Tekton

Setting the planet in motion

A non-commercial educational resource

Tekton is a non-commercial publication of GLOBAÏA, a non-profit organisation, made for education alone. Its purpose is to build public awareness and understanding of the Earth system and of the geophysical dynamics that shape it, from plate motion, earthquakes and volcanism to mantle convection and the long drift of the continents. Nothing on this page is sold or used commercially.

Tekton is not a forecasting, hazard assessment or warning service. It must not be relied on for emergency response, engineering, insurance, navigation or any other operational or legal decision. Some layers are measurements; others are scientific models and reconstructions, whose uncertainty grows with depth and with age. For current hazard information, consult your national geological survey or civil protection authority.

GLOBAÏA's design, text, code and colour ramps are CC BY-NC 4.0. Each dataset stays under the licence listed beside it, and our processed versions of it stay under that same licence. If you reuse the data, please cite its authors rather than this page.

Where this comes from

Every dot, line and colour on this page is measured or modelled by the people named here. Models are labelled as models. Nothing was made up to fill a gap.

drift

Hundred million years of landscape dynamics from catchment to global scale

Salles, T., Husson, L., Rey, P., Mallard, C., Zahirovic, S., Boggiani, B. H., Coltice, N., Arnould, M., 2023. Version 100 Myr global physiography maps, OSF project 5aek4 (created 2022-03-27)

Relief 0 to 95 Ma, precipitation forcing, river sediment load. Licence: GPL-3.0, as declared on the OSF project.

The elevations are goSPL landscape-model output kept on track by assimilating the PALEOMAP maps of Scotese & Wright 2018 every 5 Myr, on the PALEOMAP plate model. They are not observations.
drift

PALEOMAP Paleodigital Elevation Models (PaleoDEMS) for the Phanerozoic

Scotese, C. R., Wright, N. M., 2018. Version v2 on Zenodo

Relief 100 to 540 Ma. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

Hand-built paleogeographic maps turned into elevation grids, not measurements. Isolated impossible cells (+7000 to +10500 m in deep ocean) were replaced.
seafloor

A global dataset of present-day oceanic crustal age and seafloor spreading parameters

Seton, M., Müller, R. D., Zahirovic, S., Williams, S., Wright, N. M., Cannon, J., Whittaker, J. M., Matthews, K. J., McGirr, R., 2020. Version Age grid 2020.1, GTS2012 timescale

Seafloor age and full spreading rate. Licence: CC BY 4.0 (LICENSE.txt in the distribution folder).

4096 px age comes from the 2 arc-minute grid. Rate is published only at 6 arc-minutes, so it stops at 3600 px rather than upsampling. Oldest pixel 338.7 Ma, eastern Mediterranean.
tomo

Whole-mantle radially anisotropic shear velocity structure from spectral-element waveform tomography

French, S. W., Romanowicz, B., 2014. Version SEMUCB-WM1, UCB_a3d_dist r20151019

Primary mantle tomography cube. Licence: No clear licence stated by the source.

From the Berkeley group's public repository, which carries no licence file. Evaluated with a Python port of their code, checked by zero mean at each depth and by correlation with S40RTS.
tomo

S40RTS: a degree-40 shear-velocity model for the mantle from new Rayleigh wave dispersion, teleseismic traveltime and normal-mode splitting function measurements

Ritsema, J., Deuss, A., van Heijst, H. J., Woodhouse, J. H., 2011. Version Coefficients as distributed in SPECFEM3D_GLOBE DATA/s40rts/S40RTS.dat

Second mantle model, to show what two independent models agree on. Licence: No clear licence stated by the source.

The SPECFEM3D_GLOBE repository is GPL-3.0, but the coefficients are Ritsema's data carried inside it, with no statement of their own.
platemodel

Extending full-plate tectonic models into deep time: Linking the Neoproterozoic and the Phanerozoic

Merdith, A. S., Williams, S. E., Collins, A. S., Tetley, M. G., Mulder, J. A., Blades, M. L., Young, A., Armistead, S. E., Cannon, J., Zahirovic, S., Müller, R. D., 2021. Version 1.2.4 (MER21++ with the 2023 alterations)

Plate boundaries, plates, continents, cratons, coastlines, velocity samples, 0 to 1000 Ma. Licence: CC BY 4.0 (Zenodo record 13635864).

Files fetched from the EarthByte mirror, same version as the Zenodo record. Palaeomagnetic frame: absolute longitude is unconstrained. Its authors say not to use it to analyse the Pacific, hotspot motion or the Hawaiian-Emperor bend. Many deep-time subduction zones are inferred to balance the plate motion, not observed in rocks.
platemodel

The interplay between the eruption and weathering of Large Igneous Provinces and the deep-time carbon cycle

Johansson, L., Zahirovic, S., Müller, R. D., 2018. Version Volcanic provinces v2

Volcanic province polygons and ages, rotated with Merdith et al. 2021. Licence: CC BY 3.0 Unported, per EarthByte's GPlates 2.3 data page, which lists this dataset.

The licence comes from the EarthByte page. Includes seamount chains and any magmatism outside ordinary seafloor spreading, not only true Large Igneous Provinces.
plates-major, boundaries-major

An updated digital model of plate boundaries (PB2002)

Bird, P., 2003. Version PB2002

The list of 14 large plates (abstract, read through Crossref) and every vertex and class of the simplified model. The merges are ours.. Licence: No stated licence; citation expected.

plates-major and boundaries-major are a GLOBAÏA simplification of this model, not Bird's own product: 38 small plates merged by a stated rule, one override (Okhotsk).
labels.countries

Natural Earth 1:50m Admin 0 Countries

Natural Earth (Kelso, Patterson et al.), 2026. Version 5.2.0-pre, GitHub master of nvkelso/natural-earth-vector

Country names, LABEL_X, LABEL_Y, LABELRANK, area from the polygons. Licence: Public domain (Natural Earth terms of use).

Shows de facto boundaries and Natural Earth's own name choices, which are not a position taken by GLOBAÏA.
labels.oceans

Natural Earth Marine Polygons, 1:10m

Natural Earth (Kelso, Patterson et al.), 2026. Version 5.2.0-pre, GitHub master of nvkelso/natural-earth-vector

Ocean and sea names, scalerank, visual centres (the layer carries no label points). Licence: Public domain (Natural Earth terms of use).

Luzon Strait, Scotia Sea and Drake Passage are residual scraps in every copy and were left out.
labels.quakes

ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat), catalog=official

U.S. Geological Survey, 2026. Version queried 2026-11-06

12 named events with titles such as The 1906 San Francisco, California Earthquake (src usgs). Licence: U.S. public domain (USGS Copyrights and Credits page); credit requested.

The USGS title gives the place. Label text is our shortening of it.
labels.quakes

NCEI/WDS Global Significant Earthquake Database

National Geophysical Data Center / World Data Service, 2026. Version HazEL API, queried 2026-11-06

52 named events (src noaa) with place, year, magnitude, depth, deaths; place name of the 1952 Kamchatka event. Licence: U.S. Government data.

The field stored as mw is NOAA's eqMagnitude, a preferred magnitude that is not always Mw. Historical values and dates carry large uncertainty. Each label's place word is in NOAA's locationName; the build reports any that is not.
labels.quakes

Deformation and Slip Along the Sunda Megathrust in the Great 2005 Nias-Simeulue Earthquake

Briggs, R. W. et al., 2006

The name Nias 2005, since the USGS title for that event is only a distance from Singkil. Licence: Cited for a name only.

Title, journal and year confirmed through Crossref.
labels.*

Label names and anchors derived from the /tekton/ layer files

The sources listed for each layer on this page, 2026. Version public/tekton/data as of 2026-11-06

plates, boundaries, orogens, cratons, faults, lips, volcanoes, calderas, hotspots, notable quakes. Licence: As listed for each layer: Hasterok GPL-3.0, GEM CC BY-SA 4.0, GVP non-commercial with citation, ISC-GEM CC BY-SA 3.0.

The names combine these sources, and each keeps its own licence.
quakes

ISC-GEM Global Instrumental Earthquake Catalogue

International Seismological Centre, 2026. Version 13.0 (21 Oct 2026) REQUIRED, NOT YET OBTAINED

quakes.bin main and supplementary, not built yet. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 unported (download page).

Share-alike: derived catalogue data stay under CC BY-SA. The source page says GEM has given no support since 2015.
quakes

ANSS Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog (ComCat)

U.S. Geological Survey, 2026. Version queried 2026-11-06

quakes.bin flag 2, 2023-01-01 to 2026-11-06, M>=6; place names of notable events. Licence: U.S. public domain (USGS Copyrights and Credits page); credit requested.

515 events; 19 use mb or ml rather than Mw (listed in meta).
volcanoes, volcano-summaries, eruptions-large

Volcanoes of the World

Global Volcanism Program, compiled by Venzke, E., 2026. Version 5.4.0 (7 Aug 2026), as shown on the site on 2026-10-05

2,666 volcanoes, 1,214 verbatim summaries, 59 confirmed VEI>=6 eruptions. Licence: Smithsonian Terms of Use: personal, educational, other non-commercial use with citation and link; commercial use needs written permission.

Data from GVP's web service on 2026-11-06. The service states no version, so 5.4.0 is inferred. DOI as printed on GVP's page.
calderas

Collapse Caldera Database (CCDB)

Geyer, A., Marti, J., 2008. Version 2.0 GIS package (capture 2010-09-17); decoded labels from the web list of Dec 2021

462 calderas with coordinates, age, diameter, rock suite, setting. Licence: No clear licence stated by the source.

No licence stated anywhere found; the site's legal note covers privacy only. gvb-csic.es is now a parked domain for sale, so files come from the Wayback Machine. Version 4.0 (2019, Geyer, Marti, Pedrazzi) exists in a library record; DIGITAL.CSIC is behind bot protection and it was not obtained. The 2021 list has 640 calderas but no coordinates, so 204 of them are left out. Fallbacks assessed: GVP has 153 Caldera-type volcanoes (no diameters); LaMEVE lists Quaternary eruptions, no caldera subset found.
plates-pb2002, boundaries-pb2002, orogens-pb2002, steps-pb2002, poles-pb2002

An updated digital model of plate boundaries

Bird, P., 2003. Version PB2002

52 plates, 229 boundary segments, 13 orogens, 5,819 steps, poles. Licence: No clear licence stated by the source.

No licence stated in the readme or on the directory. Electronic supplement of an AGU paper.
plates-pb2002, orogens-pb2002

World tectonic plates and boundaries (conversion of PB2002)

Ahlenius, H. (Nordpil), 2014. Version local copy, Oct 2014

closed polygons split at the antimeridian; plate names. Licence: Open Data Commons Attribution 1.0 (LICENSE.md).

Codes and orogen names match Bird's files.
plates-hasterok, boundaries-hasterok, cratons-hasterok, oc-boundary-hasterok

New maps of global geologic provinces and tectonic plates

Hasterok, D., Halpin, J.A., Collins, A.S., Hand, M., Kreemer, C., Gard, M.G., Glorie, S., 2022. Version GitHub global_tectonics, commit 6cdcbf0 (2025-06-02)

280 plate polygons, 571 boundaries, 114 cratons, 93 ocean-continent lines. Licence: GPL-3.0 (repository LICENSE).

The earlier static release on Zenodo is CC BY 4.0 and is listed separately.
(alternative, not used)

New maps of global geologic provinces and tectonic plates: global tectonics data and QGIS project file

Hasterok, D., et al., 2022. Version record of 2022-03-19

not used. Licence: CC BY 4.0 (Zenodo record metadata).
faults-gem

GEM Global Active Faults Database

Styron, R., Pagani, M., 2020. Version GitHub commit 5681650 (2021-06-24), harmonized GeoJSON

13,688 lines, name, slip type, catalogue. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (repository LICENSE.txt and README).

An older version carried CC BY 4.0. The current version is share-alike.
poles-morvel56

Geologically current motion of 56 plates relative to the no-net-rotation reference frame

Argus, D.F., Gordon, R.G., DeMets, C., 2011. Version NNR-MORVEL56

56 NNR poles with limits, rms and area. Licence: No clear licence stated by the source.

Transcribed from the authors' table and checked against an independent copy on all 56 rows. Numerical facts; no licence stated.
hotspots

UTIG hotspots list, in the PLATES LIP data set

after Mueller, Royer & Lawver (1993); GVP locations, 1993. Version local hotspots.gmt

56 base hotspots. Licence: No clear licence stated by the source.

Vema's longitude here (16 E) differs from Courtillot (4 E) and Morgan (6.3 E) by 8 to 10 degrees; kept as published.
hotspots

Three distinct types of hotspots in the Earth's mantle

Courtillot, V., Davaille, A., Besse, J., Stock, J., 2003. Version Table 1

49 hotspots, scores, 7 primary. Licence: journal article; facts from a table.

Read from the PDF via Wayback. Paper first names nine scoring >=3, then keeps seven as primary; both are in the data.
hotspots

Broad plumes rooted at the base of the Earth's mantle beneath major hotspots

French, S.W., Romanowicz, B., 2015. Version Extended Data Table 1

27 plume categories. Licence: journal article; facts from a table.

Table is an image; read by eye from the PDF page. Its reprinted Courtillot scores matched the parsed Courtillot table on all 27.
hotspots

Plate velocities in the hotspot reference frame

Morgan, W.J., Morgan, J.P., 2007. Version Table 1, accepted manuscript

68 hotspots with track azimuth and rate. Licence: journal article; facts from a table.

Accepted manuscript, not the printed version.
lips

The Interplay Between the Eruption and Weathering of Large Igneous Provinces and the Deep-Time Carbon Cycle

Johansson, L., Zahirovic, S., Muller, R.D., 2018. Version VolcanicProvinces_v2 (GPlates 2.3 data)

2,496 outlines with name and FROMAGE. Licence: CC BY 3.0 (EarthByte page, for data by the EarthByte Group).

Compiled from Coffin's PLATES and Bryan; the page does not say whether CC BY covers third-party compiled data. FROMAGE is not always the eruption age.
lips-whittaker

Long-term interaction between mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes

Whittaker, J., et al., 2015. Version GPlates 2.3 data

80 cleanly named plume-linked outlines, alternative layer. Licence: CC BY 3.0 (EarthByte page, same caveat).
lips, lips-famous

Large Igneous Provinces: Global Listing in Spreadsheet Format (Table 2.1)

Ernst, R.E., 2016. Version 30 October 2016

Ages, type, size of named LIPs, joined by an explicit crosswalk. Licence: No clear licence stated by the source.

No terms readable: the site's page lists the file without stating any. Phanerozoic ages are rounded to 0.01 Ga.
lips-famous

Flood Basalts and Mass Extinctions

Clapham, M.E., Renne, P.R., 2019

Timing links between LIPs and extinctions. Licence: journal article; short quotes.

Links are timing associations as the review words them.
Relief

ETOPO 2022, 60 and 30 arc-second surface elevation

NOAA NCEI, 2022

Today's relief and the relief lab. Licence: Public domain.
Reference

Natural Earth 1:10m coastline, land and countries

Natural Earth, 2024

Coasts, land, country lines. Licence: Public domain.
Ground

Satellite ground and night lights

NASA Visible Earth

Satellite ground, city lights. Licence: NASA imagery.
Atmosphere

Spectral sky after Bruneton 2017 and Hillaire 2020; ocean glint after Cox and Munk 1954

GLOBAÏA implementation

The air around the globe. Licence: BSD-3 method.
Colour ramps

Tom Patterson, cross-blended hypsometric tints, warm humid column (Patterson and Jenny 2011, Cartographic Perspectives 69, Appendix A)

Natural Earth, warm humid, Natural Earth, snow-capped. Licence: Public domain.
Colour ramps

Tom Patterson, cross-blended hypsometric tints, arid column (Patterson and Jenny 2011, Cartographic Perspectives 69, Appendix A)

Natural Earth, arid. Licence: Public domain.
Colour ramps

Tom Patterson, cross-blended hypsometric tints, cold humid column (Patterson and Jenny 2011, Cartographic Perspectives 69, Appendix A)

Natural Earth, cold humid. Licence: Public domain.
Colour ramps

Tom Patterson, cross-blended hypsometric tints, polar column (Patterson and Jenny 2011, Cartographic Perspectives 69, Appendix A)

Natural Earth, polar. Licence: Public domain.
Colour ramps

Eric Gaba (Sting), Wikipedia topographic map convention, wiki-2.0, via cpt-city

Wikipedia convention. Licence: Public domain.
Colour ramps

GLOBAÏA

Dark Earth, Dark Earth sea, Sagelight, Amber Canopy, Reef Rose, Saffron Ice, Quiet Terraces, Salt Meadow, Quiet Fathom, Kingfisher, Wisteria Tide, Soundings. Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0.
Colour ramps

Meyers encyclopaedia map plate (Meyers_b1_s0457a on Wikimedia Commons), colours read from the scan by cpt-city

Meyers atlas. Licence: Public domain (due to age, per cpt-city).
Colour ramps

Jesse Varner and Elliot Lim (NOAA/NGDC), ETOPO1 global relief palette, via cpt-city

ETOPO1. Licence: GPLv2 as declared by cpt-city.
Colour ramps

cmocean topo, land half (Thyng et al. 2016)

cmocean topo, land. Licence: MIT (Thyng et al. 2016).
Colour ramps

Crameri Scientific Colour Maps 8, oleron, land half

Oleron, land. Licence: MIT, citation requested (Crameri 2018; Crameri, Shephard and Heron 2020).
Colour ramps

Crameri Scientific Colour Maps 8, bukavu, land half

Bukavu, land. Licence: MIT, citation requested (Crameri 2018; Crameri, Shephard and Heron 2020).
Colour ramps

Crameri Scientific Colour Maps 8, grayC, window

Graphite. Licence: MIT, citation requested (Crameri 2018; Crameri, Shephard and Heron 2020).
Colour ramps

Crameri Scientific Colour Maps 8, turku window

Turku. Licence: MIT, citation requested (Crameri 2018; Crameri, Shephard and Heron 2020).
Colour ramps

Esri, ArcGIS hypsometry style, mars_1, via cpt-city

Rust plain (Esri). Licence: Esri ArcScripts licence: derivative redistribution allowed, notices kept, patent prohibition.
Colour ramps

Tom Patterson, seafloor tints (tpsfhm), via cpt-city

Patterson seafloor. Licence: Public domain.
Colour ramps

Eric Gaba (Sting), Wikipedia bathymetric convention, wiki-2.0, via cpt-city

Wikipedia sea. Licence: Public domain.
Colour ramps

Meyers encyclopaedia map plate (Meyers_b1_s0457a on Wikimedia Commons), sea tints, via cpt-city

Meyers sea. Licence: Public domain (due to age, per cpt-city).
Colour ramps

International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean palette, via cpt-city

IBCSO. Licence: Free to use (per cpt-city).
Colour ramps

Paul Wessel and Walter Smith, GMT abyss, via cpt-city

GMT abyss. Licence: GPLv2 as declared by cpt-city.
Colour ramps

cmocean topo, sea half (Thyng et al. 2016)

cmocean topo, sea. Licence: MIT (Thyng et al. 2016).
Colour ramps

Crameri Scientific Colour Maps 8, oleron, sea half

Oleron, sea. Licence: MIT, citation requested (Crameri 2018; Crameri, Shephard and Heron 2020).
Colour ramps

Crameri Scientific Colour Maps 8, bukavu, sea half

Bukavu, sea. Licence: MIT, citation requested (Crameri 2018; Crameri, Shephard and Heron 2020).
Colour ramps

Crameri Scientific Colour Maps 8, fes, sea half

Fes, sea. Licence: MIT, citation requested (Crameri 2018; Crameri, Shephard and Heron 2020).
Colour ramps

Crameri Scientific Colour Maps 8, davos reversed

Davos. Licence: MIT, citation requested (Crameri 2018; Crameri, Shephard and Heron 2020).
Colour ramps

CMasher ember

Ember. Licence: BSD-3-Clause (van der Velden 2020).
Colour ramps

CMasher torch

Torch. Licence: BSD-3-Clause (van der Velden 2020).
Colour ramps

Peter Kovesi, CET-L17, reversed, via cpt-city

Kovesi L17. Licence: CC BY 4.0 (Kovesi 2015).
Colour ramps

CMasher rainforest

Rainforest. Licence: BSD-3-Clause (van der Velden 2020).
Colour ramps

CMasher voltage

Voltage. Licence: BSD-3-Clause (van der Velden 2020).
Colour ramps

CMasher gem

Gem. Licence: BSD-3-Clause (van der Velden 2020).
Colour ramps

Peter Kovesi, CET-CBL2, via cpt-city

Kovesi colour-blind. Licence: CC BY 4.0 (Kovesi 2015).
Colour ramps

CMasher chroma

Chroma. Licence: BSD-3-Clause (van der Velden 2020).
Colour ramps

CMasher horizon

Horizon. Licence: BSD-3-Clause (van der Velden 2020).
Colour ramps

CMasher neon

Neon. Licence: BSD-3-Clause (van der Velden 2020).
Colour ramps

Crameri Scientific Colour Maps 8, batlowK

Batlow, bright. Licence: MIT, citation requested (Crameri 2018; Crameri, Shephard and Heron 2020).
Colour ramps

CMasher emerald

Emerald. Licence: BSD-3-Clause (van der Velden 2020).
Volcanoes

The Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI): an estimate of explosive magnitude for historical volcanism

Newhall and Self, 1982

How the explosivity colours and sizes are defined. Licence: Journal article; scale thresholds cited.

All the keys

Look around

Drag: Turn the Earth
Scroll, or pinch: Zoom
Shift + drag: Spin the map
Alt + drag: Slide the map
Double-click: Back to the whole map
0: Reset the view: Florence, north up
G: Globe or flat map
F: Full screen
Z: Zen: the Earth alone

Panels

Click an icon: Open or close its panel
Click its eye: Show or hide that layer
Its solo dot, or Alt-click the eye: That layer alone; again to bring the others back
Drag a title: Float a panel; back beside the icons to dock it
H: Put away the open panels, or bring them back
/: Find a setting

What am I looking at

Move the pointer: The nearest point, line or area lights up
Click, or tap: Keep it lit and read about it
Hold P: Points only
Hold L: Lines only
Hold A: Areas only
Hold R: Read the raster under the pointer
Tab: Next thing under the pointer
Esc: Let go

Layers and names

N: Names on or off

Sun

Hold S + drag: Move the Sun; on flat maps, the light on the relief
Two fingers together: The same, on a tablet

Inside the Earth and time

C: Cut globe on or off
X: Draw a slice
T: Today, ancient terrain, moving plates
Space: Play or pause the time

Chapters

Right arrow: Next
Left arrow: Back
Esc: Leave the tour

This panel

? or K: Show or hide

The moving Earth

The ground under your feet is travelling, about as fast as your fingernails grow.

A non-commercial resource, for education only.