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Hi all, I built this using an existing model called PALEOMAP [1]. Geologists use desktop software called GPlates that defines a "rotation file" format describi

by typpo 7y ago

Hi all, I built this using an existing model called PALEOMAP [1]. Geologists use desktop software called GPlates that defines a "rotation file" format describing the movement of tectonic plates. I wrote code that uses this file to reverse the rotation of latlng coordinates at arbitrary moments in time. You used to be able to enter an exact address on this site, but the server would overload under heavy traffic as the rotation calculations are CPU intensive (geocoding is also expensive). I solved this problem by precomputing a grid of transformations across 26 out of the 91 available moments in time and reducing the geocoding resolution to about 200,000 cities. [1] https://www.earthbyte.org/paleomap-paleoatlas-for-gplates/ https://www.earthbyte.org/paleomap-paleoatlas-for-gplates/

jamesrcole 7y ago
That's a really cool map. I'd love to be able to click a button and have it show the locations of (say) major world cities, so that I can see surprising adjacencies. So if I look up the location of my hometown 300 million years ago, I can see if there's any places it is far away from today that it was actually much closer to then. It'd help contextualise the location you've entered.
- mncharity 7y ago
  Perhaps a game? Perhaps of minimizing inter-city walking/swimming/flying physical travel, for time travelers whose position when time traveling is anchored to the plate? So "Start at city A. ... Now, fly to Mumbai, and ride it time-forward across the Tethys Sea to Asia. Then fly to D, time-backwards to Gondwana, and fly to E (goal). Distance flown: N km. Distance drifted: N km. Time traveled: N Ma." Note that the existing app can simultaneously show more than one city. I missed that at first.
mncharity 7y ago
Fyi: Could not resolve location for "Banjar Bangli, Bali, ID", "We haven't tracked its tectonic plate that far into the past - try a later year!", even for "first hominids". EDIT: Oh, I see. It does exist for 0 Ma. Perhaps add a 0 Ma "present" item to the "Jump to" pulldown? <strike>Perhaps prune cities for which only 0 Ma data exists?</strike> Random thoughts. Thanks for your thing.
- typpo 7y ago
  That's because Bali formed just a few million years ago, very recently in geological terms!
  - mncharity 7y ago
    Ah, it's apparently Eurasian plate Cenozoic ocean floor uplifted by Indo-Australian plate subduction, with volcanism. Neat. Could one of those plates be used going backward?
delhanty 7y ago
It's nice! I was struck by how rolling back 150 million years ago, South America and Africa were part of the same land mass (that is, the Atlantic Ocean had disappeared) but the British Isles was still separate from Europe.
emmelaich 7y ago
meta: first time I've seen an article on HN with a link back to the same HN comment section. edit - correction - to an earlier thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286770

by typpo 7y ago

jamesrcole 7y ago

That's a really cool map. I'd love to be able to click a button and have it show the locations of (say) major world cities, so that I can see surprising adjacencies. So if I look up the location of my hometown 300 million years ago, I can see if there's any places it is far away from today that it was actually much closer to then. It'd help contextualise the location you've entered.

mncharity 7y ago
Perhaps a game? Perhaps of minimizing inter-city walking/swimming/flying physical travel, for time travelers whose position when time traveling is anchored to the plate? So "Start at city A. ... Now, fly to Mumbai, and ride it time-forward across the Tethys Sea to Asia. Then fly to D, time-backwards to Gondwana, and fly to E (goal). Distance flown: N km. Distance drifted: N km. Time traveled: N Ma." Note that the existing app can simultaneously show more than one city. I missed that at first.

mncharity 7y ago

Fyi: Could not resolve location for "Banjar Bangli, Bali, ID", "We haven't tracked its tectonic plate that far into the past - try a later year!", even for "first hominids". EDIT: Oh, I see. It does exist for 0 Ma. Perhaps add a 0 Ma "present" item to the "Jump to" pulldown? <strike>Perhaps prune cities for which only 0 Ma data exists?</strike> Random thoughts. Thanks for your thing.

typpo 7y ago
That's because Bali formed just a few million years ago, very recently in geological terms!
- mncharity 7y ago
  Ah, it's apparently Eurasian plate Cenozoic ocean floor uplifted by Indo-Australian plate subduction, with volcanism. Neat. Could one of those plates be used going backward?

delhanty 7y ago

It's nice! I was struck by how rolling back 150 million years ago, South America and Africa were part of the same land mass (that is, the Atlantic Ocean had disappeared) but the British Isles was still separate from Europe.

emmelaich 7y ago

meta: first time I've seen an article on HN with a link back to the same HN comment section. edit - correction - to an earlier thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286770