The analysis or reconstructions of rotations can be accomplished from data gathered from a spherical surface or from three-dimensional space. These problems arise in determining an unknown coordinate system, such as the orientation of a satellite or the crystallographic axes of a crystal, and in reconstructing the past position of tectonic plates. This research will develop statistical techniques for these problems that are not overly sensitive to outliers and will examine the statistical properties for inferences drawn by these methods. Applications to Procrustes analysis will be emphasized for the study of tectonic plate reconstructions.
