Tectonic Drift

Wherever you are standing has been somewhere else.

The continents are rafts, and the ground under your feet is a passenger. Pick a place — click the map, or use where you are — and follow that patch of crust backward.

41.2° N, 74.0° W

The band's edges are the most northerly and most southerly of five plate models: PALEOMAP (Scotese), Merdith et al. 2021, Golonka (Wright et al. 2013), Torsvik & Cocks 2017, and Matthews et al. 2016, which reaches back 410 million years. All five set latitude against the Earth's spin axis, which ties it to sunlight, except PALEOMAP over its last 130 million years, where it leans on hotspots and can sit up to 8° off the others. Models set against the deep mantle throughout were left out. The five share some evidence, which can make the band too narrow; one model's sparse poles can make it too wide. Positions are blended from a 2° grid, about 220 km across; a pin on a plate boundary follows one side of it.