A geophysical survey in the eastern Gulf of Aden, between the Alula–Fartak (52°E) and the Socotra (55°E) transform faults, was carried out during the Encens–Sheba cruise. The conjugate margins of the Gulf are steep, narrow and asymmetric. Asymmetry of the rifting process is highlighted by the conjugate margins (horst and graben in the north and deep basin in the south). Two transfer fault zones separate the margins into three segments, whereas the present‐day Sheba Ridge is divided into two segments by a transform discontinuity. Therefore segmentation of the Sheba Ridge and that of the conjugate margins did coincide during the early stages of oceanic spreading. Extensive magma production is evidenced in the central part of the western segment. Anomaly 5d was identified in the northern and southern parts of the oceanic basin, thus confirming that seafloor spreading in this part of Gulf of Aden started at least 17.6 Ma ago.

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Magnetic anomaly identifications underpin plate tectonic reconstructions and form the primary data set from which the age of the oceanic lithosphere and seafloor spreading regimes in the ocean basins can be determined. Although these identifications are an invaluable resource, their usefulness to the wider scientific community has been limited due to the lack of a central community infrastructure to organize, host, and update these interpretations. We have developed an open-source, community-driven online infrastructure as a repository for quality-checked magnetic anomaly identifications from all ocean basins. We provide a global sample data set that comprises 96,733 individually picked magnetic anomaly identifications organized by ocean basin and publication reference, and provide accompanying Hellingerformat files, where available. Our infrastructure is designed to facilitate research in plate tectonic reconstructions or research that relies on an assessment of plate reconstructions, for both experts and nonexperts alike. To further enhance the existing repository and strengthen its value, we encourage others in the community to contribute to this effort.

[1] We use more than 230,000 km of Russian marine magnetic and bathymetric data from the Carlsberg and northern Central Indian ridges, comprising one of the most geographically extensive, dense shipboard surveys anywhere in the ocean basins, to describe in detail seafloor spreading since 20 Ma along the trailing edge of the Indian plate. India-Somalia plate rotations for $1 Myr intervals over the past 20 Myr are derived from inversions of more than 6600 crossings of 20 magnetic reversals and $1400 crossings of fracture zones that offset these two ridges. Statistical analysis of the numerous data indicates that outward displacement of reversal boundaries due to finite seafloor emplacement widths and correlated noise for anomaly crossings from individual spreading segments constitute two distinct sources of systematic bias in the locations of magnetic anomaly crossings, contrary to the often-made assumption that random, Gaussian-distributed noise dominates the error budget. Seafloor spreading rates slowed gradually by 30% from 20 Ma to 10 ± 1 Ma about a relatively stationary pole of rotation. From 11 Ma to 9 Ma the rotation axis migrated several angular degrees toward the plate boundary, modestly increasing the spreading gradient along the plate boundary. India-Somalia kinematic data for times since $9 Ma are consistent with remarkably steady motion, with no evidence for a change in either the rotation pole or rate of angular opening within the few percent precision of our data. The timing and nature of changes in India-Somalia motion since 20 Ma closely resemble those for the Capricorn-Somalia plate pair, indicating that India and Capricorn plate motions are strongly coupled. We speculate that the slowdown in seafloor spreading at the trailing edges of the Indo-Capricorn composite plate from 20 Ma to 10 ± 1 Ma resulted from the increasing amount of work that was needed to build topography in the Himalayan collisional zone. The transition to stable India-Somalia and Capricorn-Somalia seafloor spreading at $10-9 Ma corresponds well with the onset at 8 Ma of folding and faulting across an equatorial plate boundary separating the Indian and Capricorn plates, suggesting that the latter may have played a fundamental role in restoring equilibrium between the torques that were driving and resisting the northward motions of the Indian and Capricorn plates.

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Summary We estimate India-Somalia plate motion at 45 times since 60 Ma from ∼9,000 crossings of Carlsberg and northern Central Indian Ridge magnetic reversals C1 to C26 and numerous fracture zone crossings. The new rotations reveal at least seven significant spreading rate changes since ∼60 Ma, some previously unknown. The largest changes occurred before 46 Ma, when the forces acting on the India plate evolved rapidly due to the transition from subduction to continent-continent collision between India and Asia and the influence of the Reunion hotspot plume on the India plate. The new rotations reveal a gradual ∼50 percent decline in Carlsberg Ridge spreading rates from 57-52.7 Ma, but an end to the decline at ∼53 Ma, when spreading rates surged rapidly by up to 100 percent. From 52-46.7 Ma, Carlsberg Ridge spreading rates collapsed by ∼90 percent, possibly defining a protracted transition to continental collision between India and Asia. Significant kinematic events since 46.7 Ma have included a ∼25 percent spreading rate recovery from 42-40 Ma, ultraslow spreading from 38.6-33.2 Ma, a gradual rate doubling from 33-18 Ma, a ∼50 percent slowdown from 18-13 Ma, and apparently steady motion since 13 Ma. The new rotations successfully predict Carlsberg Ridge abyssal hill orientations for seafloor ages of 48-42 Ma and 20-0 Ma and Central Indian Ridge fracture zone traces for seafloor ages of 43 to 16 Ma, constituting useful tests of the rotation accuracies at these ages. When corrected for the movement of India relative to the Capricorn plate since 16 Ma, the new rotations also successfully restore magnetic lineations C13, C18, C20, and C21, and fracture zone segments from the Capricorn plate onto of their Somalia plate counterparts. This further confirms the accuracies of our new rotations back to C21n.1o (47.8 Ma), and validates a ∼16 Ma start date for India-Capricorn plate motion and published correction for India-Capricorn motion. Anticorrelated changes in India-Somalia and Antarctic-Somalia seafloor spreading rates from 37-18 Ma may be evidence that Somalia plate absolute motion changed during this period, possibly triggered by Somalia’s post-30-Ma detachment from the Arabian Peninsula or the kinematic effects of the Afar and/or Reunion mantle plumes on the Somalia plate. New India-Eurasia rotations that we estimate from an updated global plate circuit predict convergence rates from 53-47 Ma that are ∼30 percent faster than previous estimates and that decline ∼75 percent by ∼38 Ma. Changes in India-Somalia and India-Eurasia rates correspond closely with recently described Tibetan deformation pulses, consistent with linkages between all three. A joint inversion of Carlsberg and southern Central Indian ridge magnetic reversal and fracture zone data, including a correction for movement of the Capricorn plate relative to India, satisfactorily realigns the reconstructed magnetic lineations and fracture zones back to C23n.1n (50.7 Ma), but misfits some data by 100 km or more at earlier times. The misfits may be evidence for deformation within the IndoCapricorn and/or Somalia plates before 48 Ma or a misinterpretation of magnetic reversal and/or fracture zone data from times before 48 Ma.

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Summary We reconstruct the movement of the India plate relative to Eurasia at ≈1-Myr intervals from 20 Ma to the present from GPS site velocities and high-resolution sequences of rotations from the India-Somalia-Antarctic-Nubia-North America-Eurasia plate circuit. The plate circuit rotations, which are all estimated using the same data fitting functions, magnetic reversal sampling points, calibrations for magnetic reversal outward displacement, and noise mitigation methods, include new India-Somalia rotations estimated from numerous Carlsberg and northern Central Indian ridge plate kinematic data and high-resolution rotations from the Southwest Indian Ridge that account for slow motion between the Nubia and Somalia plates. Our new rotations indicate that India-Somalia plate motion slowed down by 25-30 percent from 19.7 Ma to 12.5-11.1 Ma, but remained steady since at least 9.8 Ma and possibly 12.5 Ma. Our new India-Eurasia rotations predict a relatively simple plate motion history, consisting of NNE-directed interplate convergence since 19 Ma, a ≈50 percent convergence rate decrease from 19.7 Ma to 12.5-11.1 Ma, and steady or nearly steady plate motion since 12.5-11.1 Ma. Instantaneous convergence rates estimated with our new India-Eurasia GPS angular velocity are 16 percent slower than our reconstructed plate kinematic convergence rates for times since 2.6 Ma, implying either a rapid, recent slowdown in the convergence rate or larger than expected errors in our geodetic and/or plate kinematic estimates. During an acceleration of seafloor faulting within the wide India-Capricorn oceanic boundary at 8-7.5 Ma, our new rotations indicate that the motions of the India plate relative to Somalia and Eurasia remained steady. We infer that forces acting on the Capricorn rather than the India plate were responsible for the accelerated seafloor deformation, in accord with a previous study. India-Eurasia displacements that are predicted with our new, well-constrained rotations are fit poorly by a recently proposed model that attributes the post-60-Ma slowdown in India-Eurasia convergence rates to the steady resistance of a strong lithospheric mantle below Tibet.