Conrad et al. reply

Abstract

replying to M. L. Rudolph & S. Zhong 503, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ nature12792 (2013)We thank Rudolph and Zhong for their Comment, which allows us to highlight important aspects of our original Letter. In particular, they have provided an example of plate motions at 300 million years (Myr) ago (see right column of figure 1 of ref. 1) in which the plate tectonic quadrupole is not representative of plate tectonic divergence patterns (that is, there is no divergence in the middle of their supercontinent, despite a divergent quadrupole there). However, our study does not claim that there should be a correspondence between quadrupole locations and the specific locations of plate tectonic divergence - instead we argue that plate tectonic dipole and quadrupole locations are representative of underlying mantle flow only. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.