Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Plate tectonics history

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 21 Dec 2024 at 16:53:22 (UTC)

Original – Reconstruction of plate tectonics extending one billion years into the past

00Arrows point to the upthrown side

0 Continental crust (older crust)

0 Continental crust (younger crust)

Reason: Reconstruction of plate tectonics extending one billion years into the past. Good addition to the two articles it is in. Easy to digest animation. Published in peer-reviewed article Here. More info about this video Here and Here.
Articles in which this image appears: Geological history of Earth, Plate tectonics
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Sciences/Geology
Creator: Andrew Merdith, University of Lyon

Support as nominator – Bammesk (talk) 16:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Couple comments... a legend would help with this work (what's the difference between the purple and red lines?) Also, why does the 0 MYA end up looking little like the current map? Is it excluding sedimentary infill, or...? Like, New Zealand ends up south of Australia rather than where it should be. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The red lines are "convergent boundaries" where two plates slide towards each other. The arrows are pointed toward the plate that rises in height, as the other plate slides underneath it. The purple lines are "divergent boundaries" where two plates slide apart from each other. The black lines are "transform boundaries" where two plates move laterally with respect to each other (neither towards, nor apart). Together the red, purple and black lines show the tectonic plate boundaries. I can add legends for these in the article image captions (similar to the lead image Here). As far as New Zealand, I don't quite get the gist of your point. New Zealand is at the boundary of the Australian plate and the Pacific plate, see here. This animation doesn't really show a traditional map, say of land versus water. It shows crust and upper mantle, I think. The animation shows regions of "dark tan" and regions of "blue-ish gray". I will look into it and find out what they are exactly, and reply later. Bammesk (talk) 02:57, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alright. This information should be on the description page, per WP:FP?#7. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:16, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I labeled it on the file page and image captions. . . . . . The "tan" and "blue" are Continental crust (land plus its peripheral shallow seabed). The "white" is Oceanic crust (not shallow but deeper ocean floor) [1]. Just by watching the animation, it's obvious that the "tan" is older continental crust (over a billion years for the most part), and the "blue" is younger continental crust (under a billion years for the most part). Bammesk (talk) 02:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I find it very interesting, but quite confusing, at least on the first viewing. I'd support a version without the flickering boundary lines, and in just one color for the continents. It is of course impossible to exactly represent the earth hundreds of millions years ago, but a more "viewer friendly" version would be nice. --Janke | Talk 09:27, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Moonreach (talk) 15:19, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Very misleading reconstruction as it implies land masses remained constant over a billion years which is nonsense. Charlesjsharp (talk) 15:44, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't imply that at all. See the updated image caption. 71% of continental crust is landmass [2]. The animation shows lots of change and increase in landmass. Bammesk (talk) 02:32, 10 December 2024 (UTC) Bammesk (talk) 01:42, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 17:30, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]