R/downloadPaleogeography.R

In velociraptr: Fossil Analysis

#' Downloads paleogeographic maps
#'
#' Download a paleogeographic map for an age expressed in millions of years ago.
#'
#' @param Age A whole number up to 550
#'
#' @details Downloads a map of paleocontinents for a specific age from Macrostrat.org as a shapefile. The given age must be expressed as a whole number. Note that the function makes use of the rgdal and RCurl packages.
#'
#' @author Andrew A. Zaffos
#'
#' @return A simple features object
#'
#' @examples
#'
#' # Download a test dataset of Maastrichtian bivalves.
#' # DataPBDB<-downloadPBDB(Taxa="Bivalvia",StartInterval="Maastrichtian",StopInterval="Maastrichtian")
#'
#' # Download a paleogeographic map.
#' # KTBoundary<-downloadPaleogeography(Age=66)
#'
#' # Plot the paleogeographic map (uses rgdal) and the PBDB points.
#' # plot(KTBoundary,col="grey")
#' # points(x=DataPBDB[,"paleolng"],y=DataPBDB[,"paleolat"],pch=16,cex=2)
#'
#' @rdname downloadPaleogeography
#' @export
# download maps of paleocontinents from Macrostrat
downloadPaleogeography<-function(Age=0) {
	URL<-paste0("https://macrostrat.org/api/v2/paleogeography?format=geojson_bare&age=",Age)
	return(sf::st_read(URL))
	}