Animations of Phanerozoic Paleogeography

These animated maps show plate tectonic movements since the Cambrian, 540 million years ago. The white dots show the location of Paleobiology Database fossil collections of the appropriate age. The maps were generated with our map drawing tool.

There are also two versions of a map showing the historical growth of the Database from 1998 to the present.

The plate rotation and crust outline data used to make the maps were kindly provided by Chris Scotese. See his PALEOMAP web site for complete information on the methods used to reconstruct the plate motions; additional (and very cool) animations; and much more.

You can also see virtual globes of the 11 different geological periods that you can rotate into different views.

Instructions: Click on a map to see the full-sized version. Then click once to start the animation. Click again to freeze the image. Then double click to make the animation go in reverse.

Note: Explorer is quirky. If you want to have the animation go backwards, you may need to click it while it is moving forwards, not while it is frozen. Moral of the story: you should be using Firefox, Safari, Camino, or anything but Explorer.

Orthographic projection	Eckert IV projection	North pole projection
Orthographic projection	Eckert IV projection	South pole projection
Growth of the Database	Growth of the Database