Unfolding Earth - my contribution

[dgtech]

I was recently looking for low distortion linear projection map of the continental plates, and I found some pretty good maps from these guys here: http://www.win.tue.nl/~vanwijk/myriahedral/

However not them, not anyone else seems to have bothered to make a projection of the actual continents, they just did for the parts of them that are above the ocean, ignoring everything beneath.Here is the map, nothing fancy or high-res, original image taken from NOAA's "Age of the oceanic lithosphere" map, of which of course I do not take credit :)

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/903/projection.jpg

Brings a totally different perspective, doesn't it ;)

 

[matthyaouw]

Intersting. It particularly gives a difffernt perspective on the north atlantic and arctic region.

 

[dgtech]

IMO people often ignore the parts of the continents that are below ocean level, almost like they don't exist. Another misconception building factor is that most of the maps we use are very high in distortion, so people lose the actual scale of things.

I have done this map mostly to address all the people who deny the concept that the western shore of America was once connected to Asia and Australia. This map proves that information is wrong, meaning they didn't used to be connected, all continental masses besides Antarctica are still partially connected. Also the mostly sunken landmasses east of Australia are a perfect fit to south America, and if you follow the striation marks left on the oceanic crust you can literally trace how and where they connect.