# Hotspot track, visualisation and ascii file

**URL:** https://discourse.gplates.org/t/hotspot-track-visualisation-and-ascii-file/297
**Category:** Q&A
**Created:** [19 April 2021 20:22 UTC](https://discourse.gplates.org/t/hotspot-track-visualisation-and-ascii-file/297 "2021-04-19T20:22:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![wbm06seismo](https://discourse.gplates.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/5fc32e/32.png) [@wbm06seismo](https://discourse.gplates.org/u/wbm06seismo)
#### Post date: [19 April 2021 20:22 UTC](https://discourse.gplates.org/t/hotspot-track-visualisation-and-ascii-file/297/1 "2021-04-19T20:22:40Z")

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I am new here and I am trying to figure it out how can I visualise hotspot track with Gplates and extract a file (latitude, longitude, age) for a specific hotspot and plot results on a GMT figures.

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### Author: ![john.cannon](https://discourse.gplates.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/3e96dc/32.png) [@john.cannon](https://discourse.gplates.org/u/john.cannon)
#### Post date: [20 April 2021 02:16 UTC](https://discourse.gplates.org/t/hotspot-track-visualisation-and-ascii-file/297/2 "2021-04-20T02:16:24Z")

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Hi Walid,

You can create a motion path to visualise the path that the hotspot tracks through time. Have a look at the GPlates tutorial on [Flowlines and Motion Paths](https://sites.google.com/site/gplatestutorials/).

Then you can export `Motion Paths` to `.xy` format, containing longitude and latitude (and time) of the path, which can be read/plotted by GMT.