Meizhou through 1 billion years

Meizhou lay at 28° north, the latitude of New Delhi today.

Farthest north.

Meizhou lay at 88° north.

Meizhou crosses the equator.

Heading south.

The Cambrian explosion

Meizhou lay at 7° south, the latitude of Dar es Salaam today.

Life reaches land

Meizhou lay at 13° south, the latitude of Lima today.

Meizhou crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Meizhou crosses the equator.

Heading south.

Meizhou crosses the equator.

Heading north.

The first dinosaurs

Meizhou lay at 36° north, the latitude of Valletta today.

The great extinction

Meizhou lay at 27° north, the latitude of Thimphu today.

Homo sapiens

Meizhou lay at 24° north, its latitude today.

Meizhou today.

24° north. In 1 billion years the plates have carried it some 58,000 kilometres.

latitude through time

Oldest position in the model: 28° north; 1 billion years ago
Farthest south: 14° south; 510 million years ago
Farthest north: 88° north; 790 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 570 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 440 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 340 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 320 million years ago
Distance travelled: 58,000 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.