I am new to GPlates, and I need help with working on a step 2 of Exercise 4 on Tutorial 2.2 on the following site: Tutorial 2.2 Changing Rotations, Equivalent Finite Rotations, and Cross-Overs. Could someone be able to help me about how to interactively modify the rotation of Iberia (304)? I am not sure if my error is in the text editing for the rotation file where the rows after 38 Mya should be 999 or whether I am using the tool incorrectly. The figure I have attached below is a screenshot of how I have moved Iberia but not actually rotated it. I am also confused by the Eurasian continent with which Iberia is supposed to move relative to because in the tutorial, it is not named 302 but 301 for the plate ID. 302 seems to be for the Eurasian plate and the Baltica plate, and 301 seems to be for smaller plates within the region of Europe. Is anyone getting the same problem when they try to do this part of the tutorial?
See the screenshots below. You need to “apply” your change. And you need to save the rotation file if you want to make your change permanent.
All the position changes on the globe are “rotations”. When you move the geometry, the geometry actually is rotating around a pole.
When you have changed the rotation at 38Ma, you can see a “jump” if you play the reconstruction animation at 38Ma. And then, you need to follow the tutorial to fix the “jump”.
Plate id 302 is stationary relative to 301. I guess it does not matter.
I have actually been continuing to work on the GPlates tutorials, and I have been gradually understanding more and more of it over time. I noticed that when I try to rotate the Iberian plate to exactly how the tutorial wants me to in Exercise 4 Step 2 and Figure 20, I can never get close to the values in latitude, longitude, and angle of rotation, and I realized that this might be because the manipulated plate is not moving around a pole or axis of rotation for that rotation. As I continue to try, the plate keeps moving laterally (either horizonatlly or vertically) but not rotating. This conflicts with what I know about plates’ rotation so I was wondering if I could maybe make this issue fixed or get a clearer understanding about what is happening with this situation.
By the way, I am very grateful for all your previous replies to my questions. It has been slow for me in getting to learn this software.
