Dr Sheree Armistead

Dr Sheree Armistead

ARC DECRA Research Fellow

CODES, the University of Tasmania, Australia

About

I am an Australian Research Council DECRA Research Fellow at CODES (Centre for Ore Deposit and Earth Sciences) at the University of Tasmania, where I investigate the interplay between plate tectonics and mineral systems, focusing on their cyclical and long-term changes throughout Earth’s history. My expertise spans isotope geochemistry, data science, GIS, and plate reconstruction techniques to unravel the processes that shape mineral systems over geological timescales.

My DECRA fellowship on ‘the interplay of tectonics and climate on critical minerals in deep time’ seeks to address the urgent need for critical minerals by identifying tectonic and climatic conditions favorable for forming sediment-hosted copper and cobalt deposits over the last billion years. Using samples from the Central African Copperbelt—the world’s largest sediment-hosted Cu-Co district—alongside cutting-edge plate tectonic models, global sedimentary basin datasets, and geochemical tools, this research aims to provide innovative predictive frameworks for locating ore deposits in Australia and globally.

I joined UTAS as a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer in 2022, where I have led and contributed to several research projects, including a collaborative project with Geoscience Australia on the tectonic and metallogenic evolution of western Tasmania. My work bridges the gap between fundamental geoscience research and its practical applications in mineral exploration.

Before joining UTAS, I undertook a two-year Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Geological Survey of Canada in Ottawa, funded through the Metal Earth program at Laurentian University. This project used a global database of Pb isotopes from ore deposits to understand early Earth geodynamics and plate tectonics, with implications for ore-forming regions, particularly the Superior Province in Canada.

I completed my PhD at the University of Adelaide in 2019, focusing on the tectonic evolution of supercontinent Gondwana, with a specific emphasis on Madagascar. My research used isotope geochemistry, structural geology, and geodata analytics to constrain the paleogeography of Madagascar and neighboring regions throughout several supercontinent cycles. This work contributed to refining global plate reconstructions spanning the past billion years.

Prior to my PhD, I worked at Geoscience Australia as a Geochronologist and Mineral Systems Geologist after earning a BSc (Honours) from Monash University.

Interests

  • Plate tectonics
  • Mineral systems/Critical minerals
  • Isotope geochemistry, geochronology
  • Early Earth evolution
  • Computational and statistical methods for geological data analysis

Education

  • PhD in geology, 2019

    The University of Adelaide, Australia

  • Bachelor of Science (Honours), 2013

    Monash University, Australia

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