Comment by typpo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by typpo | Hacker News Reader

Hi HN, I built this. It's been posted several times before, so I can answer some common questions:

How does this work? I adapted GPlates [1], an academic project that creates desktop software for geologists to investigate plate tectonic data.

Is the geocoding accurate? Even though plate tectonic models return precise results, you should consider the plots approximate within ~100km. In my tests I found that model results can vary significantly. I chose this model because it is widely cited and covers the greatest length of time.

How should I interpret the maps/colors? The graphics that wrap the globe are provided by Dr. Christopher Scotese, a geologist who runs the PALEOMAP project. You can learn more about the project and the creation of the rasters here [2]. You might also notice some old national borders. I just work with what I can get!

Why can't it look up my location? Your location probably didn't exist at the time, geologically speaking. Try switching to closer to present day (e.g. 66 Mya)

Where are all the dinosaurs? Despite the title of this post, the visualization isn't really meant to show an exhaustive list of dinosaurs or fossils (the list doesn't even show on mobile). If you want to dig into data on fossils near you, check out the Paleobiology Database Navigator [3].

[1] https://www.gplates.org

[2] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-q0WIa7ofISFHyBe4UxvN8DIPs8...

[3] https://paleobiodb.org/navigator/

This doesn't appear to work for me. When I enter a city name it just places a red sphere on the globe. Nothing about dinosaurs.

It was clickbait

Yeah same - I think the post title was recently edited because the original title was very explicit about it showing you dinosaurs that were found in your area. I live in Miami, so I typed that in and was waiting to see the cousins of all the strange cold-blooded oddities I see everyday and it was exactly as you describe.

I recently saw one of those flappy neck lizards maybe 3 months ago so was expecting to see that dino from Jurassic Park when he yeets that fat guy out of existence but instead just got the red dot.

Where can I file a JIRA ticket?

I clicked around on soemthing and got a list. Around me was some huge whale Dino.

First I had to set the date to the Jurassic.

they don't appears when I'm using my cell photne but they do when I'm on my computer. also you have to selct a date when thre was dinosaurs

one suggestion is that rotation should be disabled by default, disable itself when you manually move the globe, or at least not hidden behind a toggle

otherwise very cool

I found the rotation inconvenient as well.

As the instructions in the bottom suggest, arrow keys can be used to skip over the times, which was good. It would be neat try having the up/down change the time (as they currently do) and left/right (instead of also navigating the times) do east/west rotation (or vice versa).

This is really cool, where is SnowBall earth at ~700M years ago though? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth

Is the rotation lock when viewing North/South Pole intentional?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock

It allows for north to always be up without causing mayhem when you try to move over the poles. The alternative is to allow free movement but no guarantee on orientation which can get confusion on things like this.

This is one of the coolest web apps I've seen... awesome work!

Thanks for building this! Is there any way to predict/visualize what it'll look like X years into the future? That'd be pretty cool to look at.

Would it be possible to show the Earth at X million years in the future?

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