GPlates <http://www.gplates.org/>
Professor Dietmar Müller, The University of Sydney <http://www.earthbyte.org/people/dietmar/index.html>
GPlates is desktop software for the interactive visualisation of plate-tectonics. GPlates
offers a
novel
combination of
interactive plate-tectonic reconstructions, geographic
information system
(GIS) functionality
and raster data
visualisation.
GPlates enables
both the visualisation and the
manipulation of plate-tectonic
reconstructions and
associated data
through geological time. See <http://www.gplates.org/>
The GPlates project is a companion project to the Pplates Virtual Earth project. The GPlates project is led by Professor Dietmar Müller at The University of Sydney.
GPlates is focussed on geographic information and the complex paradigm that needs to be established to allow information to be smoothly transferred and assimilated. GPlates is a traditional reconstruction algorithm in the sense that GPlates applies complex hierarchies of rigid rotations to information in areas of interest, and thereby allows planet-scale reconstruction, in particular focussed on the oceanic domain. GPlates and Pplates thus address different aspects of the reconstruction paradigm, with one program more suited to particular aspects than the other. The Virtual World format will enable interoperability between the different datasets used in reconstruction by these two complementary algorithms.
Pplates is focussed on the complex movements that take place in the continental crust as the result of collision and orogenesis. Pplates makes the assumption that the behaviour of geological entities (such as sedimentary basins, tectonic tracts, allochthonous sheets, or subducting lithosphere) can be approximated by computations taking acount of data embedded in 2D meshes that move through 3D space. In other words, the program makes an attempt to allow 4D tectonic reconstruction, at scales varying from regional to that of the entire planet. Pplates also allows rigid motion of the tectonic plates, described by Euler rotations, but it also allows deformation to take place. Pplates also enables a number of options that can be routinely employed during a tectonic reconstruction, loosely labelled as allowing geophysically self-consistent (e.g. including mass balance, and isostasy) geodynamically-constrained (including stress and strain) tectonic reconstruction.
To provide an example as to how to utilize the AuScope software machine, the modelling and simulation community intends to illustrate a 4D geodynamics workflow, focused on the evolution of the Sunda-Java subduction zone. If you are interested in becoming a user of the NCRIS AuScope software machine, make direct contact with the scientists building the individual components.