Aden through 1 billion years

Aden lay at 5° south, the latitude of Victoria today.

Aden crosses the equator.

Heading north.

The Cambrian explosion

Aden lay at 47° south.

Life reaches land

Aden lay at 48° south.

Farthest south.

Aden lay at 63° south.

The first dinosaurs

Aden lay at 25° south, the latitude of Asunción today.

The great extinction

Aden lay at 8° south, the latitude of Dar es Salaam today.

Aden crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Homo sapiens

Aden lay at 13° north, its latitude today.

Aden today.

13° north. In 1 billion years the plates have carried it some 40,000 kilometres.

latitude through time

Oldest position in the model: 5° south; 1 billion years ago
Farthest south: 63° south; 350 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 940 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 940 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 40 million years ago
Distance travelled: 40,000 kilometres; 1 billion years

other places

Positions come from the plate model of Merdith and colleagues (2021), through the GPlates Web Service of the EarthByte Group at the University of Sydney. The globe shows today's coastlines carried back with their plates, not the shorelines of the time, so it does not say whether a place was land or sea. Cities and their coordinates come from Wikidata.