[GPlates-discuss] reference question Earthbyte plate IDs

[Christian.Heine at shell.com]

Hi Franziska,

> I am using the earthbyte plate IDs in one of my project for identifying
> palaeocontinents (PBDB output). Unfortunately I am struggling to find
> the correct reference.
> Can anyone tell me which reference is the correct one for the plate IDs?

This depends a bit on which PlateID data you are using...

> I see Wright et al. (2013) refer to the IDs since the actual ID list is
> from 2007 I doubt that this is the correct reference.

There are quite some incarnations of PlateIDs around which have changed with time and the various releases of GPlates. So it would be good to know which version you are using - "the earthbyte plate IDs" is a bit vague.

I **think** that the first 'official' citation for PlateID assignments was Maria Seton et al.'s 2012 Earth Sci Rev paper which was at the time incorporated in the GPlates Sample Data as base model. That paper is also referenced in the Wright et al. 2013 paper. Previous PlateID versions were never published as such if I recall correctly, but they were released as GPlates Sample Data - in that case you should probably use Boyden et al., 2011 [1].

If you're looking to find out which plate polygon assignment PBDB uses, you might have to ask them. I cannot find any info on the plate polygon versions on the PBDB website. Might well be that this is the Seton et al., ESR 2012 model.

Hope I haven't misunderstood your question,
Christian


[1] Boyden, James A. and Müller, R. Dietmar and Gurnis, Michael and Torsvik, Trond H. and Clark, James A. and Turner, Mark and Ivey-Law, Hamish and Watson, Robin J. and Cannon, John S. (2011) Next-generation plate-tectonic reconstructions using GPlates. In: Geoinformatics: Cyberinfrastructure for the Solid Earth Sciences. Cambridge University Press , Cambridge, pp. 95-113. ISBN 9780521897150. https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/nY-mCxnMRvtqn4XRH82iKU?domain=authors.library.caltech.edu