1. Introduction

The major additional feature of the advanced mapping system is the possibility, to enter custom locations, which are then plotted into the maps. These locations will be rotated and plotted according to the specified plate and timeslice. To do this is not simple and can easily cause errors, that's why it was separated from the basic plotting of the maps. This page explains how to enter data into the form and gives the necessary information on the naming of the plates and crust fragments.

At the beginning it is important to understand, that the most important information needed to plot platetectonic maps are:

1. The plate, a location belogs to and
2. in case of oceanic locations, the age, when the crust first formed.

2. Entering Custom Data

Data is entered (or you can copy/paste from an ASCII-editor) into the box below, using one line for each new datapoint. The following general syntax is used:

longitude latitude ["annotation"] [platecode] [age_from] [age_to]

Each lon-lat pair specifies a location today, which you want to appear on a paleo map. The numbers have to be given in decimal degrees, so don't try anything like 12 30' - it won't work! 12.5 is correct. The platecode is a 3-letter abbreviation for a tectonic plate or fragment, as for which you want the location to be rotated. The annotation may be given, if you want the location to be labeled somehow. By entering age_from and age_to you may specify a time window during which the location existed. If you use many locations, this might be comfortable because you don't need to sort out locations but can paste the same datafile into the box for several timeslices.

Please note, that the options have to stay in the right order, so if you want to change the age_from, you have to mention the platecode in that line too, even if it doesn't change. The exception to is the annotation string, which has to be set into quotes ("), but can be given anywhere or not at all.

3. Plate Codes

Platecodes are the most important, but also most tricky thing. First of all, you have to specify a platecode in the first line. Platecodes in the following lines are optional and only necessary, if the locations were on a different plate than the ones before. In other words, you have to specify an initial platecode and the following will be treated as if they were on the same plate, as long as you don't specify a new code.

An Example would be:

40.000000 0.000000 NAF
50.000000 0.000000
60.000000 0.000000
70.000000 0.000000 IND
80.000000 0.000000
90.000000 0.000000 AUS

Now - where do you get the platecodes from? We've prepared a set of figures, which show different the parts of the world, and also give the platecodes for the plates and fragments in that region. These Areas are:

4. Age Windows

5. Annotations

If you want to annotate your locations, you can do that too by specifying an annotation string. This string has to be put in double quotes (") and follows the general GMT syntax:

"size angle fontno justify text"

Size gives the font size of the labels. Usually something between 10 and 13 will be ok.

Angle is the angle you want your lables to be plotted. It is measured in degrees counterclockwise from horizontal.

Font assignes a font to the labels. Possibilities range from 0 - 33. The most common are:

• 0 = Helvetica
• 1 = Helvetica Bold
• 4 = Times Roman
• 5 = Times Bold
• 8 = Courier

6. Bugs

So far there are no known bugs.