List of GPlates rotation files

My dissertation is on BIOgeography, I swear!  I’ve had a hard time finding plate tectonic reconstructions (rotation files, .rot or .grot) to use in GPlates (hopefully a post on that sometime soon), so I will try to add to this list as I learn more.

Global rotation files:

  • First, the main GPlates Download page.  Scroll down to the “Download GPlates-compatible data” section, which contains some of what is listed here.
  • GPlates official sample data was commented on here.
  • Earthbyte rotations go back to 140 Ma.
  • CalTech rotations (which may or may not be different from EarthByte) go back to 140 Ma. 
  • Seton et al. (2012) rotations go back to 200 Ma.
  • Golonka (2007) has global rotation data in the supporting online material for the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic.
  • Supporting data for Williams et al. (2012), available from an FTP link in the text, has a rotation file from 1100 Ma to 530 Ma based on “the model of all Rodinia described by Li et al. (2008)” (SupplementaryTutorial2.pdf, p. 5).

Regional rotation files:

  • Australia
    • A rotation file for Australia (~1100 Ma – 530 Ma) by Giles et al. (2003) is included in the Williams et al. (2012) supporting data, above. 
    • A rotation file for Australia (~1100 Ma – 530 Ma) by Henson et al. (2011) is included in the Williams et al. (2012) supporting data, above.
    • A rotation file for Australia (~1100 Ma – 530 Ma) by Li and Evans (2011) is included in the Williams et al. (2012) supporting data, above.