Dear Folks
Trying to use Gplates, I often see that the velocity azimuths in the reconstruction images are different from the azimuths in the Kinematics Tool. I use GPlates 2.5.0_win64 and dataset for the Plate Motion Model of Zahirovic et al, 2022.
The example of such a discrepancy is demonstrated in the attached images for the reconstruction of the Pacific plate (ID 901) at 48 and 47 Ma.
Anchored Plate ID = 0.
Time step is set to 1 Ma
In the reconstruction images we see azimuths ~330 degrees at 48 Ma and ~270 at 47 Ma.
The Kinematics Tool gives azimuths ~5 degrees at 48 Ma and ~291 at 47 Ma (at Lat 60 Lon 150).
Which results are correct and why does this discrepancy occur?
Is this problem related to the dataset or to the functioning of the software?
I will greatly appreciate any advice/suggestion…
This is caused by the same thing as in this thread.
If I do a similar thing as in that thread (ie, digitize at point somewhere in the middle of the Pacific plate at 48 Ma, give it plate ID 901, and then check its present day coordinates) then I get present day coordinates roughly (13, 164). And putting those coordinates into the Kinematics Tool I get the following which matches with the reconstruction images (ie, ~340 degrees at 48 Ma and ~290 degrees at 47 Ma)…
Dear John, thank you so very much for your time and efforts in finding the explanation of this discrepancy. Yes, the kinematics tool works a lot better with a present day location of the point digitized in the reconstruction image.