Software

EarthByte utilises a variety of software to carry out research, some of which are detailed below.

Celebrating Earth Science Week 2026

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A collage of EarthByte research images for Earth Science Week 2026, including plate reconstructions, seismic tomography models, core-mantle heat budgets, and the GPlately and PyGMT software logos.

Happy Earth Science Week from the EarthByters! This is our annual chance to celebrate the science of the planet we all live on, and to share how much there is still to discover about it. The ground under your feet is moving. Right now, at about the speed your fingernails grow, and it has been … Read more…

PyBacktrack1.5 released

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🚀 pyBacktrack 1.5 is now released! The new release makes pyBacktrack easier to install and expands its capabilities for backtracking, backstripping, paleobathymetry reconstruction, dynamic topography, sea-level modelling, and drill-site reconstructions. Users can now install pyBacktrack using: pip install pybacktrack conda install pybacktrack docker pull earthbyte/pybacktrack What’s new in pyBacktrack 1.5? The release adds conda installation … Read more…

PyGPlates 1.0 released

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We’re pleased to announce the release of pyGPlates 1.0. PyGPlates enables access to GPlates functionality via the Python programming language. PyGPlates can now be installed using conda or pip. Please see the installation instructions in the pyGPlates documentation. Note: The old method of manually installing pre-compiled binaries is no longer supported (that’s now handled by conda and pip). But … Read more…

pide: Petrophysical Interpretation tools for geoDynamic Exploration

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pide is a Python library for calculating geophysical parameters (e.g., electrical conductivity, seismic velocity), employing the results from experimental petrology, mineral/rock physics, and thermomechanical modelling studies. pide can calculate the theoretical electrical conductivity of any Earth material that exists in the literature. pide can also calculate seismic velocity utilising the external ‘sister’ library SAnTex. Using … Read more…

rgplates now part of GPlates software family

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rgplates has joined the GPlates family! rgplates allows the integration of tectonic calculations into the R software environment for statistical computing and graphics. Paleogeographic reconstructions in GPlates can be directly connected to a vast number of statistical libraries available in R, which is also the primary scripting language of the paleobiology community. The figure below … Read more…

GPlates 2.5 released

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GPlates 2.5 released Download GPlates 2.5:- Download GPlates 2.5 and compatible geodata from the Download page. What’s new in GPlates 2.5:- This release finally has subduction zone teeth (pointing to the overriding plate)! Subduction zone teeth in 3D globe and 2D map views. Topological boundaries coloured by individual boundary line segments. Instead of each boundary polygon … Read more…

Download GPlates 2.5

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Welcome to the download page for GPlates 2.5. Information about this release may be found on the News page of the GPlates website. This page contains the following sections: Download file descriptions There are 10 download files consisting of: GPlates binary installers The binary installers include GPlates and the GPlates-compatible geodata. For Windows: For macOS … Read more…

GPlates 2.4 released

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GPlates 2.4 released A note about GPlates 2.4:- This release contains mostly bug fixes (compared to GPlates 2.3). We’ve also added some Scientific Colour Maps by Fabio Crameri to our builtin colour palettes. However, most new functionality is still in development and will go into the GPlates 3.0 release (late 2024). This is because it depends on the graphics … Read more…

GPlately1.0 released

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GPlately

We have just released GPlately1.0 as a conda package. GPlately was created to accelerate spatio-temporal data analysis leveraging pyGPlates and PlateTectonicTools within a simplified Python interface. GPlately is a python package that enables the reconstruction of data through deep geologic time (points, lines, polygons and rasters), the interrogation of plate kinematic information (plate velocities, rates of subduction … Read more…

PyGPlates now supports Python 3

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PyGPlates now supports Python 3.  You can download pyGPlates:   http://www.gplates.org/download.html What’s new in pyGPlates revision 28:- Windows and macOS support for Python 2.7, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 and 3.8. macOS libraries signed and notarized by Apple (should no longer get security prompts). Ubuntu support for 16.04 LTS (Xenial), 18.04 LTS (Bionic), 19.10 (Eoan) and 20.04 LTS (Focal). Create topological features (dynamic … Read more…

PyBacktrack 1.3 now available as a Python package and a Docker image.

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PyBacktrack 1.3 is now available as a Python package and a Docker image. The documentation is available at: https://pybacktrack.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ Changes since version 1.2: Supports Python 3: please also use the recent pyGPlates Python 3 release. Added the following output columns: dynamic_topography: change in dynamic topography elevation since present day decompacted_depth: depth from fully decompacted layers (using surface porosity only) … Read more…

PyBacktrack 1.1 has been released as Python package and Docker image

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PyBacktrack is a Python package that backtracks the paleo-water depth of ocean drill sites through time by combining a model of tectonic subsidence with decompaction of the site stratigraphic lithologies. PyBacktrack can also include the effects of mantle-convection driven dynamic topography on paleo-water depth, as well as sea-level variations. PyBacktrack provides a model of tectonic … Read more…

Interactive virtual gravity globe, based on BGI’s global gravity grids by Bonvalot et al. (2012)

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Ready for a fresh start in 2019, our web development guru Michael Chin has created a new interactive virtual gravity globe, based on BGI’s global gravity grids by Bonvalot et al. (2012). The virtual globe allows the user to visualise either Bouguer or isostatic gravity anomalies. The latter has both the effect of surface and … Read more…

Badlands v2.0 is released

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Today version 2.0 of Badlands has been released This release add new capabilities to the code: simulates river entering in the simulation area output of Chi parameter in Hdf5 flow network multi-erodibility layers creation 3D stratigraphic layer displacements This release is compatible with version 1.0.0 and will work with similar XML input files. Download Badlands (source … Read more…

GPlates in Spanish news

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The link below points to an article written about EarthByte and GPlates by a Spanish journalist. The article is titled: “Viaje en una máquina del tiempo virtual a la Tierra de hace 1.000 millones de años: … which translates into: Travel in a virtual time machine to Earth 1,000 million years ago. http://m.eldiario.es/hojaderouter/ciencia/gplates-pangea-geologia-historia-Tierra-big_data_0_482951817.html Buenos dias todos … Read more…

Basin and Landscape Dynamics (Badlands)

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Badlands image

Basin and Landscape Dynamics (Badlands) is a parallel TIN-based landscape evolution model, built to simulate topography development at various space and time scales. The model is capable of simulating hillslope processes, fluvial incision (erosion/transport/deposition), spatially and temporally varying geodynamic (3D displacements) and climatic forces which can be used to simulate changes in base level, as … Read more…

GPlates

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raster_0029Ma

GPlates is desktop software for the interactive visualisation of plate tectonics. The EarthByte Group leads the development of the open-source plate reconstruction software GPlates. GPlates enables the interactive manipulation of plate tectonic reconstructions and the visualisation of geodata through geological time, and it facilitates interoperability of plate tectonic data and models with geodynamic computing services for … Read more…

Ellipsis

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Ellipsis Visual Editor screenshotEllipsis is a lagrangian particle-in-cell finite element modelling software tool with an associated graphical user interface (GUI). Ellipsis, along with its GUI and its associated documentation allow novice users to assemble 2D or 3D numerical experiment for lithospheric extension and/or compression over a convecting mantle or simply run a mantle convection experiment with or without continents in a relatively short time, including the scaling of relevant parameters.  … Read more…

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Generic Mapping Tools (GMT)

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GMT is an open source collection of about 80 command-line tools for manipulating geographic and Cartesian data sets (including filtering, trend fitting, gridding, projecting, etc.) and producing PostScript illustrations ranging from simple x–y plots via contour maps to artificially illuminated surfaces and 3D perspective views; the GMT supplements add another 40 more specialized and discipline-specific … Read more…