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

CONCLUSION 387
present time are discussing polar shift, but none of them has
as yet suggested an acceptable mechanism.
The general evidence for displacements of the crust is ex-
ceedingly rich. In turn, the assumption of such displacements
serves to solve a wide range of problems, such as the causes
of ice ages, warm polar climates, mountain building; it pro-
vides a mechanism that may account for changes in the eleva-
tions of land areas and in the topography of the ocean floors;
it also provides a basis for the resolution of conflicts in iso-
static theory. For the period of the late Pleistocene, the theory
permits the construction of a chronology of polar shifts, with
three successive tentative polar positions in Alaska, Green-
land, and Hudson Bay preceding the present position of the
pole. The evidence for the location of the Hudson Bay
region at the pole during the last North American ice age is
overwhelming, and this fact in itself provides the principal
support for the assumption of the earlier shifts. The tempo
of change indicated for the late Pleistocene is reflected in
evidence from earlier geological periods.
The theory is able to explain not only the general succes-
sion of climatic changes in various parts of the world in the
late Pleistocene; it can account also for the detailed history
of the last North American icecap. It can explain the fluctua-
tions of that icecap, its repeated retreats and readvances. It
shows that the effects of volcanism were directly responsible
for the oscillations. It shows also that these same effects,
added to the effects of gradual climatic change, were responsible
for the widespread extinctions of species at the end of the
Pleistocene, and from this we may assume that the same
cause was responsible for numerous extinctions in earlier
geological periods. By providing
a reasonable basis for the
assumptions of rapid climatic change and rapid topographical
change (including the existence of former continents and
land bridges), the theory provides solutions for many prob-
lems in the evolution and distribution of species.
Our theory of displacement depends upon two assump-
tions, and on two only. One of these is that a continental ice-