Skip to main content
. 2023 Nov 29;624(7990):115–121. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06777-z

Extended Data Fig. 8. Plate tectonics and the Phanerozoic marine biodiversity.

Extended Data Fig. 8

a. The index of continental block fragmentation derived from Zaffos et al.41 (orange curve) with value close to 1 indicating no plates are touching and a value of zero corresponding to contiguous continental blocks arranged in a single mass. Pearson correlation (0.46) indicates a positive but moderate relationship with the number of marine families (black line from Sepkoski’s dataset2. b. Correlations between the fragmentation index and the total number of marine genera from Sepkoski2 (SO2) and Rohde & Muller5 (RM05) show a slightly stronger but still moderate positive trends (Pearson values of 0.58 and 0.54 respectively).