The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

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EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST
curred in a good many places, some of them far removed
from the ice sheets themselves.
Despite the unquestionable importance of these locally
acting factors, it seems that we must give much greater im-
portance to the meteorological results of the universally act-
ing volcanic dust. As we have noted, this dust has a powerful
effect in reducing the average temperatures of the earth's
surface. A sufficient fall in temperature could easily wipe out
large numbers of animals, either directly, or by killing their
food, or even by favoring the spread of epidemic diseases.
Then, the dust could greatly increase rainfall, which, in cer-
tain circumstances, would produce extensive floods, thus
drowning numbers of animals and perhaps piling
their bodies
in certain spots. As already mentioned, the dust would
also act to increase the temperature differences between the
climatic zones (the temperature gradient), thereby increasing,
perhaps very noticeably, the average wind velocities everywhere.
Violent gales, lasting for days at a time, and recurring
frequently throughout the year, might raise great dust storms,
in which animals might be caught and killed by thirst or suf-
focation. It must not be forgotten that, at the same time,
changes in land elevations would be in progress, and these
also would be affecting the climate and the availability of
food supplies. The gradual character of these changes would
be punctuated, at times, by the abrupt release of accumulat-
ing tensions in the crust, accompanied by terrific earthquakes
and by sudden changes of elevation locally amounting perhaps
to a good many feet, which also could be the cause of
floods either inland (by the sudden damming of rivers) or
along the coasts. There is, as a matter of fact, as already
mentioned, much evidence of turbulence throughout the
world, during the last North American ice age, not only in
the air but in the sea.
I have not been able to make a complete survey of this evi-
dence. Nevertheless, a few additional items have come to my
attention. Ericson, for example, finds that turbidity currents
in the sea were more powerful during the ice age than they