Animation from 200 mya to Present

This animation shows the motions of the continents during the last 200 million years.  (Be patient, it may take a couple minutes to download the Java applet and images to your computer.)  Blue areas are deep ocean basins.    The light blue areas are flooded continental shelves and oceanic plateaus.   The tan areas are land and the red areas are mountains.   Watch the Caribbean evolve, especially the northernmost part of South America.  Watch India move forward inexorably towards Asia, leaving behind the 90E Ridge hot spot track. 

This animation is available on CD-ROM in Quicktime format.   For more information see Teaching Materials.

These plate reconstructions were produced by the PALEOMAP Project.

This page uses a java applet that displays a VR model. Visit FreedomVR at www.honeylocust.com/vr/ for more information about this applet.

(c) PALEOMAP Project, 1999.  Thanks to WebDoGS by Paul Howell for inspiration.