Reconstructing lost plates of the Panthalassa Ocean through paleomagnetic data from circum-Pacific accretionary orogens

Abstract

The Panthalassa Ocean, which surrounded the late Paleozoic-early Mesozoic Pangea supercontinent, was underlain by multiple tectonic plates that have since been lost to subduction. In this study, we develop an approach to reconstruct plate motions of this subducted lithosphere utilizing paleomagnetic data from accreted Ocean Plate Stratigraphy (OPS). We first establish the boundaries of the Panthalassa domain by using available Indo-Atlantic plate reconstructions and resto