Plate reconstruction uncertainties using empirical probability density functions

Presents a method of determining plate reconstruction uncertainties using empirical probability density functions (PDFs). Estimated positioning errors of fracture zone and magnetic anomaly crossings, into data PDFs which describe the uncertainty in the location of each fracture zone or magnetic anomaly crossing. An empirical PDF is formed for the rotation between a single plate pair based on the ability to align the rotated data along a series of ridge and transform segments. Monte Carlo techniques are then used to sample the PDFs for rotations between single plate pairs to form a PDF for a sequence of rotation. We provide comparisons with other previously published studies for the anomaly 13 single plate pair reconstruction between the Pacific and Antarctic plates as well as for the anomaly 6 (19.8 Ma) combined reconstruction between the Pacific and North American plates. The benefit of our Monte Carlo technique is that it adequately samples the PDFs for all of the rotations, thus accurately including the effects of coupling uncertainties between pole location and amount of rotation. -from Authors