Plates Kenny Lienhard
Plates

Plate 19 of 52

Scotia

Kenny Lienhard, Plates, 2026

Palette
Lapis, from ocean
Structure
Syncline
Drift
1.3 cm a year, north-northeast
1,700,717 km², a minor plate

How it is made

Finished

The Plate in detail

Scotia, seed 19

Plate 19 of 52 · one of one

Traits

Palette
Lapis
Structure
Syncline
Event
Unconformity
Faults
One
Scale
Standard
Hang
Level
Accent
Single
Heading
North-northeast, 16.4°
Speed
1.31 cm a year

History

50 million years ago
Small ocean basins began to open as South America and Antarctica pulled apart, the start of the Scotia Sea.
30 million years ago
Seafloor spreading began on the West Scotia Ridge.
15 million years ago
Back-arc spreading was under way on this plate's eastern edge, behind the South Sandwich arc.
6 million years ago
The West Scotia Ridge stopped spreading.

Sources: Eagles and Jokat 2014, Tectonophysics 611:28 · Livermore et al. 2005, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 236:459 · Larter et al. 2003, Geological Society London Special Publications 219:255

Technical notes

The file

90,006bytes, the whole work
74,112bytes of engine, gzip and base64
0network requests
2048 pxdrawn on up to 8 workers, at your screen’s size

One HTML file: the engine (151,144 bytes minified), this plate's data and a small loader. It reads your clock and slides the view to where the plate is today.

engine sha256 a7fbc03acc0fc9ba343881bb88ddaf2b7564564d8bc9cbed16e75e47e01fb3f2

Sources

  • The plate, its outline and its motionBird, P. (2003). An updated digital model of plate boundaries. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 4(3), 1027.
  • What covers it, which chose the paletteESA CCI Land Cover and Water Bodies, ETOPO 2022, Köppen-Geiger climate maps, NSIDC Sea Ice Index.

The work

Live

One HTML file that drifts with your clock, a few centimetres a year.