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Plate tectonics

Lost sea floor

The configurations of ancient tectonic plates are difficult to reconstruct. Seismic images of deep subducted plates, combined with data from ancient volcanic arcs, help to derive a tectonic map of the Pacific Ocean as it was 200 million years ago.

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Figure 1: Schematic reconstructions of Pacific-style oceanic plates.

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Correspondence to Lijun Liu.

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Liu, L. Lost sea floor. Nature Geosci 5, 165–167 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1410

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