PaleoMAP Project (paleomap)
The PaleoMAP Project is to illustrate the plate tectonic development of the ocean basins and continents, as well as the changing distribution of land and sea during the past 1100 million years.
Available variables
dem - PaleoDEM Digital Elevation Models
The dataset downloaded from here.
model - Plate Tectonic Reconstruction Model
The dataset downloaded from here.
paleoatlas -PaleoAtlas paleorasters
The dataset downloaded from here.
adminlines - Administrative boundaries for the PaleoMAP project
Personal communication from C. Scotese.
paleocoastlines -PaleoCoastlines
The dataset downloaded from here.
PaleoDEM Digital Elevation Models
A paleo-digital elevation model (paleoDEM) is a digital representation of paleotopography and paleobathymetry that has been “reconstructed” back in time. It can be used to produce detailed paleogeographic maps. The paleoDEMS describe the changing distribution of deep oceans, shallow seas, lowlands, and mountainous regions during the last 540 million years at five million year intervals. Each PaleoDEM is an estimate of the elevation of the land surface and depth of the ocean basins measured in meters (m) at a resolution of 1×1 degrees.
This dataset requires the ‘ncdf4’ package to load.
Access the digital elevation model variable ("dem") of the “paleomap” dataset with a fetch() function:
maps <- fetch("paleomap", "dem")
Additional arguments
The argument dir represents the path to temporary directory.
The argument verbose (logical) determines should feedback be output to the console?
maps <- fetch(dat = "paleomap", var = "dem", dir, verbose=FALSE)
Resolution
0.5
1.0
Archive size
paleomap_dem_20190719_0.5: 30.6 MB
paleomap_dem_20190719_1: 6.07 MB
Version
20190719
Licence
Plate Tectonic Reconstruction Model
The PALEOMAP PaleoAtlas for GPlates consists of 91 paleogeographic maps spanning the Phanerozoic and late Neoproterozoic. The PaleoAtlas can be directly loaded into GPlates as a Time Dependent Raster file. The paleogeographic maps in the PaleoAtlas illustrate the ancient configuration of the ocean basins and continents, as well as important topographic and bathymetric features such as mountains, lowlands, shallow sea, continental shelves, and deep oceans.
Access the plate tectonic reconstruction model variable ("model") of the “paleomap” dataset with a fetch() function:
maps <- fetch("paleomap", "model")
Additional arguments
The argument dir represents the path to temporary directory.
The argument verbose (logical) determines should feedback be output to the console?
maps <- fetch(dat = "paleomap", var = "model", dir, verbose=FALSE)
Resolution
none
Archive size
paleomap_model_v19o_r1c: 5.11 MB
paleomap_model_v3-GPlates: 5.11 MB
Versions
v3-GPlates
v19o_r1c
Licence
PaleoAtlas paleorasters
The PALEOMAP PaleoAtlas for GPlates consists of 91 paleogeographic maps spanning the Phanerozoic and late Neoproterozoic. The PaleoAtlas can be directly loaded into GPlates as a Time Dependent Raster file. The paleogeographic maps in the PaleoAtlas illustrate the ancient configuration of the ocean basins and continents, as well as important topographic and bathymetric features such as mountains, lowlands, shallow sea, continental shelves, and deep oceans.
This dataset requires the ‘ncdf4’ package to load.
Access the paleoatlas paleorasters variable ("paleoatlas") of the “paleomap” dataset with a fetch() function:
paleoras <- fetch("paleomap", "paleoatlas")
Additional arguments
The argument dir represents the path to temporary directory.
The argument verbose (logical) determines should feedback be output to the console?
paleoras <- fetch(dat = "paleomap", var = "paleoatlas", dir, verbose=FALSE)
Resolution
0.5
0.1
Archive size
paleomap_paleoatlas_20160216v3_0.5: 52.4 MB
paleomap_paleoatlas_20160216v3_0.1: 6.04 MB
Version
20160216v3
Licence
Administrative boundaries for the PaleoMAP project
Present-day administrative boundaries and coastlines used as reference in reconstructed maps. The loaded data have the class SpatialLinesDataFrame, which can be rotated back in time using the reconstruct() function.
Access the present-day administrative boundaries variable ("adminlines") of the “paleomap” dataset with a fetch() function:
paleopc <- fetch("paleomap", "adminlines")
Additional arguments
The argument dir represents the path to temporary directory.
The argument verbose (logical) determines should feedback be output to the console?
paleopc <- fetch(dat = "paleomap", var = "adminlines", dir, verbose=FALSE)
Archive size
paleomap_adminlines_19.0.zip: 5.3 MB
Version
19o
Licence
PaleoMAP PaleoCoastlines
Reconstructions of paleocoastlines based on maximum transgressive surfaces based on the PaleoDEMs and [Paleobiology Database data] as described by Kocsis and Scotese (In Press). The loaded data have the class SpatialArray, with SpatialPolygonsDataFrame-class objects as elements. Rows represent different ages, columns are margin and coast, indicating reconstructions of the continental margins and the coastlines, respectively.
Access the paleocoastlines variable ("paleocoastlines") of the “paleomap” dataset with a fetch() function:
paleocoast <- fetch("paleomap", "paleocoastlines")
Additional arguments
The argument dir represents the path to temporary directory.
The argument verbose (logical) determines should feedback be output to the console?
The argument shapes (logical) indicates whether the original shapefiles should be used for loading the dataset, or the R binaries (fast).
The argument finer (logical) indicates whether those polygon-segments that are farther than 3 degrees in long-lat space, should be resampled. This is necessary for accurate projection changes, or the edges of the map might show some artifacts.
paleocoast <- fetch(dat = "paleomap", var = "paleocoastlines", dir, verbose=FALSE, shapes=FALSE, finer=TRUE)
Archive size
paleomap_paleocoastlines_v7.zip: 17.1 MB
Version
v7
Licence
References
Scotese, C. R. Wright, N. (2018). PALEOMAP Paleodigital Elevation Models (PaleoDEMS) for the Phanerozoic.www.earthbyte.org/paleodem-resource-scotese-and-wright-2018
Scotese, C. R. (2016) Tutorial: PALEOMAP PaleoAtlas for GPlates and the PaleoData Plotter Program. www.earthbyte.org/paleomap-paleoatlas-for-gplates
Kocsis, Á. T., & Scotese, C. R. (In Press). Mapping paleocoastlines and continental flooding during the Phanerozoic. Earth-Science Reviews, 103463. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103463