Global plate motion frames: Toward a unified model

Abstract

Plate tectonics constitutes our primary framework for understanding how the Earth works over geological timescales. High‐resolution mapping of relative plate motions based on marine geophysical data has followed the discovery of geomagnetic reversals, mid‐ocean ridges, transform faults, and seafloor spreading, cementing the plate tectonic paradigm. However, so‐called “absolute plate motions,” describing how the fragments of the outer shell of the Earth have moved relative to a reference system such as the Earth's mantle, are still poorly understood. Accurate absolute plate motion models are essential surface boundary conditions for mantle convection models as well as for understanding past ocean circulation and climate as continent‐ocean distributions change with time. A fundamental problem with deciphering absolute plate motions is that the Earth's rotation axis and the averaged magnetic dipole axis are not necessarily fixed to the mantle reference system. Absolute plate motion models based on volcanic hot spot tracks are largely confined to the last 130 Ma and ideally would require knowledge about the motions within the convecting mantle. In contrast, models based on paleomagnetic data reflect plate motion relative to the magnetic dipole axis for most of Earth's history but cannot provide paleolongitudes because of the axial symmetry of the Earth's magnetic dipole field. We analyze four different reference frames (paleomagnetic, African fixed hot spot, African moving hot spot, and global moving hot spot), discuss their uncertainties, and develop a unifying approach for connecting a hot spot track system and a paleomagnetic absolute plate reference system into a “hybrid” model for the time period from the assembly of Pangea (∼320 Ma) to the present. For the last 100 Ma we use a moving hot spot reference frame that takes mantle convection into account, and we connect this to a pre–100 Ma global paleomagnetic frame adjusted 5° in longitude to smooth the reference frame transition. Using plate driving force arguments and the mapping of reconstructed large igneous provinces to core–mantle boundary topography, we argue that continental paleolongitudes can be constrained with reasonable confidence.