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

68 EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST
right in the midst of periods thought to have been especially
warm, such as the Carboniferous.
Coleman presents other geological evidence against the
theory. The fact that most of the fossils found are those of
warm-climate creatures is, he thinks, misleading. Plants and
animals are more easily fossilized in warm, moist climates
than they are in cold, arid ones. Fossilization, even under the
most favorable conditions, is a rare accident. The fauna and
flora of the temperate and arctic zones of the past were seldom
preserved (87:252). Thus, while the finding of fossils of
warm-climate organisms all over the earth is an argument
against the permanence of the present arrangement of the
climatic zones, it is not an argument for universal mild
climates.
Another argument against such climates may
be based
upon the evidences of desert conditions in all geological
periods. These imply world-wide variations in climate and
humidity. Both Brooks (52:24-25, 172) and Umbgrove (430:
265) stress the importance of this evidence. One of the most
famous formations of Britainthe Old Red Sandstone is,
apparently, nothing but a fossil desert. Coleman points to
innumerable varved deposits in many geological periods as
evidence of seasonal changes (87:253), which, of course, imply
the existence of climatic zones.
Ample evidence of the existence of strongly demarcated
climatic zones through the earth's whole history (at least since
the beginning of the deposition of the sedimentary rocks)
comes from other sources. Barghoorn cites the evidence of
fragments of fossil woods from late Paleozoic deposits in the
Southern Hemisphere that show pronounced ring growth,
indicating seasons; he also points out that in the Permo-Carboniferous
Period floras existed that were adapted to very
cold climate (375:242). Colbert himself reports good evidence
of seasons in the Cretaceous Period, in the form of fossils of
deciduous trees (375:265).
Umbgrove cites the geologist Berry, who states that the
fossilized woods from six geological periods, from the Devo-