Reconstructions: work in GPlates 2.2, but don't work in 2.3

Q&A
1

Dear colleagues,

could you guess, please, why reconstruction works correctly in GPlates 2.2, but doesn’t work in GPlates 2.3? I use Baltica.shp and Baltica260PM.rot files from Tutorial. Below you can watch short Youtube movie where I’ve recorded this situation:
https://youtu.be/T8kXHym2swo

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

2

Hi Roman,

It’s actually because the rotation file in the tutorial is missing a rotation at time 0Ma.

Currently it’s just…

302  260.0 0.00    66.8   41.90 000 !Euler for Permian Pole Baltica

…but it should be…

302  0.0   90.0    0.0    0.0   000 !
302  260.0 0.00    66.8   41.90 000 !Euler for Permian Pole Baltica

I’m currently looking into uploading this change to the online tutorials. But, in the meantime, if you make that change in your local copy of Baltica260PM.rot then both GPlates 2.2 and 2.3 should behave the same.

There were quite a few changes to the implementation of reconstruction trees in GPlates 2.3, so it’s likely that GPlates 2.2 somehow assumed a zero rotation at present day (even when it’s not specified). The 2.3 changes improved memory usage and speed, and also added the following option…

image

1 Like
3

Thanks a lot, John!
All the best!