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Home / Selected Geology / Palaeogeography

BBC Online, BBC Education, London: The Essential Guide to Rocks (This animation was a collaborative effort between the BBC, Birkbeck College London, and H & K Netcoms): Britain's Rocky Past. An animation and interactive timeline featuring 4600 million years of dramatic continental drift, fossil life and rocks, including simplified UK geological maps (Click "Rock map"). You'll need the Shockwave Flash plugin. Click " Go to animation".

The Museum of Paleontology (UCMP), University of California at Berkeley: Plate Tectonics. See the plate tectonics animation of the last 750 million years, using 1.44MB, 750KB or 350KB. Animation built from images provided by Christopher R. Scotese, PALEOMAP Project, U. Texas at Arlington.

Ron Blakey, Department of Geology, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff: Regional Paleogeographic Views of Earth History. See also: Paleogeography of the Southwestern US. Palaeogeographic maps and globes. The images presented here show the palaeogeography of the SW US from 1.8 billion years ago to 10 million years ago.

Art Chadwick, Department of Biology, Southwestern Adventist University, Keene, TX: Lithologic, Paleogeographic, and Paleocurrent Maps of the World. These maps depict the distribution of lithologies and the paleocurrents by geologic periods.

Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago: Paleogeographic Atlas Project. Using the data bases and their own specially designed software, the Paleogeographic Atlas Project scientists construct paleomaps of the Earth (the paleogeology of the past 250 million years). These "snapshots" contain detailed geologic information - the height of mountains, depth of oceans, even clues to ancient climate - compiled from field work by geologists and paleontologists working around the world.

Ocean Drilling Stratigraphic Network (ODSN), by GEOMAR, Research Center for Marine Geosciences / Kiel and the Geological Institute of the University Bremen: ODSN Plate Tectonic Reconstruction Service. Calculate platetectonic reconstructions of any age back to 150 My. A Plate Tectonic Animation (330 kb) using 5 my timesteps is available too.

Ocean Drilling Stratigraphic Network (ODSN), by GEOMAR, Research Center for Marine Geosciences / Kiel and the Geological Institute of the University Bremen: ODSN Plate Tectonic Reconstruction Service. In this site you can calculate platetectonic reconstructions of any age back to 150 My. An animation (330 kb) using 5 my timesteps is available too.

Art Chadwick: Lithologic, Paleogeographic, and Paleocurrent Maps of the World. Maps in global projection showing distribution of lithologies of rocks and paleocurrent directions, grouped by geologic period (Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic).

SE Asia Research Group, Department of Geology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey, U.K.: Palaeogeographic Maps of SE Asia.

handprint media: The Geological Evolution of the Earth. This web site presents in a vertical time line images of the Earth's geologic evolution from 510 million years ago to the present.

Bruce C. Heezen and Marie Tharp, Tectonic Designs, (page hosted by SIMall.com): World Ocean Floors. Unfortunately in small size 8.91 x 4.83 cm, 150 dpi (jpg). This amazing piece of work accurately illustrates the tectonic Earth including mid-ocean ridges, the giant Pacific Plate, continental shelves, and undersea mountain chains.

M. Alan Kazlev, Kheper website, Australia: Pangea.

Palaeobotanical Research Group, Münster, Westfälische Wilhelms University, Münster, Germany. History of Palaeozoic Forests, PALAEOZOIC PALAEOGEOGRAPHY. Link list page with picture rankings. Explore the Palaeozoic world and see continents move through time and space, and learn about climate and vegetation.

Natureandco.com: The Supercontinent of Gondwana. The picture adapted from the New Zealand Geographical Atlas shows a representation of the supercontinent of Gondwana 200 million years ago.

Nederlandse Vereniging voor Kartografie: Gondwana. Shockwave and GIF plate tectonic animatioms. To see the evolution of Australia, Antarctica, Africa, and India with attendant faults and hot spots, go to the animated GIF version on-line.

Ocean Drilling Stratigraphic Network (ODSN), by GEOMAR, Research Center for Marine Geosciences / Kiel and the Geological Institute of the University Bremen: ODSN Plate Tectonic Reconstruction Service. In this site you can calculate platetectonic reconstructions of any age back to 150 My. An animation (330 kb) using 5 my timesteps is available too.

Jeff Poling, Dinosauria On-Line: Maps of Ancient Earth. Series of maps showing the positions of the various land masses of the earth from the present to the Ordovician.

Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City: Exploring the Earth, demonstrations of fundamental Earth processes. Plate Tectonics. A Java applet. Rotate Africa back to South America through the past 135 million years. Enter a latitude and longitude for the rotation pole (these values may be off the map shown on the screen). Hit enter after you type in each number. To rotate Africa, either click on the arrows to either side of the slider bar, or click and hold on the slider to move it manually. The angles will increment by 4 degrees each time.

ScienceProf.com. Go to: Free samples for evaluation, Sea-floor Spreading. A shockwave flash animation. This animation was constructed from USGS age and bathymetry maps for the North and South Atlantic Oceans and surrounding continents. The youngest rocks (red colors) clearly outline the mid-ocean ridge system, complete with transform faults. The oldest ocean crust, colored blue, is confined to offshore regions adjacent to the United States, Canada, and western Africa. This distribution clearly demonstrates that the North Atlantic began to open before the South Atlantic. Note the goodness of fit of the conjugate continental shelfs as compared with the coastlines. Subduction in the Caribbean region and opening of the Bay of Biscay are not shown. The "young" colors west of Chile are due to recent subduction under the Andes.

Christopher R. Scotese: Paleomap Project. Travel back through time and check out what the earth looked like during the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras, and what it may look like far into the future.

! G.M. Stampfli, et al., Institute of Geology and Paleontology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland: Plate Reconstruction. A series of kinematic plate reconstructions are proposed together with detailed regional geological maps for determined periods. You can also navigate from the Tethyan plate tectonic evolution page. This page has been created with data from the IGCP 369 working group. Don´t miss the Global views.

Gérard Stampli (and research group), Section des Sciences de la Terre, Université de Lausanne: TETHYAN PLATE TECTONICS. On the understanding of the Tethyan oceanic domains and their development in terms of plate-tectonics and actualistic geodynamics. See also: Links to Plate Tectonics Sites.

Kensaku Tamaki, Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo: Plate Motion Calculator. Past plate motion still under construction.

Web DoGS: Virtual Plates. Go to: Deconstructing Pangaea. Several different map projections of Pangaea over the past 150 Ma (Java required). Use the mouse (or the arrow keys on your keyboard) to scroll left or right through geologic time, from the late Jurassic (150 Ma) to the Present (O Ma).

WebDoGS, maintained by the students and faculty of the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Kentucky: WebDoGS Virtual Plates. Paleogeographic reconstructions.