Yulin through 1 billion years

Yulin lay at 23° north, the latitude of Muscat today.

Farthest north.

Yulin lay at 83° north.

Yulin crosses the equator.

Heading south.

The Cambrian explosion

Yulin lay at 12° south, the latitude of Moroni today.

Life reaches land

Yulin lay at 15° south, the latitude of Lusaka today.

Yulin crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Yulin crosses the equator.

Heading south.

Yulin crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Yulin crosses the equator.

Heading south.

Yulin crosses the equator.

Heading north.

The first dinosaurs

Yulin lay at 32° north, the latitude of Amman today.

The great extinction

Yulin lay at 25° north, the latitude of Riyadh today.

Homo sapiens

Yulin lay at 23° north, its latitude today.

Yulin today.

23° north. In 1 billion years the plates have carried it some 57,000 kilometres.

latitude through time

Oldest position in the model: 23° north; 1 billion years ago
Farthest south: 17° south; 560 million years ago
Farthest north: 83° north; 800 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 580 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 440 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 420 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 370 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 350 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 310 million years ago
Distance travelled: 57,000 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.