25 June 2021

This directory contains the Zahirovic et al. (2022) "continental" polygons, derived from the Static Polygons. Please note that the definition of "continental" in this instance is rather loose, and contains continental crust and volcanically-modified oceanic crust (including island arcs). 

Static polygons allows plate IDs to be assigned to other data set, and reconstruct raster data. These polygons, and the set of isochrons defining the age of the ocean floor, are consistent with the grid of seafloor age of Zahirovic et al. (2022). 

Please use the following citation for this dataset:

Zahirovic, S., Eleish, A., Doss, S., Pall, J., Cannon, J., Pistone, M., and Fox, P., 2022, Subduction kinematics and carbonate platform interactions: Geoscience Data Journal.

Two file formats are given:

Global_EarthByte_GPlates_PresentDay_ContinentalPolygons.gpmlz - native GPlates Markup Language .gpml compressed format
Shapefile/Global_EarthByte_GPlates_PresentDay_ContinentalPolygons.shp - ESRI shapefile .shp format

To load these datasets in GPlates do the following:

1.  Open GPlates
2.  Pull down the GPlates File menu and select the operation Open Feature Collection
3.  Click the file format you want to load
4.  Click Open 

Alternatively, drag and drop the GPMLZ or SHP file onto the globe.

Note: When loading a shapefile, GPlates may prompt you to associate shapefile attributes with GPlates model properties. You just need to click OK. However, if loading your own shapefiles, you may need to ensure that the model properties are mapped correctly.
                   
In order to reconstruct these features, you will need to load in the underlying rotation model (.rot file) which can be found in the GeoData or downloaded from http://www.earthbyte.org/gplates-2-4-software-and-data-sets/.  

Play around with the GPlates buttons to make an animation, select features, draw features, etc.  For more information, read the GPlates manual which can be downloaded from www.gplates.org.
   
               
Any questions, please email:            
                                        Dietmar Müller dietmar.muller@sydney.edu.au
                                       	Sabin Zahirovic sabin.zahirovic@sydney.edu.au
                                    	Maria Seton maria.seton@sydney.edu.au							
