Fig 1.
Plate and paleogeographic reconstruction approach underlying the Paleolatitude.org calculator.
Table 1.
List of data that were added up of Vaes et al. [14] to upgrade to gAPWP25. For total database, see Supplementary information in S1 File (available in a DOI), or apwp-online.org. Agemin and Agemax = lower and upper boundaries of age uncertainty range; Slat/Slon = latitude and longitude of (mean) sampling location; N = number of paleomagnetic sites used to compute the paleopole; A95 = radius of the 95% confidence circle about the mean of the distribution of VGPs; K = Fisher [109] precision parameter of the distribution of VGPs; Plat/Plon = paleopole latitude and longitude (south pole); Rlat/Rlon = paleopole latitude and longitude in coordinate frame of South Africa; f = flattening factor (only for sedimentary data), pstd = standard deviation of the assumed normal distributed co-latitudes, obtained from E/I correction [110] (only for sedimentary data); Key to references: a = [111], b = [112], c = [113], d = [114], e = [115], f = [116], g = [117], h = [118], i = [119], j = [120], k = [121]; l = [122], m = [123], n = [124]; o = [125]; p = [126]; q = [127], r = [128], s = [129], t = [130], u = [131], v = [132], w = [133], x = [134], y = [135], z = [136].
Table 2.
Global apparent polar wander path of Vaes et al. [14] upgraded to gAPWP25 using the additional data shown in Table 1, calculated using a 20 Ma sliding window. For each window, the mean age of the re-sampled VGPs in that window is provided. N and P95 are the average number of re-sampled VGPs that fall within the time window and the 95% confidence region of the reference pole (in degrees). Mean K, CSD and E are the average [109] precision parameter, circular standard deviation, and elongation of the re-sampled VGPs, respectively.
Table 3.
Paleomagnetic reference frame based on the updated gAPWP25 [14], rotating South Africa (701) into the coordinates of the Earth’s spin axis (001). See Supplementary information in S1 File (available in a DOI) for a version in GPlates.rot file format.
Fig 2.
Global apparent polar wander path of Vaes et al. [14] upgraded to gAPWP25, using the additional data listed in Table 1.
For the new APWP and the associated paleomagnetic reference poles, see Tables 2 and 3, respectively.
Fig 3.
Global paleogeography snapshots of the Utrecht Paleogeography Model that shows the distribution of continental and oceanic crust, placed in the paleomagnetic reference frame based on gAPWP25 [14] (Table 2).
The associated GPlates files are provided in the Supplementary information in S1 File (available in a DOI).
Fig 4.
Outline of the Paleolatitude.org 3.0 web interface, and advanced options, including a bulk data option with instructions.
Fig 5.
Paleolatitude curves for coordinates in selected major continents illustrating the differences between widely used paleogeographic models.
Fig 6.
Differences in paleolatitude estimates for an example dataset of tetrapod dinosaurs found in Upper Permian to Middle Jurassic strata [199].
A) Distribution of data according to the global paleobiology database [200] that uses reference frames of Scotese and coworkers [201,202] or of Wright et al. [203] using a spline-fitted paleomagnetic reference frame of Torsvik and van der Voo [204]; B) Distribution of data using the reconstruction of Merdith et al. [205] in the unpublished optimized paleomagnetic reference frame of Tetley [206]; C) Data distribution using our new paleogeographic reconstruction in the upgraded gAPWP25 [14]; D) Difference between A and C; E) Difference between B and C.
Fig 7.
A) Geographic distribution of the marine fossil dataset from the Upper Jurassic used for to compute a Latitudinal Diversity Gradient.
B) Paleolatitude precision as a function of paleolatitude. Points indicate individual occurrences, with darker gray indicating more overlying observations. The red line is Loess fit through the data. Based on 33803 observations.
Fig 8.
Genus-level Latitudinal Diversity Gradient of marine organisms in the Late Jurassic, without curation, and taking uncertainty in age and the paleomagnetic reference frame into account when computing paleolatitude, reflected in 95% bootstrap confidence intervals.
Overlain is a Sampled In Bin point estimate of the LDG in which paleolatitude and age uncertainty is not considered. Based on 33802 occurrences resampled 1000 times into 5° paleolatitude bins (see Supplementary Data (available in a DOI)).