Overview
- Researchers released an updated Paleolatitude.org that estimates any location’s past latitude back 320 million years.
- The Utrecht model uses updated paleomagnetic records and the shifting path of Earth’s magnetic poles to raise confidence.
- The reconstructions correct for folded mountain belts and track motions of smaller tectonic plates to place sites more accurately.
- The new site lets users export figures and upload their own datasets for bulk paleolatitude calculations.
- A Late Jurassic test rewound about 34,000 marine fossil records to map a diversity gradient with uncertainty built in, and a Winterswijk case places 245-million-year-old Dutch fossils at Arabian-like latitudes.