Dr Derya Gürer is a Lecturer in Earth Sciences at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland in Brisbane, and Adjunct Lecturer at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, Australia, and a visiting fellow at the School of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Queensland University of Technology. She received her BSc in Geoscience from the University of Bonn, Germany (2010), a MSc in Physics of Geological Processes from the University of Oslo, Norway (2012), and PhD in Tectonics & Geodynamics from Utrecht University, The Netherlands (2017). Derya is passionate about the ocean and a crew member and participant of the eXXpedition’s non-profit program to raise awareness of marine microplastics.

A geologist by training, Derya is fascinated by the formation and evolution of Earth’s lithosphere and its link to plate tectonics and plate boundary reorganizations, as well as in the timescales of tectonic processes. To kinematically reconstruct the tectonic evolution of oceans and continents in space and back in time, and to quantify their motion, she collects and synthesizes structural geological, marine magnetic, paleomagnetic, seismic, geo-and thermochronologic data. Derya’s current research is focused on the tectonic evolution of the SW Pacific region since the Late Cretaceous, which she reconstructs using offshore and onshore geological records. On the upcoming voyage Derya will help with the broad-scale deep water mapping effort and the acquisition of magnetic data. Knowledge of the seafloor fabric will help to reconstruct the region’s complex tectonic history.

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