On the 30th of October 2024 GPlates Software Development had its 21st birthday. The first public version of GPlates was released exactly 21 years ago, with development led by the legendary James Boyden, who had teamed up with the no less legendary Hamish Ivey-Law who unfortunately could not join us at the Opera Bar for … Read more…
GPlates 2.5 released Download GPlates 2.5:- Download GPlates 2.5 and compatible geodata from the Download page. What’s new in GPlates 2.5:- This release finally has subduction zone teeth (pointing to the overriding plate)! Subduction zone teeth in 3D globe and 2D map views. Topological boundaries coloured by individual boundary line segments. Instead of each boundary polygon … Read more…
GPlates is a free desktop software for the interactive visualisation of plate-tectonics. The compilation and documentation of GPlates 2.5 data was primarily funded by AuScope National Collaborative Research Infrastructure (NCRIS).
GPlates is developed by the EarthByte Group (part of AuScope NCRIS) at the University of Sydney and the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS) at California Institute of Technology (CalTech). … Read more…
Welcome to the download page for GPlates 2.5. Information about this release may be found on the News page of the GPlates website. This page contains the following sections: Download file descriptions There are 10 download files consisting of: GPlates binary installers The binary installers include GPlates and the GPlates-compatible geodata. For Windows: For macOS … Read more…
GPlates 2.4 released A note about GPlates 2.4:- This release contains mostly bug fixes (compared to GPlates 2.3). We’ve also added some Scientific Colour Maps by Fabio Crameri to our builtin colour palettes. However, most new functionality is still in development and will go into the GPlates 3.0 release (late 2024). This is because it depends on the graphics … Read more…
GPlates is a free desktop software for the interactive visualisation of plate-tectonics. The compilation and documentation of GPlates 2.4 data was primarily funded by AuScope National Collaborative Research Infrastructure (NCRIS).
GPlates is developed by the EarthByte Group (part of AuScope NCRIS) at the University of Sydney and the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS) at California Institute of Technology (CalTech). … Read more…
Low‐temperature thermochronology is a powerful tool for constraining the thermal evolution of rocks and minerals in relation to a breadth of tectonic, geodynamic, landscape evolution, and natural resource formation processes through deep time. However, complexities inherent to these analytical techniques can make interpreting the significance of results challenging, requiring them to be placed in their … Read more…
GPlates 2.3 is released! It enables computation of tectonic syn- and post-rift subsidence for basins/margins, supports Retina displays, can export GeoJSON files and comes with many bugfixes. Download GPlates2.3
GPlates is a free desktop software for the interactive visualisation of plate-tectonics. The compilation and documentation of GPlates 2.3 data was primarily funded by AuScope National Collaborative Research Infrastructure (NCRIS).
GPlates is developed by the EarthByte Group (part of AuScope NCRIS) at the University of Sydney and the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS) at California Institute of Technology (CalTech). … Read more…
THE RISE AND DEMISE OF EARTH’S GIANT REEF SYSTEMS Expression of Interest This PhD scholarship is only available to Australian domestic applicants. Submit your expression of interest for this PhD scholarship opportunity to Dr Sabin Zahirovic via email (sabin.zahirovic@sydney.edu.au) by 30 June 2021 (with the subject line “DECRA-PHD-2021”). In your expression of interest, include … Read more…
In Eastern Asia, Jurassic and Cretaceous intraplate volcanism and magmatism differ in their spatial distribution and composition. A combination of plate kinematic and geodynamic models provides clues for their causes.
In the latest Geology Bites podcast series, Dietmar Muller talks about the challenges and benefits of reconstructing Earth evolution over a billion years with Oliver Strimpel, former astrophysicist and museum director, and Visiting Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University. https://www.geologybites.com/ A transcript of the podcast can be found here.
Abstract: Polymetallic nodules found on the abyssal plains of the oceans represent one of the slowest known geological processes, and are a source of critical and rare metals for frontier technologies. A quantitative assessment of their occurrence worldwide has been hampered by a research focus on the northeastern Pacific Ocean and the lack of a … Read more…
Abstract: Subduction is a fundamental mechanism of material exchange between the planetary interior and the surface. Despite its significance, our current understanding of fluctuating subducting plate area and slab volume flux has been limited to a range of proxy estimates. Here we present a new detailed quantification of subduction zone parameters from the Late Triassic … Read more…
Abstract: Anomalous topographic swells and Cenozoic volcanism in east Africa have been associated with mantle plumes. Several models involving one or more fixed plumes beneath the northeastward migrating African plate have been suggested to explain the space-time distribution of magmatism in east Africa. We devise paleogeographically constrained global models of mantle convection and, based on … Read more…
Abstract: Reconstructions of past seafloor age make it possible to quantify how plate tectonic forces, surface heat flow, ocean basin volume and global sea-level have varied through geological time. However, past ocean basins that have now been subducted cannot be uniquely reconstructed, and a significant challenge is how to explore a wide range of possible … Read more…
Abstract: We present an updated oceanic crustal age grid and a set of complementary grids including spreading rate, asymmetry, direction and obliquity. Our dataset is based on a selected set of magnetic anomaly identifications and the plate tectonic model of Müller et al. (2019). We find the mean age of oceanic crust is 64.2 Myrs, … Read more…
Abstract: A major topic of debate in Earth and climate science surrounds the timing of closure of the Central American Seaway. While it is clear that the gateway was closed by ~2.8 Ma, recent studies based on geological and marine molecular evidence have suggested an earlier closing time of early to mid-Miocene. Here, we examine … Read more…
Abstract: Long-term variations in eustatic sea level in an ice-free world, which existed through most of the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic eras, are partly driven by changes in the volume of ocean basins. Previous studies have determined ocean basin volume changes from plate tectonic reconstructions since the Mesozoic; however, these studies have not considered a … Read more…
Abstract: Plate reconstructions since the breakup of Pangaea are mostly based on the preserved spreading history of ocean basins, within absolute reference frames that are constrained by a combination of age-progressive hotspot tracks and palaeomagnetic data. The evolution of destructive plate margins is difficult to constrain from surface observations as much of the evidence has … Read more…
Just in time for science week, our #AuScope supported GPlates Portal has passed 1 million views! The most popular globe remains the vertical gravity gradient globe which highlights the Earth’s lithospheric structure, followed by our seafloor lithology globe. For #ScienceWeek our portal guru Michael Chin has created a new globe for reconstructing the SRTM15 digital elevation model. Check it … Read more…
COVID-19 has stimulated both major behavioural change during lockdown; and new thoughts, experiments and even dreams as many of our human-created systems have come to a raging halt. As the traffic dims, we have the opportunity to ‘remind ourselves that we are embedded in a more-than-human world — and have some fun along the way … Read more…
The GPlates team has updated the relative and absolute plate motions in the Muller et al. (2019) reconstructions. The details of the updates are summarised below. Version 2.0 of the model (including GPlates files, age-grids, global and regional animations, stretching factor grids, etc.) are available to download from this link. The Muller et al. (2019) … Read more…
GPlates is a free desktop software for the interactive visualisation of plate-tectonics. The compilation and documentation of GPlates 2.2 data was primarily funded by AuScope National Collaborative Research Infrastructure (NCRIS).
GPlates is developed by an international team of scientists and professional software developers at the EarthByte Project (part of AuScope) at the University of Sydney, the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS) at CalTech, the Geodynamics team at the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU) and the Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED) at the University of Oslo. … Read more…
A Global Plate Model Including Lithospheric Deformation Along Major Rifts and Orogens Since the Triassic R. Dietmar Müller, Sabin Zahirovic, Simon E. Williams, John Cannon, Maria Seton, Dan J. Bower, Michael G. Tetley, Christian Heine, Eline Le Breton, Shaofeng Liu, Samuel H. J. Russell, Ting Yang, Jonathon Leonard, and Michael Gurnis Journal: Tectonics (open access) … Read more…
EarthByte collaborator and GPlates power user Eline Le Breton is visiting the University of Parma, Italy, this week to give a GPlates short course, in the framework of an ERASMUS+ Mobility Agreement between the University of Parma and the Freie Universität Berlin.
Sedimentary basins around the world are critical to sustaining modern life on Earth. These basins can be thought of as containers that hold water, minerals, energy, and can potentially be used to store carbon dioxide. Unpacking how they form, and where those resources and storage opportunities may lie is a sizeable feat for the best … Read more…
Maria Seton attended Marist College North Shore (Sydney) earlier this week and gave a presentation on “computerised simulations and models of the Earth’s geological history” to a keen group of senior science students. Part of this presentation involved leading a hands-on GPlates activity with the students (see photo). It was a hit and seeing plate … Read more…
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation recently announced two new Officer’s Grants for deep carbon science, supporting important community building and modeling efforts. These new projects will invigorate a community of scientists committed to understanding the evolution of deep carbon through deep time through 2019 and beyond. “Carbon Down Under: Galvanizing Australia’s research community for the … Read more…
The ARC Basin Genesis Hub has made a new interactive rift obliquity globe available on the GPlates Portal at http://portal.gplates.org/cesium/?view=rift_ov, based on a recently published paper entitled “Oblique rifting: the rule, not the exception” in Solid Earth. This virtual globe visualizes extension velocities and obliquities within Earth’s major post-Pangea rift systems. Each circle depicts the … Read more…
