Credits & Data Sources

Paleodigital Elevation Models (0–540 Ma heightmaps)

Scotese, C.R. and Wright, N.M. (2018). PALEOMAP Paleodigital Elevation Models (PaleoDEMS) for the Phanerozoic.

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5460860

Modifications: NetCDF → 8-bit heightmap → 1024/2048px lossless WebP. Historical 0–50Ma strait dilation and age-dependent processing order retained; modern Natural Earth mask only at 0Ma

Ocean / marine polygons for shallow-sea correction at 0Ma (modern coastline)

Natural Earth — naturalearthdata.com

Modifications: ne_10m_ocean + ne_10m_marine_polys GeoJSON converted to 4096×2048 boolean mask, applied as sea overlay in the final heightmap stage

0–540 Ma surface temperature / precipitation / wind (55 snapshots, 10 Ma → 109 snapshots interpolated to 5 Ma)

Li, X. et al. (2022). A high-resolution climate simulation dataset for the past 540 million years. Scientific Data, 9, 371.

DOI: 10.1038/s41597-022-01490-4

Modifications: Annual surface temperature from CESM (T): a model estimate, not a direct observation of the past. NetCDF → lossless RGB WebP on the native 288×192 grid (8-bit quantization), linearly interpolated from 10 Ma to 5 Ma. The global surface-temperature indicator is the area-weighted annual mean. 0 Ma is pre-industrial; Köppen is a simplified annual-mean approximation. Wind uses separate textures.

Paleobiology Database (fossil occurrence records)

Peters, S.E. and McClennen, M. (2016). The Paleobiology Database application programming interface. Paleobiology, 42(1), 1-7.

Modifications: Explicit overlap query in 5 Ma windows (0 Ma: 0–2.5 Ma). At most 10,000 sampled by group, region and collection; only valid reconstructed points shown. Age intervals and taxon/collection/reference IDs preserved. Counts are not abundance or biodiversity.

Plate-tectonic coordinate reconstruction (run locally)

Müller, R.D. et al. (2018). GPlates: Building a Virtual Earth Through Deep Time. G-cubed, 19.

DOI: 10.1029/2018GC007584

Modifications: Coordinates pre-computed locally with PyGPlates and stored as static JSON

0–200 Ma plate boundaries (separate model comparison)

Seton, M. et al. (2012). Global continental and ocean basin reconstructions since 200 Ma. Earth-Science Reviews, 113.

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10596050

Modifications: Plate-boundary topology resolved with PyGPlates at 5 Ma intervals; coordinates rounded to 0.1° and stored as static JSON.

0–540 Ma coordinate reconstruction (Scotese 2016 reference frame; per-point validity checked)

Scotese, C.R. (2016). PALEOMAP PaleoAtlas for GPlates, v3. Zenodo.

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10596610

Modifications: Pre-rotated fossil/city/geo_event coordinates with PyGPlates and stored as static JSON

200–540 Ma plate boundary topology

Müller, R.D. et al. (2022). A tectonic-rules-based mantle reference frame since 1 billion years ago – implications for supercontinent cycles and plate–mantle system evolution. Solid Earth, 13, 1127–1159. Model v1.2.4.

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.13636799

Modifications: Plate-boundary topology resolved with PyGPlates at 5 Ma intervals; coordinates rounded to 0.1° and stored as static JSON.

Taxon silhouettes (on request in fossil details; also in creature cards — runtime API)

PhyloPic — phylopic.org

Modifications: Runtime API; preserves original attribution (distinct from uploader), artwork UUID/build and artwork/license links. Thumbnails resized.

Single source for geological boundaries and period names

International Commission on Stratigraphy, International Chronostratigraphic Chart, 2026/06.

Modifications: Period boundaries extracted into JSON with display colors and localized names

1 Ma summaries of Cenozoic CO₂ proxy records

CenCO2PIP Consortium (2023), Science 382, eadi5177; vetted data v1.02 (2024).

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14537923

Modifications: Eligible category 1/2 records; median of study medians. Ranges describe samples, not confidence intervals. Empty bins remain unavailable.

Sea-level reconstruction, 0.98–64.82 Ma

Miller, K.G. et al. (2020). Smoothed Cenozoic sea-level relative to modern from deep-sea geochemical and continental margin records [dataset]. PANGAEA.

DOI: 10.1594/PANGAEA.923139

Modifications: Linear interpolation of supplied smoothed series; no extrapolation. 0 Ma is a present-day 0 m reference.

Present-day map geology at 25 city centers

Macrostrat; Peters et al. (2018). Original map references retained and displayed for each city.

Modifications: Static snapshot of API z=6 results; original unit names and ages retained. Not a paleomap or site survey.

Six museum examples with explicit CC0 rights

Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Paleobiology Department.

Modifications: Curated examples and resized display images; catalog/media IDs and raw hashes retained. No asserted match to PBDB specimens.