Dr Hugo Olierook

Banner photo: Gorges of mid-Paleozoic Tumblagooda Sandstone, Kalbarri National Park. Photo courtesy of S. Olierook.

Hugo Olierook is a Senior Research Fellow and DECRA Fellow at the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University. His primary focus is unravelling the controls on past environmental crisis through studying the tempo of volatile gas emissions from supervolcanic eruptions in the last 500 million years. On the side, Hugo also aids the mining and mineral exploration industry through bespoke geochronology and geochemistry projects. Hugo is also passionate about teaching, outreach to school-aged students and less-reached groups, and geoscience communication.

Hugo has had a long-standing history with Curtin; he completed an Honours degree in Geology and was awarded a PhD in Geology, both from Curtin University, for his thesis entitled "Tectono-stratigraphic evolution during rifting of the southwestern Australian margin". After a postdoc position at the University of Liverpool, UK, he returned to Perth as a postdoctoral research associate working on the "Distal Footprints of Ore Systems" project in the Capricorn Orogen, Western Australia. Hugo has a broad expertise in tectonics, mineral systems, geochronology, isotope geochemistry and basin analysis.

Hugo enjoys spending time with his family, playing and watching sports, board games and  – naturally – making epic advancements in science.