# Pangea

> An interactive visualization of 540 million years of continental drift, from the early Cambrian to the present day.

## What it is

The Pangea Map is a browser-based paleogeographic map that lets users scrub through geological time and watch the continents move. It covers 0–540 Ma (million years ago) in 10 Ma steps using reconstructed coastline data from the GPlates Web Service.

## Features

- Timeline slider spanning 540 million years (early Cambrian to present)
- Animated playback through geological time
- Toggle between flat map and 3D globe projection (D3.js)
- Geological period bar (clickable timescale labels)
- Prefetched coastline data for smooth scrubbing
- Educational info panel covering Pangea's formation, breakup, legacy, and FAQ

## Data sources

- **Müller et al. (2019)** model — used for 0–250 Ma (higher quality recent reconstructions)
- **Merdith et al. (2021)** full-plate model — used for 250–540 Ma (extends to 1 billion years)
- Served via the [GPlates Web Service](https://gws.gplates.org) from the EarthByte Group, University of Sydney

## Tech stack

- [Astro](https://astro.build) — static site framework
- [D3.js](https://d3js.org) — map projection and rendering (geoOrthographic / geoNaturalEarth1)
- GeoJSON coastline features fetched at build time and served as static files from `/public/data/`