[Tutorial] Using GPlates to model continental drift

[Charerg]

Hi,
Found this tutorial really useful for getting me started on some stuff. Was just wondering if someone could cast there eye over what I've currently got and tell me if it just looks roughly like plates could look. Thought I should get that checked before I even begin moving stuff about.

 

Attachment 116579
The little trianlges just mark oceanic crust. The Big light blue one on the south pole is also one but triangle doesn't show up!

My advice is to not worry about the plate shapes per se, since they aren't very stable features when it comes to reconstructing a planet's tectonic history. Also, what shape they can have is totally dependent on the nature of the tectonic boundaries. A plate surrounded by divergent boundaries (like African and Antarctican) will have a very different shape to one that has a divergent margin on one side, and a convergent margin on the other (the American plates, for example).

It is also likely that the plate arrangement will change as "part of the process" of creating a tectonic history for your world, so you don't want to start off with a rigid present day arrangement. It's better to start off with just a few continents that used to form a supercontinent in the past, for example, and then work out their movements (or some other tectonic scenario you want to incorporate in your world). Eventually you can add more elements to your model as you keep building it up. You might even end up redoing almost everything if you're really into the tectonics side of thing (as I have, the current layout for Aduhr is the third one ).

Unfortunately there isn't an actual tectonics tutorial that would explain all the "rules of tectonic movements", but there are a number conworlds that have had fictional tectonics built up, and they can be a good source of infomation (and inspiration, hopefully). My own creation might provide some insight into the process, and there's also Pixie's Maward off the top of my head (there are many others too, with varying levels of complexity).

Hello there!

I was wondering if anyone could help me out with an issue. I got as far as moving the pole around, double checking all of my work, but I am unable to get the "Modify Reconstruction Pole" to light up. It's greyed out, i.e., disabled. I've searched the manual as to why this could be with no clear answer. Thank you for any help you can give!

You need to have a feature selected in order to be able to move said feature around the pole.