Researchers from Royal Holloway, The Australian National University and Geoscience Australia, helped clear up previous uncertainties on how the plates evolved and where they should be positioned when drawing up a picture of the past.
"The Earth's tectonic plates move around through time. As these movements occur over many millions of years, it has previously been difficult to produce accurate maps of where the continents were in the past," Dr Lloyd White from the Department of Earth Sciences said.
The researchers adopted an old technique used by people who discovered the theories of continental drift and plate tectonics, but which had largely been ignored by many modern scientists.
"It was a simple technique, matching the geological boundaries on each plate. The geological units formed before the continents broke apart, so we used their position to put this ancient jigsaw puzzle back together again.
The study was published in the journal Gondwana Research.