Reconstructions of tectonic plates and oceanic age-area distribution 200 Ma to present
EarthByte Plate Motion Animations
Last updated: 28 May 2013, Sabin Zahirovic (sabin.zahirovic@sydney.edu.au)

A series of animations are provided that depict the plate tectonic evolution from the breakup of Pangea from ~200 Ma. There is a global (Mollweide) animation and a number of regional animations. The animations require either QuickTime Player (http://www.apple.com/au/quicktime/download/) or VLC (www.videolan.org). The full quality animations are large (~100 Mb), while the web quality animations are smaller (under ~20 Mb). 

The animations were constructed using the Seton et al. (2012) plate motion model and seafloor agegrids. Fracture zones are reconstructed using the Matthews et al. (2011) dataset. Continental regions are light grey, Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) are dark grey, present-day hotspots are red stars, subduction zones are teethed magenta lines, mid oceanic ridges and transforms are thick black lines, present-day coastlines are thin black lines and absolute plate velocities are represented as black vectors. 

The EarthByte_AtlanticOcean83-0Ma animation is an orthographic view from GPlates of the Atlantic with the seafloor shaded by the present-day maximum horizontal gradient of the free-air gravity downward continued to the seafloor. The present-day bedrock topography from ETOPO1 is reconstructed through time for continental regions. This animation was constructed by Nicolas Flament, Joanne Whittaker, Simon Williams and Maria Seton. 

Global Agegrid (Global Mollweide – no velocities)	MP4 (~25 Mb) 	MOV (~64 Mb)
Global Agegrid (Global Mollweide – velocities) 	MP4 (~25 Mb) 	MOV (~83 Mb)

Global Agegrid (Atlantic – no velocities) 	MP4 (~17 Mb) 	MOV (~81 Mb)
Global Agegrid (Atlantic – velocities) 	MP4 (~17 Mb) 	MOV (~94 Mb)
Global Agegrid with ETOPO1 (Atlantic – no velocities) 	MP4 (~13 Mb) 	MOV (~19 Mb)

Global Agegrid (Indian Ocean – no velocities) 	MP4 (~17 Mb) 	MOV (~78 Mb)
Global Agegrid (Indian Ocean – velocities) 	MP4 (~17 Mb) 	MOV (~92 Mb)

Global Agegrid (Antarctic – no velocities) 	MP4 (~17 Mb) 	MOV (~79 Mb)
Global Agegrid (Antarctic – velocities) 	MP4 (~17 Mb) 	MOV (~96 Mb)

Global Agegrid (Arctic – no velocities) 	MP4 (~17 Mb) 	MOV (~91 Mb)
Global Agegrid (Arctic – velocities) 	MP4 (~17 Mb) 	MOV (~109 Mb)

Global Phanerozoic Reconstruction since 542 Ma

An animation of the Phanerozoic continental motions is provided in a Mollweide projection, centred on Africa (0°E), with reconstructed present-day topography from ETOPO-1 over continental regions. The continental motion model is documented by Wright et al. (2013) and is based on the relative plate motion model of Golonka (2007). 

Global Phanerozoic (Mollweide – no velocities)	MP4 (~31 Mb)	MOV (~133 Mb)

References:
Amante, C., Eakins, B., and Boulder, C., 2009, ETOPO1 1 arc-minute global relief model: Procedures, data sources and analysis: NOAA Technical Memorandum.

Golonka, J., 2007, Late Triassic and Early Jurassic palaeogeography of the world: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 244, no. 1-4, p. 297-307.

Matthews, K. J., Müller, R. D., Wessel, P., and Whittaker, J. M., 2011, The tectonic fabric of the ocean basins: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 116, no. B12, p. B12109.

Sandwell, D., and Smith, W., 2009, Global marine gravity from retracked Geosat and ERS-1 altimetry: Ridge segmentation versus spreading rate: J. geophys. Res, v. 114.

Seton, M., Müller, R., Zahirovic, S., Gaina, C., Torsvik, T., Shephard, G., Talsma, A., Gurnis, M., Turner, M., Maus, S., and Chandler, M., 2012, Global continental and ocean basin reconstructions since 200 Ma: Earth-Science Reviews, v. 113, no. 3-4, p. 212-270.

Wright, N., Zahirovic, S., Müller, R. D., and Seton, M., 2013, Towards community-driven paleogeographic reconstructions: integrating open-access paleogeographic and paleobiology data with plate tectonics: Biogeosciences, v. 10, no. 3, p. 1529-1541.