Müller received his undergraduate degree from the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel in Germany, followed by a PhD in earth science from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California in 1993.
It is specifically designed to generate time-dependent boundary conditions for geodynamic models to link plate motion and deformation to both deep Earth evolution as well as surface processes (erosion and sedimentation).
In one of his most cited work, Müller led the construction of the first digital grid of the geological age of the world's ocean basins which became the resource for hundreds of publications.
[5] Using ocean basin reconstructions, his team showed that the ancient Izanagi mid-ocean ridge was destroyed when it plunged beneath an area stretching from Korea to north of Japan (Science, 2007).
Using spatio-temporal data mining, his team also constructed the first prospectivity map for Australian opal, revealing that it occurs where Cretaceous shallow seas and river systems alternated in Australia's Great Artesian Basin, followed by uplift (Computers and Geosciences, 2013).
In 2015, Müller contributed a plate tectonic animation to NOAA (US) Science on a Sphere program, utilising their interactive 3D spherical projection systems that are installed at museums, universities and schools.