Tectonic plate movement simulation software

Plate tectonics are a very complicated subject that shape the planet, they can be difficult to understand and study, so any virtual model or simulation can help. The animation clips and other geoeducational items described below, are available for viewing andor download free of charge for your personal andor educational uses only. Visualizations include simple animations, gisbased animated maps, paleogeographic maps and globes, as well as numerous illustrations and photos. Change temperature, composition, and thickness of plates. The learner has the ability to manipulate the simulation to develop their own unique model of plate motion.

For more information see, computer animations on cdrom in the teaching materials section of this website. Twentyyear study yields precise model of tectonic plate movements. You can use the video for any educational purposes. The continents, which are made of an insubmersible lightweight crust, passively drift with the movement of the lithospheric plates on which they sit. Gplates is desktop software for the interactive visualisation of platetectonics. Reference frame modeling nonlinear station motions, j. The model does not account for continental collisions, subduction, or seafloor spreading. Is it possible to have an oceancontinent divergent boundary. Much of this motion causes earthquakes, builds mountains, and, indirectly, creates volcanoes. Gplates offers a novel combination of interactive platetectonic reconstructions.

Whenever a plate moves whether or not it is colliding with another plate, it receives a friction. Gplates enables both the visualisation and the manipulation of plate tectonic reconstructions and. Namely, a friction force is added to slow down plate movement and allow the simulation to converge. And that supercontinent is called pangaea pan for entire, or whole, and gaea, coming from gaia, for the world. This animation takes the average plate motion observed over the past one million years and projects. Gplates offers a novel combination of interactive plate tectonic reconstructions, geographic information system gis functionality and raster data visualisation. In the early 20th century, wegener published a paper explaining his theory that the continental landmasses were drifting across the earth, sometimes plowing through oceans and into each other. And what better place to start than with an educational one, the most noble of all while at school i loved geography and geology and all that stuff about the glaciers but i could never ful. Plate tectonic simulator with earth data as sample. Pytectonics is a 3d plate tectonics simulator written in python to provide realistic terrain generation for enthusiast world builders. Plate tectonics and earthquake simulations on vimeo. At each timestep, the simulation moves the two plates based on their velocities and applies forces. The crust and the solid upper layer of the mantle are known as the lithosphere.

This is seen via a represented crosssection of the crust and upper mantle. Oct 25, 2010 this animation shows the evolution of earths continents through the history of macroscale animal life on earth, starting in the middle of the ediacaran period, some 600 million years ago. Notice how the plates may congeal again to form a second pangaea. And it turns out that all of the evidence weve seen actually does make us believe that there was a supercontinent called well, we call it pangaea, now. The simulation also represents common resulting land and oceanfloor features that identify the movement of plates volcanoes, trenches, etc. Earthquakes occur along fault lines, which are all the types of plate boundaries. I am using a rough simulation of tectonic plates to create mountain ranges and other geological features. It allows you to create realistic fantasy worlds from your web browser.

Describe the differences between oceanic and continental crust, including their respective properties of density, composition, temperature and thickness. I heard of a research project that was simulating plate tectonics using physicsbased rules, but i cant remember what it was, let alone if the software has been made publically available and will run on windows. Hover over the plates to see approximately how much they move each year and the direction of the movement. The geological models for explorations of dynamic earth geode project, funded by the national science foundation, is developing new geodynamic plate tectonic modeling software for middle school earth science classrooms that allows students to observe and describe the formation of surface geologic features in terms of plate interactions. Describe the differences between oceanic and continental.

The simulation splits the lithosprehe into random plates and moves them around. Volcanoes are located along converging plate boundaries and diverging plate boundaries. The movement of the plates creates three types of tectonic boundaries. By measuring the speed of presentday plate motions, geophysicists can predict where the plates may be in relation to one another in the future. Interactive animations that explain key concepts and processes, plus other interactives and diagrams of related topics for k12 teachers and students. Modeling plate tectonics for learning concord consortium. Plate tectonic simulator with earth data as sample draw your worlds plates and more. A new computer model can incorporate more of the forces at work in plate tectonics and more accurately represent the motions of tectonic plates.

Gps aids us in better understanding our planet by allowing us to measure how the surface of the earth moves. Animation of a proposed mechanism of superplume generation at the coremantle boundary succinct explanation included. Observe animations of processes that occur along plate. The plates make up earths outer shell, called the lithosphere. It looks like your using a web browser without webgl. The visible features include cold plates bluegreen subducting.

This animation shows the progression of plate movements from the presentday to 250 million years in the future. Animation of a proposed mechanism of superplume generation at the core mantle boundary succinct explanation included. All these animations are available on cdrom in quicktime format. Plate tectonics earthquakes discovering geology british. Plates are viewed as 2d objects having invariant shape and whose motion is constrained to occur on the earths surface. This movement causes earthquakes, volcanoes, and the formation of many of earths geographic features. Plate tectonics becoming clearer with computers live science.

In this investigation student use actual data and a cdrom computer simulation designed at the lawrence hall of science to investigate the geology of plate boundaries. Plate movement on a spherical earth is illustrated in figure 26. Webgl is a technology that allows users to render graphics through the gpu from their webbrowser. On which software can i simulate landmass collisions. Earths tectonic plates have doubled their speed new. Using supercomputers, individual maps can be produced corresponding to certain points in time. The software is an extension to arcgis from esri which enables geoscientists, gis professionals and academics to incorporate geologic time into their gis. Writing a tectonics simulator in a browser is hard stuff. Continental drift interactive simulations edumedia. It may be a bit too complicated for making just simple sketches of tectonic plates, but it should allow for a bit more realistic results. Earths tectonic plates are moving faster now than at any point in the last 2 billion years, according to the latest study of plate.

Please note that content and links are provided for convenience only. This collection is not exhaustive but does represent some of the best sources for. Through the movement and interaction of tectonic plates, material circulates back and forth between. I am very proud to give you my very first instructable. Use this html code to display a screenshot with the words click to run. The goal of the paleomap project is to illustrate the plate tectonic development of the ocean basins and continents, as well as the changing distribution of land and sea during the past 1100 million years. Jul 07, 2015 a group activity done by grade x a benjamin franklin students about movements at plate boundaries. While we do our best to check the quality of our content, we cannot guarantee that it is always correct. Beside it is the simulation that shows how transform faults develop over time. Layered earth geology simulation software and curriculum. Our plate motion calculator calculates tectonic plate motion at any location on.

Plate tectonics information and facts national geographic. In the earth history section of this website are fullcolor paleogeographic maps showing the ancient mountain ranges and shorelines. May 25, 2014 plate movement is said to be triggered by the motion of ocean floor, which results in changes in gravitational forces and downward suction at the subduction zones. Real time 2d plate tectonics simulation running on pentium 4 cpu and 1 gb ram. Another theory states that the motion of tectonic plates is due to the difference in forces generated by the movement of the earth, and the tidal forces of the moon and the sun. According to the theory of continental drift, all of the worlds continents were once. This section provides access to a wide array of visualizations and supporting material that can be used effectively to teach students about plate tectonic movements. Return fullscreen f11 ocean shadows snow sediment plants satellite topographic map. The following animations can be downloaded and viewed at your computer. Whenever a plate moves whether or not it is colliding with another plate. It aims to use simple yet scientifically defensible models that may be easily. In part 1, students compare and contrast continents with continental plates, draw plate boundaries from earthquake and volcano data, and label the major plates with their names and arrows indicating the direction the plates are moving.

Gplates enables both the visualisation and the manipulation of plate tectonic reconstructions and associated data through geological time. At least flash player 8 required to run this simulation. Plate tectonics in this simulation from the university of colorado, students can move mountains and create oceans. With paleogis, users are empowered to create, display, analyze and manipulate plate tectonic data models. Plate tectonics crust lithosphere mantle phet interactive. 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. With paleogis, users visualize their own data in a plate tectonic and paleographic context. Modeling plate tectonics is a tool for reconstructing or predicting geological environments through earths history. I need something that produces realistic results, thus the scientificcomputing tag.

We began software development by modeling divergent boundaries, locations where plates are moving away from each other. The surface of the earth is broken up into tectonic plates that move in different directions and speeds figure 1. The heat from inside the earth causes the material of the mantle to permanently rise up along the ocean ridges, resulting in the formation of a dense basaltic crust which slowly rolls away from the ridge, much like a rug being rolled up. Modeling plate tectonics is easier with paleogis software. The theory of continental drift is most associated with the scientist alfred wegener. Es0804 observe animations of processes that occur along plate boundaries. In part 2, students use a computer simulation to explore what happens at plate boundaries over time.

This animation takes the average plate motion observed over the past one million years and projects it 100 million years into the future. Three of the forces that have been proposed as the main drivers of tectonic plate movement are. The software features a system of plates bounded on all sides by other adjacent plates, which interact like. A group activity done by grade x a benjamin franklin students about movements at plate boundaries. View short informational videos about plate tectonics how it works, its effects on the surface earthquakes. Two plates, a and b, are separating at a constructive plate boundary and rotating about a pole of rotation which in this case is the north pole. It aims to use simple yet scientifically defensible models that may be easily understood by nonexperts and modified by developers. Tectonic plate movement simulation group 1 x a youtube. Plate tectonic animation earthguide online classroom. The theory of plate tectonics can be used to provide a simplified explanation of the global distribution of earthquakes, while some of the characteristics of earthquakes can be explained by using a simple elastic. The constructive plate boundaries lie along lines of longitude, whereas the transform faults are parallel to lines of latitude. These speeds assist scientists in the extrapolation procedure. Plate tectonic simulator with earth data as sample draw.

The simulator starts with a flat fractal map and splits it randomly into plates. By changing the temperature, composition and thickness of tectonic plates, students can envision how the earths surface moves and changes. Discover how to create new mountains, volcanoes, or oceans. Feb 16, 2018 plate tectonics are a very complicated subject that shape the planet, they can be difficult to understand and study, so any virtual model or simulation can help. The visible features include cold plates bluegreen subducting down unilaterally from the. Plates are viewed as 2d objects having invariant shape and whose motion is constrained to occur. Computer simulation of plate tectonics and the circulation of hot rock material in the earths mantle. Computeraided modeling of past plate motions is based upon some key concepts of spherical and computational geometry. Software for coping with the coordinate changes associated with crustal motion. If continents of two plates collide, they fold creating mountain belts. Examine an animation of plate movement predicted for the future.

Explore how plates move on the surface of the earth. Directions using the tectonic forces simulation, compare the effects of two types of plate boundaries. Aug 03, 2015 platec is a 2d terrain generator that uses a simplified model of plate tectonics to produce realistic heightmaps in real time. Go directly to plate tectonics activity 114k requires shockwave take a hardboiled egg and crack its shell.

Science education for public understanding program. It looks like youre using a browser that supports webgl, but you just need to modify some settings, first. This stunning tablet and ipad enabled resource gives you an interactive globe of the earth with a wide range of geographic, demographic and statistical maps. There are a number of competing theories that attempt to explain what drives the movement of tectonic plates. Examine an animation of plate movement predicted for the. Platec is a 2d terrain generator that uses a simplified model of plate tectonics to produce realistic heightmaps in real time.