Functions

What is GPlates?

GPlates is desktop software for the interactive visualisation of plate-tectonics.

GPlates offers a novel combination of interactive plate-tectonic reconstructions, geographic information system (GIS) functionality and raster data visualisation. GPlates enables both the visualisation and the manipulation of plate-tectonic reconstructions and associated data through geological time. GPlates runs on Windows and Linux.

What is a plate-tectonic reconstruction?

The motions of tectonic plates through geological time may be described and simulated using plate-tectonic reconstructions. Plate-tectonic reconstructions are the calculations of the probable positions, orientations and motions of tectonic plates through time, based upon the relative (plate-to-plate) positions of plates at various times in the past which may be inferred from other data. Geological, geophysical and paleo-geographic data may be attached to the simulated plates, enabling a researcher to trace the motions and interactions of these data through time.

The goals of GPlates are:

• to handle and visualise data in a variety of geometries and formats, including raster data
• to link plate kinematics to geodynamic models
• to serve as an interactive client in a grid-computing network
• to facilitate the production of high-quality paleo-geographic maps.

The GPlates program is accompanied by royalty-free data. Work is currently underway on a comprehensive user manual.

What can GPlates do?

As of GPlates 0.9.2, GPlates functionality includes:

• loading data files of geological and tectonic features from Plates4 line-format files and ESRI Shapefiles (including the ability to map shape attributes in a Shapefile to feature properties in GPlates on a per-Shapefile basis)
• loading reconstruction poles from a Plates4 rotation file, to enable geological and tectonic features to be reconstructed through geological time
• loading global raster images in JPEG format, including time-sequences of raster images, to enable visualisation of “gridded” geophysical data such as mantle density anomalies and mantle-convection-driven dynamic surface topography
• saving geological and tectonic features in the Plates4 line-format
• displaying a 3-D orthographic projection of geological and tectonic features, and raster images, on the globe
• reconstructing features to a desired geological time-instant, or animating over a period of geological time
• moving and re-orienting the camera (the viewpoint of the user), by “dragging” the mouse on the globe, using the keyboard arrow keys, or specifying the desired viewpoint in a dialog box
• zooming the camera, using the scroll-wheel of the mouse, the click-to-zoom tool, the slider on the right-hand-side of the reconstruction view, or the zoom buttons in the toolbar
• querying the properties (attributes) of features, and editing the non-geometric properties of features, by clicking upon their displayed geometries on-screen
• exporting a 2-D geometry snapshot of the current orthogonal-projected contents of the reconstruction view in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format, for later viewing in a web-browser or vector-graphics editor such as Adobe Illustrator
• listing tables of total reconstruction poles (finite rotations) for the current reconstruction time: relative and equivalent rotations for each plate; a tree-like representation of the rotation hierarchy; the circuit between any plate and the stationary reference frame
• exporting tables of total reconstruction poles in CSV (comma-separated value) format, for later viewing in a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel.

What's next in GPlates?

We are currently working on the following features and functionality:

• interactive digitisation of features and graphical manipulation of geometries
• loading and saving data in the GPlates Markup Language (GPML) format, a custom-designed XML-based file format capable of representing all the various types of current and next-generation data we want GPlates to be able to handle
• a variety of map-projections (in addition to the current 3-dimensional orthographic projection of the globe)
• GPlates on MacOS X
• interactive plate-boundary closure, enabling GPlates to generate plate-tectonic boundary conditions for geodynamic models in software such as:
  • the widely-used, open-source, spherical mantle convection package CitComS
  • the next-generation AuScope-funded spherical mantle convection package Underworld