After researching a few animated maps on the web, I found this site from Wordpress initially which is written in Spanish, though the blog above has been translated. But from that blog, I found a site about American Leadership and War and was impressed by how well made the animated map is. It is highly interactive and allows the user to watch a brief overview of all the wars America has been involved in showing a body count for "Fore Fathers", Republican and Democrat created wars.
Then I noticed the History of Religion animated map and thought this might be of some use to the class as well, however it does not cover Mormonism or the State of Nevada. Still, a very interesting perspective of time versus the spreading of different belief systems.
For the academic article, I found a site on Google Scholar, which is article about Descartes (aka IRIS), a software used to for animation of maps. Interesting article, but didn't seem worth $31.28 plus tax.
