Publications

Published

2026

  • Bao, Xiyuan and Lithgow-Bertelloni, Carolina R. (2026). Morphology, interactions, and evolution of laminar thermal plumes revealed by four-dimensional velocity measurements and analysis: Application to Earth’s mantle. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. Accepted. arXiv

  • Bao, Xiyuan and Lithgow-Bertelloni, Carolina R. (2026). A method for measuring and analyzing four-dimensional flow fields in viscous Rayleigh-Benard Convection. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. Accepted. arXiv

  • Powell, Robert, Cederberg, Gabriel, Dangendorf, Sönke, Lucas, Erica, Bao, Xiyuan, Creveling, Jessica, Tsuji, Steven, Tsuji, Leonard and Mitrovica, Jerry X. (2026). Disproportionate sea level rise in small island developing states of the Pacific and Indian Oceans driven by Greenland and Antarctic ice mass loss. Communications Earth & Environment. DOI

  • Acquadro, Jake, Bao, Xiyuan and Deng, Jie (2026). Local atomic environments reveal structural controls on MgSiO3 liquid-crystal similarity. PNAS Nexus. DOI

  • Bao, Xiyuan, Wamba, Mathurin D. and Stracke, Andreas (2026). A joint geophysical-geochemical deep-mantle zoning map beneath East Africa and the Indian Ocean. Science. DOI

  • Coulson, Sophie, Lloyd, Andrew, Bao, Xiyuan, Mitrovica, Jerry X., Dangendorf, Sönke, Pan, Linda, Valencic, Natasha, Tamisiea, Mark E., Al-Attar, David and Heathcotte, Daniel (2026). Inverting Sea Surface Height Data Yields Greenland Ice Mass Changes (1993-2019): A Proof of Concept. Geophysical Journal International. DOI

  • Lucas, Erica, Richards, Fred, Cederberg, Gabriel, Bao, Xiyuan, Hoggard, Mark J., Tsuji, Stephen R. J., Latychev, Konstantin, Tsuji, Leonard J. S. and Mitrovica, Jerry (2026). Emergence of Antarctic mineral resources in a warming world. Nature Climate Change. DOI

2024

  • Bao, Xiyuan and Lithgow-Bertelloni, Carolina R. (2024). Self-correction of the optical distortion effect of thermal plumes in particle image velocimetry. Physics of Fluids. DOI

  • Bao, Xiyuan, Mittal, Tushar and Lithgow-Bertelloni, Carolina R. (2024). Determining Mid-Ocean Ridge Geography from Upper Mantle Temperature. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. DOI

  • Bao, Xiyuan (2024). PhD Thesis: Hotspots from Top to Bottom. Link

  • Bao, Xiyuan (2024). Giant impact and Earth’s mysterious blobs: An interdisciplinary revelation. Science Bulletin. DOI

2023

  • Xubo Zhang, Eric L. Brown, Jinchang Zhang, Jian Lin, Xiyuan Bao and William W. Sager (2023). Magmatism of Shatsky Rise controlled by plume-ridge interactions. Nature Geoscience. DOI

  • Li, Shaohua, Li, Jiaqi, Ferrand, Thomas P, Zhou, Tong, Lv, Mingda, Xi, Ziyi, Maguire, Ross, Han, Guangjie, Li, Juan, Bao, Xiyuan and others (2023). Deep geophysical anomalies beneath the Changbaishan Volcano. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. DOI

2022

  • Bao, Xiyuan, Lithgow-Bertelloni, Carolina R., Jackson, Matthew G and Romanowicz, Barbara (2022). On the relative temperatures of Earth’s volcanic hotspots and mid-ocean ridges. Science. DOI

Manuscripts submitted

  • Bao, Xiyuan, Mousavi, Mostafa, Latychev, Konstantin and Mitrovica, Jerry. An exact finite-state representation of viscoelastic memory for accelerated sea-level modeling: SLEvolve v1.0. submitted arXiv

  • Bao, Xiyuan, Coulson, Sophie, Valencic, Natasha, Mousavi, Mostafa, Dangendorf, Sönke, Lloyd, Andrew and Mitrovica, Jerry. Neural Operators Reveal Scale-Dependent Limits on Recovering Greenland Ice Loss from Sea-Level Fingerprints. submitted arXiv

  • Cai, Ronghua, Bao, Xiyuan, Foley, Stephen F., Giuliani, Andrea, Jiang, Shihao, Pearson, D. Graham and Liu, Jingao. Evidence for a highly fusible fundamental constituent in the convective mantle. In Revision

  • Wurmser, Sylvie S., Al Asad, Manar, Bao, Xiyuan, Creveling, Jessica, Mitrovica, Jerry X. and Tryon, Christian A.. Reopening the Southern Gate: Early Pleistocene Sea Level and Hominin Dispersal Across the Red Sea. Under review at PNAS

  • Wei Wang, Xubo Zhang, Feng Xu, Zihua Cheng, Xiyuan Bao, Andreas Stracke, Caicai Zha, Fan Zhan and Jian Lin. Ultra-depleted mantle beneath the Marion Rise and its implications for ocean rise uplift. submitted

Manuscripts in preparation

  • Bao, Xiyuan, Cao, Zebin, Gourley, Kenneth Christopher, Gutierrez, Sara, Liang, Yuanyuan, Zhou, Dongyuan, Buffett, Bruce A, Mittal, Tushar, Li, Jie, Pierrehumbert, Raymond, Schaefer, Laura, Orman, James Van and Foley, Bradford J. Coupled Evolution of Earth’s Hydrogen Distribution and Thermal History.