Tilings of the Sphere by Congruent Quadrilaterals I:Edge Combination a^(2)bc

Abstract Edge-to-edge tilings of the sphere by congruent a^(2)bc-quadrilaterals are classified as 3 classes:(1)A 1-parameter family of quadrilateral subdivisions of the octahedron with24 tiles,and a flip modification for one special parameter;(2)a 2-parameter family of 2-layer earth map tilings with 2n tiles for each n≥3;(3)a 3-layer earth map tiling with 8n tiles for each n≥2,and two flip modifications for each odd n.The authors also describe the moduli of parameterized tilings and provide the full geometric data for all tilings.