This repository contains data representations of various geological timescales (GTS) for use with the Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) and GPlates and other applications.
The color palettes use RGB colours, follow the GMT formattting and are based on the specifications published by the International Commission for Stratigraphy (ICS). They are available for geomagnetic and legacy geological time scales, with the formatting allowing easy conversion and comparison of stratigraphic and absolute ages.
Currently, the following incarnations of the geological time scale are covered (some only partly):
| Timescale name | CPT file | Status |
|---|---|---|
| ICS GTS2022v2 | ICS_GTS2022v2 | Complete, all levels |
| ICS GTS2012 time scale (link to PDF) (Meso/Cenozoic) | ICS_GTS2012 | incomplete, Mesozoic/Cenozoic, all levels |
| ICS GTS2004 (Gradstein, 2004) | ICS_GTS2004 | Incomplete |
| Exxon (Haq et al., 1988 ) | Exxon1988 | Incomplete, Maastrichtian to Aalenian, Age level. |
| Gee & Kent 2007 | GeeK2007 | Mag anomaly timescale, complete |
Using the GeoTime CPTs
Clone or download the repository (see "Usage" below). In GMT or GPlates you can then simply load the GeoTimeCPTs as color palettes.
Check my TectonicWaters blog for examples of how these color scales can be used with GPlates and GMT:
- GPlates: Colouring features by absolute age
- GeoTimeCPTs updated
- The initial post demonstrating the use
The cpts are also accessible through cpt-city with the direct link to the cpts being the "Heine collection" here.
Since August 2025, the cpts are now also part of the Generic Mapping Tools in the share/cpt/geological directory.
For the use of color palettes in GMT please see the technical reference.
Contributions to extend the coverage of timescales and to the repository are welcome.
This repository
The GeoTimeCPTs repository, wiki and forum are hosted using the Fossil source code management software.
Should you experience issues navigating or downloading files, there is a git mirror on my Sourcehut account here: https://git.sr.ht/~chhei/geotimecpts.
If you are accessing this repository on Sourcehut under the
following URL: https://git.sr.ht/~chhei/geotimecpts note that this
is a downstream mirror of the
original Fossil repository.
Please use the original repository for documentation, issues, and a forum.
I have deleted my git clones on GitHub and BitBucket in favour
of hosting privately and on Sourcehut.
Usage
This repository is hosted using the self-contained
Fossil distributed version control
software which has some minor differences to the popular git repositories:
- A zip file of the repository content can be downloaded on the Downloads page
- A Forum to discuss the scripts
- An issue tracker to log tickets
- A timeline
Tickets and forum can be used anonymously, contributors can request an account for repository access.
To clone the repository, you have to install Fossil first.
The workflow is similar to git, yet you will also get access
to the wiki, documentation, and tickets in one go:
fossil clone https://code.paleoearthlabs.org/geotimecpts/ geotimecptscd/mkdirto the directory which you want to be the root of your directory tree for this repository, thenfossil open <path>/<to>/<gptools clone>/geotimecpts.fossil
For detailed instructions, please see the Fossil Quick Start guide.
Licenses
The colour palette files (*.cpt) generated by the GeoTimeCPTs project are
licensed under a
Creative Commons Share-Alike Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Scripts and other tools/files are released under different licenses, please check the individual files.
You may only collect data served on this site for one or more of the following purposes:
- Search engine indexing
- Open-access research
- Archival
You may not use automated tools to collect data from this site for solicitation, profit, training machine learning models, or any other purpose not enumerated here without explicit permission from the repository owner
(With big thanks to the Sourcehut folks)
(c) Christian Heine, PaleoEarthLabs.org, 2012-2025