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

LIFE 339
of crust displacement is quite startling. We have seen that
such movements would necessitate frequent migrations of
whole faunas and floras. It would necessarily follow, from the
theory of crust displacement, that species would as a rule be
separated by considerable geographical distances from the
places of their origin. This would be all the more certain
since the rate of development of new forms is probably very
slow as compared with the rate at which crust displacements
may occur. It could, actually, be rather seldom that one plant
or animal would complete much of its life history in the same
place. The "missing links" would usually have been separated
by great geographical distances from the homes of their
descendants. Moreover, the successive movements of the
crust, with the resulting changes in the distribution of land
and sea, would leave much of the fossil record under the present
shallow (or even deep) seas, and out of our reach.
8. Summary
To sum up: it would seem that in crust displacements we
have the missing factor that can bring all the other evolu-
tionary factors into proper focus and correct perspective. By
crust displacements we may accelerate the tempo of natural
selection, provide the conditions of isolation and competition
required for change in life forms, and account for periods of
revolutionary change, for the distribution of species across
oceans and climatic zones, and for the extinction of species.
We may also account for the significant association of turn-
ing points in evolution with geological and climatic changes,
presenting them as different results of the same cause. But for
crust displacements to have had these effects, and if they are,
indeed, to account for the evolution of species, they must
have occurred very often throughout the history of the earth.