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

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EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST
To recapitulate what has already been said, if drastic climatic
and geographical change is the most obvious factor
to which to look for changes in life forms, then it is to the
acceleration of that factor that we must look for the accelera-
tion of evolution. In the previous chapters we have been led
again and again by the force of the evidence to the concept
of displacements of the earth's crust. There is no reasonable
doubt as to the effect that such displacements, at relatively
short intervals, would have on the tempo of evolution. They
could not fail enormously to accelerate the several aspects of
the evolutionary process. Let us now examine some of these
special aspects in more detail.
Wright has pointed out that the rate of evolutionary
change may have been accelerated at various times through
the mass transformation of one kind of plant or animal into
another (115:314). This requires that all over the area of
distribution of the life form in question there must be strong
pressure for change in the same direction. This means that
similar new varieties would appear simultaneously and independently
in countless localities or that well-adapted new
varieties would spread and become established rapidly. Quite
this would tend to accelerate evolution.
obviously
But how would such mass transformation be brought
about? It could only result from profound transformation of
the environment. The required change would have to be
general and would have to tend in the same direction for a
considerable period of time. No short-range fluctuations and,
above all, no merely local climatic changes would suffice. A
displacement of the crust appears to meet all these requirements.
For a period of many thousands of years, some areas,
moving toward the equator, would be growing warmer;
others, moving toward the poles, would be growing colder.
In the areas moving toward the equator (not necessarily
reaching the equator, however, or even the tropics) the increase
of sunlight would mean more luxuriant life condi-
tions; for many species this might mean increased food
supplies and an extended distribution. It would also be likely