Computational methods for calculating geometric parameters of tectonic plates
Present day and ancient plate tectonic configurations can be modelled in terms of non-overlapping polygonal regions, separated by plate boundaries, on the unit sphere. The computational methods described in this article allow an evaluation of the area and the inertial tensor components of a polygonal region on the unit sphere, as well as an estimation of the associated errors. These methods are based on a triangulation algorithm for spherical polygons, which produces highly reliable results. As the amount and quality of plate boundary and ocean floor data available increased considerably during the last years, a refined calculation of the geometric and kinematic parameters can be performed for any Cenozoic plate tectonic configuration. Accurate results for 19 modern plates are presented. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
plate tectonics triangulation spherical polygon plate geometry