr Anthony Reid are joined by Dr Andrew Merdith from the University of Adelaide. We explore the evolution of land plants to the formation of opals in the Australian outback, and our conversa...

Hi and Welcome to Wonder, with the ARC Centre in Critical Resources for the Future! Today Holly & Anthony are in marvellous conversation with centre Director Professor Marco Fiorentini, who journeys with us through the grand Australian libraries of geological history and what they spell out for Australia's critical resource futures. Find us at ⁠www.thegeoco.com.au⁠ Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@thegeoco⁠⁠⁠⁠...

It's been a huge few episodes for stories about our ever-changing Earth system, from living glaciers and volcanic eruptions to our human moments in a warming world. Holly & Anthony take this time to actually understand and reflect on recent conversations with geochemist-volcanologist Dr Lucy McGee and glaciologist Hedda Andersen, sprinkled with some ideas about the growth of Antarctica's ice s...

On today's show: explosions, infernos, Mount Doom— oh my! From volcanic eruptions to the origins of lava, volcanologist and geochemist Dr Lucy McGee takes us around the world (and deep into its infernos) to chat about when Earth explodes . Find us on Instagram ⁠⁠@thegeoco⁠⁠ GeoCo connects to you from the traditional country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains, South Australia. We pay our r...

"Sila can be perceived as the breath of the glaciers, the cold, crisp air that comes from them, and the sense of timelessness they represent... " In todays show, Wonder Podcast crosses to the Arctic and talks to Norwegian glaciologist and expedition guide, Hedda Andersen, who adventures into the fastest warming frozen lands on the planet to research Earth's vanishing glaciers. Trust us— this conve...

In today's show: Holly debuts her rock-omendation, the article on The Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research . And after exploring why 'ignorance' is good for science and curiosity, Anthony embarks on tectonic travels to the South Sandwich Islands and (with the help of good old Google Earth) we stitch together the fascinating formation of these landscapes, their connection to t...

Oh, long time no see! In today's episode Holly and Anthony first catch up on their adventures while away from the studio... followed by the GeoGist where we unpack Tibet's devastating January 2025 earthquake and the mysterious earthquake swarm shaking Santorini and nearby Greek islands of the Aegean Sea. We recorded this episode of Wonder in February 2025, one month before another magnitud...

Left on the table, after our previous conversation with Professor Alan Collins, were some unexplained and weird trinkets. A vial of black slime, a rock, a 25 pack of toilet paper ... obviously, we turned the cameras back on. What on earth did Alan bring in his backpack??? Happy bonus episode! find us on Instagram ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@thegeoco⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ __ Welcome to Wonder, brought to you by the Geo...

From the western Mediterranean to Southeast Asia - join our geological globetrots with Professor Alan Collins as we explore the extraordinary interconnectedness of the earth system. After a few episodes of unpacking why today's landscapes look the way they do, Alan helps Holly and Anthony peer past the present and deep into the rock archives of earth history. [ Wonder podcast takes on the ever...

Now that Dr McLaren has literally *warmed* us up on all things earthquakes, mountains, and building a planet ... Dr Jack Mulder (hey again, Jack!) takes us to the early Earth and the mysteries of the everchanging continents that dance across the face of our planet. [ Wonder podcast takes on the everchanging Earth. In this miniseries we pull apart the mysteries of tectonics, piece together ancient...

From the soaring peaks of Mount Everest to the deepest dwellings of the Mariana Trench - why does Earth look the way it does? How does our planet create such incredible diversity of landscape? Really .... how does the earth work? Dr Sandra McLaren walked us through Earths thermal engine in our previous episode, and now it's time to untangle plate tectonics and how it built (and continues to bu...

Change is the only permanent thing about Earth. Our landscapes are transient, from mountains to oceans to rivers to plains. But have you ever wondered what makes our earth so *dynamic* compared to our solar systems other rocky planets? We have a world of these questions for Dr Sandra McLaren ... for starters, why should mountains and ocean basins exist at all? And at the heart of it, why does heat...