A group of Earth scientists led by Utrecht University has created an online tool that shows where any place on Earth was located hundreds of millions of years ago. Using a refined geological reconstruction model, the platform lets users trace the movement of continents and tectonic plates all the way back to the age of Pangea.
The research, published in PLOS One, gives scientists a much sharper view of Earth’s ancient geography. The model could help researchers studying climate history, fossils, biodiversity, and the evolution of long-vanished continents.
That matters because latitude strongly influences climate. Scientists trying to understand ancient ecosystems therefore need to know not only the age of rocks and fossils, but also where those rocks originally formed. Earlier paleogeographic models already attempted this kind of reconstruction, though many lacked detailed information about smaller tectonic plates and fragmented continental blocks.
Earth’s Continents Rebuilt
The new platform, Paleolatitude.org, allows users to enter any modern location and see its estimated latitude at different points in Earth’s history. The current reconstruction stretches back 320 million years, covering the formation and breakup of Pangea.
Researchers behind the project explain in PLOS One that the updated model includes the movement of smaller tectonic plates as well as “lost continents” that disappeared long ago into Earth’s mantle.
Among them are Greater Adria, the Tethys Himalayas, and Argoland. Pieces of these ancient landmasses still exist today as folded rock formations inside mountain ranges across the Mediterranean region, the Himalayas, and Indonesia.
Lead researcherDouwe van Hinsbergen said the improved reconstruction now makes it possible to connect those rocks to the tectonic plates they originally belonged to before geological processes buried them deep beneath Earth’s surface.
Rocks Preserved Earth’s Magnetic Past
To determine where continents were located millions of years ago, scientists relied heavily on magnetic information stored inside ancient rocks. Many of them contain magnetic minerals that aligned with Earth’s magnetic field at the moment the rocks formed.Bram Vaes, a co-author of the study working at the CEREGE research institute in France,
“Because the angle formed by Earth’s magnetic field and Earth’s surface changes gradually from the poles towards the equator and is therefore linked to latitude. And many rocks contain magnetic minerals that ‘recorded’ the direction of the magnetic field at that location when the rock was formed. So, using this, we can determine at what latitude such a rock was formed.”
He also explained that this magnetic information is combined with dating techniques and tectonic reconstructions to rebuild the movement of plates through time. One example highlighted by the Utrecht team involves 245-million-year-old fossils discovered in Winterswijk in the Netherlands. Researchers studying the area found evidence of tropical seas and desert-like conditions similar to those seen around today’s Persian Gulf.
The explanation was geographical rather than purely climatic. Earlier work from the same research group had already shown that the Netherlands occupied latitudes comparable to modern Arabia during that period.
The Future of Biodiversity Research May Be Here
The team says the reconstruction could become a valuable tool for studying biodiversity and past mass extinctions. Mountain ranges formed by tectonic collisions contain large numbers of fossils, and the improved model helps scientists place those species more accurately within ancient climate zones. Emilia Jarochowska, a paleontologist at Utrecht University, added that:
“This allows us, for example, to show what happened to global biodiversity during and after mass extinctions in the past, for instance due to Earth rapidly warming or cooling,” she explained in the university statement.
Future versions of the model are expected to extend even further back in time, eventually reaching theCambrian explosion around 550 million years ago.
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