# Variable Initial Crustal Thickness + Deforming Mesh Bugs

**URL:** https://discourse.gplates.org/t/variable-initial-crustal-thickness-deforming-mesh-bugs/315
**Category:** Q&A
**Created:** [3 June 2021 13:29 UTC](https://discourse.gplates.org/t/variable-initial-crustal-thickness-deforming-mesh-bugs/315 "2021-06-03T13:29:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

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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: [4 June 2021 02:08 UTC](https://discourse.gplates.org/t/variable-initial-crustal-thickness-deforming-mesh-bugs/315/2 "2021-06-04T02:08:28Z")

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Hi Edward,

> [@edward\_clennett](#):
>
> Is there any way you can have a variable initial crustal thickness and/or load in a grd/nc file with thickness values?

Currently you can only assign a constant initial thickness in GPlates. We plan to implement the importing of an initial thickness grid as you noted.

However in pyGPlates you can now do this and it will be available in the next release (after GPlates 2.3 is released, which is soon). You would still need to provide the point locations and initial thicknesses yourself (eg, sample a thickness grd/nc grid). Although before the release we will expose the ability to generate uniformly spaced points _on the globe_ (ie, not just uniform lat/lon) inside a chosen deforming region (ie, polygon boundary). Which means you would just need to take those points and sample the initial thickness grid yourself.

> [@edward\_clennett](#):
>
> Also sometimes when I try to create a deforming mesh, I can add all of my lines to the boundary, but when I click create, no mesh appears.

It sounds like a problem with feature IDs of some sort. Have a look at [this post](https://discourse.gplates.org/t/work-with-opologies/194/3), but that might not be the answer since you’re not saving and reloading. Even though the mesh does not appear, can you save the mesh to GPML and send to me along with the file(s) containing the features it references (ie, the ones you added to the mesh)?

> [@edward\_clennett](#):
>
> are there specific types of features that must be added … ?

You can add a regular feature (reconstructed by its plate ID) or reconstructed by half stage rotation (eg, mid-ocean ridge). But you cannot add a VirtualGeomagneticPole, SmallCircle, motion path or flowline.

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.gplates.org/t/variable-initial-crustal-thickness-deforming-mesh-bugs/315)._