New tools on Terra Antiqua 2.0 applied to reconstructing the paleogeography of the India-Asia collision
Résumé
Terra Antiqua is a plugin for QGIS to make paleogeographic reconstructions with a user-friendly graphical interface. The goal of Terra Antiqua is to make paleogeographic reconstructions accessible and attractive to a much wider range of users, typically Earth and Life scientists and students, without extensive expertise in programming and GIS analyses. Yet Terra Antiqua can also be attractive for GIS developers as our reconstruction algorithms are accessible through application programming interfaces (APIs), open source Github repository and written in python with open standards (e.g. OpenLayers, OGC, GDAL). Starting from physiographic features and datasets rotated back to the desired reconstructed age (typically using Gplates), the previous release of Terra Antiqua offered a set of primary tools to run the main steps of a global reconstruction (1. Combine topo-/bathymetry, 2. Set Paleoshorelines, 3. Modify topo/bathymetry and 4. Create topo/bathymetry) and secondary tools to improve and enhance the result. From this first simple release we are incrementally adding tools and features inspired by various methods developed by experienced paleogeographers. The new release, Terra Antiqua 2.0, has integrated a new set of options on the existing tools, including the ability to create physically realistic geomorphic features. These new options will be presented within the controversial example of the reconstruction of the India-Collision and the development of the Tibetan-Himalayan orogen. Several reconstructions stemming from competing topographic and geodynamic models are thus compared and assessed based on compiled datasets including updated paleoaltimetry.
