GAHAGAN, L.M., M.F. COFFIN, I. W. D. Dalziel, M. B. GANGISHETTI, L. A. LAWVER, T. Y. LEE, and E. ROSENCRANTZ, Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

ABSTRACT: Application of 3-D Graphics Software to Plate Tectonics Research and Resource Exploration

Over the past 25 years, plate tectonics has become the fundamental paradigm in earth science and is now an important hydrocarbon and mineral exploration tool. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin Institute for Geophysics have developed PLATES, a global plate reconstruction project that incorporates software, databases, and plate motion models that are relevant to resource exploration.

PLATES's interactive reconstruction software utilizes the Programmers Hierarchical Intergraphics Graphics System on a Sun SPARC station 2 under UNIX{TM}. Geographic data are selected and viewed on a globe on the screen. PLATES's global database includes high-resolution coastlines, marine magnetic anomalies, fracture zones, bathymetry, paleomagnetic results, ODP/DSDP results, and continent-ocean transition interpretations. Time-coded data are assigned to plates, and all data on an individual plate move as a unit. Their geographic positions may be changed by adjusting latitude, longitude and angle of rotation of a plate's Euler pole. The software permits the user to visualize directly how different data relate on a globe and to identify geologic implications of reconstructed data sets.< P>

PLATES has developed a global plate model spanning the past 200 m.y. Special areas of research include the evolution of Southeast Asia, the opening of the Arctic Ocean, and the innovative Precambrian North America - East Antarctic connection. Reconstructions from these and other areas will be displayed to demonstrate how the software has been used to develop tectonic models, and implications for resource exploration, including geologic setting, prediction of paleoenvironments, and constraints on basin evolution will be discussed.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90987©1993 AAPG Annual Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 25-28, 1993.