Zircon Crystals Reveal Earth's Ancient Landscapes | AcademicJobs
Curtin University researchers use zircon crystals as cosmic clocks to reveal millions of years of Australian landscape evolution, erosion rates, and future implications.

Always patient and encouraging to students.
Fosters a love for lifelong learning.
Helps students see the bigger picture.
Creates dynamic and engaging lessons.
Makes even hard topics easy to grasp.
Associate Professor Milo Barham is a faculty member in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University, Faculty of Science and Engineering, where he joined in 2012 as an Associate Lecturer. He advanced through positions including Lecturer from 2013 to 2019, Senior Lecturer and Senior Research Fellow from 2019 to 2023, and since 2023 has served as Associate Professor and Advanced Science Course Lead for the Bachelor of Science (Earth Sciences) and Bachelor of Advanced Science (Earth Sciences) (Honours) programs. Additionally, he is Deputy Director of the Curtin Frontier Institute for Geoscience Solutions. Prior to Curtin, Barham worked as a Contract Lecturer in Earth and Ocean Sciences at the National University of Ireland, Galway, from 2010 to 2012. He completed his PhD there in 2010 on the distal sedimentary record of the mid-Carboniferous onset of glaciation and holds a BSc (Hons).
Barham's academic interests encompass sedimentology, provenance analysis, basin analysis, geochemistry, and palaeoclimatology. His research employs detrital minerals such as zircon and rutile for U-Pb geochronology, oxygen isotope geochemistry, sedimentological, and palaeontological methods to reconstruct ancient sedimentary systems, crustal dynamics, tectonomagmatic influences on mineral systems, and palaeoenvironments from the Phanerozoic era to modern shorelines and heavy mineral sands deposits. Since 2018, he has been part of the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group. Notable publications include "Understanding ancient tectonic settings through detrital zircon analysis" (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2022), "Ancient landscape evolution tracked through cosmogenic krypton in detrital zircon" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2026), "Grain selection for representative detrital zircon age populations" (Earth-Science Reviews, 2025), "Rutile Ages and Thermometry Along a Grenville Anorthosite Pathway" (Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 2023), and "Assessing volcanic origins within detrital zircon populations" (Geoscience Frontiers, 2019). His work has received over 1,500 citations on Google Scholar. Barham earned the 2015 Curtin Life Unit Coordinator Award for superior student support and has led teams recognized with teaching excellence awards, such as the 2024 Curtin Excellence and Innovation in Teaching Award for Programs.
Curtin University researchers use zircon crystals as cosmic clocks to reveal millions of years of Australian landscape evolution, erosion rates, and future implications.

Photo by Osarugue Igbinoba on Unsplash
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