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

ANCIENT CLIMATES 6j
region: '
'Large Permian reptiles . . . are found along the
Dvina River of Russia, just below the Arctic Circle, at a
North Latitude of 65 "
(375:259). Dr. Colbert explains that
these reptiles must have required a warm climate. In sum-
ming up the problem of plant life for the many long ages
of the Paleozoic Era, from the Devonian through the Per-
mian, Barghoorn says that it is "one of the great enigmas" o
science : (375 *43>-
Coming now to the Mesozoic Era (comprising the Triassic,
Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods), Colbert reports that in the
Triassic some amphibians (the Labyrinthodonts) ranged all
the way from 40 S. Lat. to 80 N. Lat. About this time the
warm-water Ichthyosaurus lived at Spitzbergen (375:262-64).
For the Jurassic, Wallace reports:
In the Jurassic Period, for example, we have proofs of a mild arctic
climate, in the abundant plant remains of East Siberia and Amurland.
. . . But even more remarkable are the marine remains found in
many places in high northern latitudes, among which we may especially
mention the numerous ammonites and the vertebrae of huge
reptiles of the genera Ichthyosaurus and Teleosaurus found in Jurassic
deposits of the Parry Islands in 77 N. Lat. (446:202).
For the Cretaceous Period, A. C. Seward reported in 1932
that "the commonest Cretaceous ferns [of Greenland] are
closely allied to species ... in the southern tropics" (373:
363-71). Gutenberg remarks: "Thus, certain regions, such
as Iceland or Antarctica, which are very cold now, for the late
Paleozoic or the Mesozoic era show clear indications of what
we would call subtropical climate today, but no trace of
glaciation; at the same time other regions were at least tempo-
1
rarily glaciated' (194:195). This evidence, linked in this way
with the problem of the ice ages we have already discussed,
reveals the existence of a single problem. Ice ages in low
latitudes, and warm ages near the poles, are, so to speak, the
sides of a single coin. A successful theory must explain both
of them.
Following the Cretaceous, the Tertiary Period shows the
same failure of the fauna and flora to observe our present