Mark Gaffney explores the ‘extralimital anomaly’ of mollusc shells in the Americas, a hitherto under-researched area of science that supports Charles Hapgood’s theory of crustal displacement.


I first encountered empirical evidence supporting Charles Hapgood’s theory of crustal displacement while reading Charles Darwin’s 1846 book about the geology of South America.i Evidently, the well known French naturalist, Alcide d’Orbigny, had shared this important evidence with Darwin during the preparation of his book. d’Orbigny, a disciple of George Cuvier, preceded Darwin to South America, and subsequently published a detailed account that Darwin called “a most important work.” ii It’s unclear whether the two men ever met, but they corresponded over a period of years. Darwin cites d’Orbigny numerous times in both of his books about South America, and in a footnote writes that d’Orbigny’s research placed him “on a list of American travellers second only to Humboldt.”iii

Darwin included the data in a table along with a detailed discussion.iv I was stunned when I saw this material. It was also clear at a glance that Darwin did not understand what had passed into his hands. The evidence was not limited to a few scraps or observations pertaining to mollusks, but amounted to an entire data-set. True, shellfish are not sexy like saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths. But the study of mollusks nonetheless was on a solid scientific footing by the 1830s. This may have been due, in part, to the universal popularity of beach combing and collecting among amateur enthusiasts and trained scientists alike. We humans have always been fascinated with sea shells and love to collect them, whether they find the specimens on a beach, or in a sedimentary deposit on a mountain top.

It is noteworthy that Darwin’s associate, Charles Lyell, drew heavily upon this science in the course of identifying the different epochs of the Tertiary. Lyell applied a statistical method of his own design, which enabled him to distinguish the relative percentage of surviving versus extinct mollusk populations.v The early editions of his Principles of Geology (Volume Three) actually included a 65-page appendix with tables listing innumerable mollusk species. The innovation became known as statistical palaeontology, and although the approach has since gone out of fashion—modern editions of the principles are heavily abridged and do not include the tables—present-day science still owes a substantial debt to the early work on mollusk taxonomy and palaeontology accomplished by Lyell, d’Orbigny, and many others.vi

My excitement mounted as I studied the table in Darwin’s book and eagerly devoured his discussion. The basic facts are easy to summarise. Mollusks tend to live in communities—the standard technical jargon is “faunal assemblages”—and fossil beds of these communities are occasionally found in a pristine state of preservation. Such finds are rare because ocean surf is a powerful destroyer of seashells. Fortunately, due to the Andean uplift that Darwin also describes in his books, a number of these old faunal beds were discovered in pristine condition. On several occasions, Darwin himself found former beaches which had been raised up as much as a thousand feet above the present-day shore.

I have included a facsimile of the original table with all of the relevant data. It summarises the joint collaborative efforts of d’Orbigny and another well-known collector, Hugh Cuming, who had gathered specimens of 79 different species from the late Pleistocene at two principal sites on the Chilean coast: Coquimbo (30 degrees S latitude) and Navidad (34 degrees S latitude). Although many of the specimens were of extinct species, the collection included 12 living genera which are listed in the table. The two columns at the right indicate the latitude at which the specimens were collected, and the southernmost latitude at which the genera may still be found.vii

My jaw dropped as I studied the table. Notice the conspicuous disparity between the latitude at which the fossil specimens were gathered, compared with the latitude at which they are presently found. Nearly all of the extant genera had relocated far up the coast.

Data table from Darwin’s 1846 book documenting evidence for 1,600+ mile displacement of the Earth’s crust.

Map of central Chile showing location of Navidad faunal beds in relation to Santiago.

Map showing location of Coquimbo faunal beds, which are about 275 miles north of Navidad.

Mollusks are extremely fussy about where they live, and water temperature is the most important factor defining their habitat. Shellfish require a narrow temperature range, outside of which they simply are not found. Each species has slightly different requirements. When I crunched the numbers, based on the data compiled in the table, I calculated that the average habitat displacement to the north was 24.4 degrees of latitude. Given 68.7 miles per degree of latitude in the equatorial zone, this means the mollusks on average had migrated northward about 1,683 miles to warmer equatorial waters. Some had relocated as far north as Ecuador.

Before I proceed, I should mention that mollusks have very limited mobility. Unlike fish, they cannot swim. However, when they reproduce, they pass through a tiny larval stage, and these larvae are able to hitch a ride on ocean currents over considerable distances. Evidently this is how the various species relocated more than a thousand miles up the coast of South America, at the end of the Pleistocene.

The mass migration greatly intrigued Darwin, for he writes:

“the first impression….is that the climate [where the fossils were collected] must formerly have been warmer than it now is.”viii

Having raised the key question, Darwin then unaccountably begins to hedge, citing cases and evidence which, looking back today with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, seem weak and unconvincing. For example, Darwin mentions the exceptional case of Voluta at the bottom of the list, which apparently did manage to adapt to the same altered, i.e., cooler, water temperatures that drove the other warm water loving species north toward the equator. At present, Voluta is only found south of 43 degrees which is approximately the latitude of the town of Chonchi on the island of Chiloe, one of the large islands in the archipelago of southern Chile. In his account, Darwin shows great reluctance to formulate an opinion about what it all could mean. In a rambling discussion on the next page, he refers to his colleague, Mr. Lyell, who was always known to counsel caution when confronted with anomalous data, to which Lyell often attributed local factors. We will encounter the same tendency again, very shortly.

How then do we account for the fact that warm-water loving mollusks were formerly found at southern latitudes of the Pacific coast, a region that today is significantly cooler? Did the temperature of the nearby Humboldt ocean current change at the end of the Pleistocene? Insofar as I have been able to determine, there is no evidence for this. The ability of the exceptional genera Voluta to adapt to cooler temperatures only clarifies the rule.

Indeed, the average 1,683 mile migration of eleven genera of mollusks northward stands in silent witness to an extraordinary event. And this should also have been obvious in the 1840s. A paradigm-busting data set had fallen into Darwin’s lap, pointing toward a mind-boggling conclusion: that the crust of the Earth had shifted, at the close of the Pleistocene, by approximately the same distance the mollusks had migrated. But Darwin was unable to make this leap of imagination, however logical, because doing so would have required him to think outside the box. The great man who very nearly explained evolution could not shake himself free from the scientific model that held him fast. Darwin remained a prisoner of his own beliefs and, as we are about to learn, in this he was far from alone.

The extralimital anomaly

On a hunch, I did a Google search and within minutes was staring at several scientific studies of mollusk assemblages on the west coast of North America. As I read, I was blown away. The first paper that I examined, published in 1966 by W.O. Addicott, a scientist working for the US Geological Survey, describes a

“heretofore unrecognized late Pleistocene molluscan province characterized by northern mollusks and foraminifers (i.e., linear and spiral shelled mollusks) that are no longer living off the central California coast.”ix

The paper goes on to describe virtually the same phenomenon reported by Darwin in 1846, except that in this case the northward migration of mollusks was from warm water to cold (instead of from cold water to warm) and had occurred not in South America but on the west coast of the United States. By this point, as you might well imagine, I was completely engrossed.

Undisturbed fossil beds at several locations in central California, one at Santa Cruz and two at Point Año Nuevo a few miles up the coast, documented the southernmost outpost of a community of at least 80 species of late Pleistocene mollusks, many of them still living, that are no longer found in the area but presently inhabit the cooler waters of Puget Sound and the B.C. coast as far north as Alaska.x The data presented by Addicott indicates that these surviving late Pleistocene mollusks had migrated from the vicinity of Santa Cruz northward by a minimum of 11 degrees of latitude, a distance of 755 miles.xi

Map showing the locations of Point Año Nuevo and Santa Cruz faunal beds.

Alcide d’Orbigny

Today, water temperatures in Puget Sound are 4 degrees centigrade cooler than the coastal waters at the latitude of Santa Cruz. Evidently the cool water loving mollusks had moved north in search of their preferred habitat, after the coastal waters of central California warmed up. The obvious question that Darwin failed to pursue is: what caused this warming? Surely the answer is: the same event that caused the cooling of the coastal waters of Chile.

Writing in 1966, Addicott apparently had no knowledge of the South American case reported by Darwin in 1846, because he credits discovery of the so called “extralimital anomaly” to a US-based scientist, Ralph Arnold, who reported it in 1908.xii Nor have things improved in this respect. A 2014 monograph on the issue published by three scientists, Daniel R. Muhs, Lindsey T. Groves and R. Randall Schumann, makes no mention of Darwin.xiii Nor do the three scientists display any awareness that the phenomenon under discussion is not exclusive to North America.

In their paper, the scientists thoroughly review various local and regional factors proposed by other experts to explain why sea water temperatures along the central California coast warmed up since the late Pleistocene. The possible factors they cite for this include the upwelling of cold water, effects of winds and currents, changes in the geography of the coast over time, as well as the reworking (i.e., alteration) of fossil beds. To their credit, the authors reject all of these, concluding that

“although many mechanisms have been proposed….no single explanation seems to be applicable to all localities where thermally anomalous faunas have been observed.”xiv

Muhs, Groves and Schumann were correct in 2014 to dismiss all of the proposed local or regional explanations. Because surely a temperature-driven anomaly that effects two continents and stretches across two hemispheres of the Earth cannot properly be described as local or regional. The same event that cooled the coastal waters of Chile probably also caused warming of the coastal waters of central California. Both cases appear to be linked and also synchronised. When faced with a global mystery, does a local or regional solution suffice? Probably not. No, one should tailor the search and the solution to the scale of the phenomenon. In this case, the data surely indicates the need to think globally.

The extralimital anomaly therefore does not date to fieldwork by American scientists in the early years of the twentieth century, but to 1846, the year Darwin published his book on the geology of South America. Notice, this would make the anomaly a whopping 170 years old, and this is probably a conservative estimate. More likely, South American collectors knew about the mysterious northward migration of mollusks in the 1830s, and possibly as early as the 1820s. We know that d’Orbigny arrived in Chile in 1826. Notice, this would make the anomaly more than 190 years old!

How many other scientific fields can lay claim to such an extended legacy of failure? Probably few to none. But perhaps the deeper issue is how and why trained experts can have misfired so badly. The extralimital anomaly has not only eluded scientific explanation up to the present day, but in the course of doing so has also managed to stay completely off the radar. At present, insofar as I can tell, outside the tiny field of malacology (the study of mollusks) the anomaly remains virtually unknown, a regrettable fact which I attribute to over-specialisation.

The unfortunate modern-day reality is that our universities train science students to think more and more about less and less. As a result, students by and large never gain the invaluable experience of thinking outside the box; and very few of them go on to develop a holistic approach or an interdisciplinary career. Yet, if there was ever a problem that called for an interdisciplinary approach, it is this one. Sadly, when I contacted the three authors of the 2014 paper to alert them about the larger ramifications, I encountered only silence. I never heard back, not so much as a peep. Not one of the scientists extended me the simple courtesy of a brief acknowledgment. Did they dismiss me as a crank, or a conspiracy nut?

I would be guessing about their motives and their state of mind if I commented further, so I will refrain. Nonetheless, it does appear that the leading authorities in the field are prisoners of their scientific training and beliefs. In this, things have not changed since the time of Darwin. The present generation of experts who write papers about the extralimital anomaly have yet to learn about its actual history and its true scope. As I write in 2019, the matter remains anomalous, as ever.


References

i Charles Darwin, Geological Observations on South America, originally published 1846, in the Classic Reprint Series: On the Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs; also, Geological Observations on the Volcanic Island and Parts of South America Visited During the Voyage of the Beagle (Forgotten Books, 2012), pp. 406-412.

ii Letter to Leonard Jenyns, December 3, 1837.

iii Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (New York, Random House, 2001), p. 84.

iv Geological Observations on South America, pp. 406-412.

v For an excellent discussion see Stephen Jay Gould, Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle (Cambridge Mass & London, Harvard University Press, 1987).

vi M.J.S. Rudwick, “Charles Lyell’s dream of statistical paleontology,” Paleontology, 21, 1978, p. 225-244.

vii Geological Observations on South America, p. 406-412.

viii Ibid.

ix W.O. Addicott, “Late Pleistocene Marine Paleoecology and Zoogeography in Central California”, Geological Survey Professional Paper 523-C, US Government Printing Office, 1966.

x Ibid., p. C-9.

xi Ibid., p. C-10.

xii Ralph Arnold, “Descriptions of new Cretaceous and Tertiary fossils from the Santa Cruz Mountains, California”, US Natl. Musc. Proc., Vol 34, 1908, no. 1617, p. 345-390.

xiii Daniel R. Muhs, Lindsey T. Groves and R. Randall Schumann, “Interpreting the paleozoogeography and sea level history of thermally anomalous marine terrace faunas: a case study from the Last Interglacial Complex of San Clemente Island, California”, Monographs of the Western North American Scientist, Vol. 7, 8th California Islands Symposium, Article 6, 2014.

xiv Ibid.


About the author

Mark H. Gaffney is the author of five books. He is presently hard at work on a sixth about Charles Hapgood’s theory of crustal displacement. Comments and criticism are welcome. Contact the author at [email protected]

Mark H. Gaffney is an environmentalist and peace activist. In April 1970, while still a student, Mark organized the first Earth Day at Colorado State University. Between 1989–1993 Mark served as a member of the National Audubon team that inventoried the ancient forests of eastern Oregon. Today, the maps that Mark helped to develop are a part of the GIS data base used to manage and protect old growth forest ecosystems. Mark holds a b.s. degree in physical science.

Mark’s first book, Dimona: the Third Temple (1989) was a pioneering study of Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons program. The book told the remarkable story of nuclear whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu, who was nominated numerous times for the Nobel Peace Prize. For attempting to warn the world about the nuclear peril, Vanunu suffered a fate worse than death: eighteen years in Ashkelon prison, eleven and a half of them in solitary confinement.

Mark’s second book, Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes (2004), was a personal investigation of early Christianity, based on an original source text from the first century CE. The book was a finalist for the 2004 Narcissus Book Award.

Mark’s next two books, The 9/11 Mystery Plane (2008) and Black 9/11 (2012) exposed dark truths about the September 11, 2001 attacks that were swept under the carpet and remain taboo to this day.

Mark’s novel, Never Summer (2017) is a fictionalized account of one of the most colorful chapters in Colorado history, the epic battle to save Bowen Gulch, one of the last great places.

Over the years, Mark’s articles, poetry and op/eds have appeared in many journals and newspapers, as well as on the Internet. Mark lives in Oregon.
He can be reached for comment at markhgaffney@ earthlink.net.

Previous titles by Mark H. Gaffney:

  • Dimona: the The Third Temple (1989)
  • Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes (2004)
  • The 9/11 Mystery Plane and the Vanishing of America (2008)
  • Black 9/11 (2012; 2nd ed. 2016)
  • Never Summer (a novel, 2017)

22 thoughts on “The Oldest Anomaly in Science”

  1. Edmond says:

    Mark, excellent article. Could the equator have shifted northward max over the Americas; southward max over the antipodes in Malaysia; leaving Africa and the Pacific relatively unchanged in latitude? Thus a polar displacement (of which several are attested in geological time) due to a bump (for which there are several candidates in geological time, which may account for relevant uplifts and eustatic depressions)? Instead of crustal displacement involving the American plates and thus all plates? Polar displacements involved magma stream displacements, and magnetic polar displacements due to magma and solar wind re-alignments. All faster than crustal migration if you are a gradualist, or less traumatic than crustal if you are a catastrophist?

  2. Mark Gaffney says:

    Yes, Edmond, right on. As you move away at a right angle from the meridian of maximum displacement, the crustal shift diminishes until it reaches zero at two points on the earth’s surface, where latitude does not change. At these points the crust simply swivels. Check out my post at Jim McCanney’s web site – Do Ancient Sites Point to the Old North Pole?

    Here’s the link: https://www.jmccanneyscience.com/MarkGaffneySub-Page.htm

    In that paper I track the position of the former N pole position on Baffin Island, by plotting alignments of three ancient sites. Knowing the pole position, we also know the great circle of maximum displacement. Knowing this, it’s easy to determine the two points of zero shift. One is located in northern Zaire, Africa, the other, as you suggested, in the Pacific near the Line Islands. Thanks for commenting!

    1. Edmond says:

      I agree with polar wander, but long before the human epoch. I do not agree with recent massive crustal movement. To change the rotation poles of a spinning and orbiting fruit, just bump it. No need to separate and slide the skin around the flesh.
      In the human epoch, earth changed obliquity, not geophysical poles. The angle between the orbital and rotation poles righted fast at first, and is still slowly righting, perhaps due to orbital inertia. If the suspected obliquity bump, and mollusc migration, have similar magnitudes, they could either be the same event, causing equatorial temperatures to drop and tropical temperatures to rise (as on other planets with high obliquity); or different events involving limits imposed by gyroscopic and magnetic forces.
      Inside earth, relative inertia of moving magma may support the possibility of catastrophic crustal slip, but very long ago, and not as large as 24 degrees? If the slide were gradual, as in continental drift, magma inertia would be irrelevant? Either way, this particular change may have occurred long before civilisation.
      The cultural record supports obliquity righting (angle between yearly orbital pole and daily rotation pole, reducing) in the human epoch; in orientation of buildings and built sites to gradually reducing solstice angles. Thus northward orientations are not directly meaningful. See Sitterwell’s /Newcombe’s curve, versus Dodwell’s curve of obliquity, on Stoneprintjournal, in my article titled ‘Gobekli Tepe art is not a zodiac’. The two rival curves are compared in Dodwell’s graph (about eighteen pages or clicks into the article).
      Does your scenario account for obliquity temperatures and angles?
      Could earth orbital diameter partly account for Ice Ages, for example if it is currently at minimum, closest to the sun?

    2. Edmond says:

      I agree with polar wander, as in my first comment, not with massive crustal movement. To change the rotation poles of a fruit rolling around in a bowl or gravity anomaly, just bump it slightly. You do not need to slide and rotate the skin around the flesh.
      Relative inertia of moving magma may support the possibility of catastrophic crustal slip, but not as large as 24 degrees? If the slide were gradual, as in continental drift, magma inertia was irrelevant.
      Either way, this particular change may have occurred long before civilisation?
      There is support for a gradual change in obliquity (angle between yearly orbital pole and daily rotation pole) in the human epoch, in orientation of buildings and built sites. See Sitterwell’s /Newcombe’s curve, versus Dodwell’s curve of obliquity, on Stoneprintjournal, in my article titled ‘Gobekli Tepe art is not a zodiac’. The two rival curves are in a graph, about eighteen pages or clicks into the article.
      Does your scenario account for obliquity?
      Could earth orbital diameter partly account for Ice Ages, if it is currently at minimum, closest to the sun?

  3. Chris says:

    Wow
    24 degrees
    Very close to the 26 degrees off true at temples in early dynasty Egypt
    Which could be accounted for by the imperfect sphere we live in, greater movement of some plates, less for others
    The Bolivian plateau has fossils of sea creatures as does the Giza plateau
    Lake titicaca has various fauna and flora usually found in the sea
    Movement of plates causing upward movement into mountains not just hills?
    Any molluscs in lake titicaca that could help draw a conclusion?

  4. Hendrik Dirker says:

    “Because surely a temperature-driven anomaly that effects two continents and stretches across two hemispheres of the Earth cannot properly be described as local or regional. The same event that cooled the coastal waters of Chile probably also caused warming of the coastal waters of central California. Both cases appear to be linked and also synchronised. When faced with a global mystery, does a local or regional solution suffice? Probably not. No, one should tailor the search and the solution to the scale of the phenomenon. In this case, the data surely indicates the need to think globally.” – Mark H. Gaffney

    The phenomenon is not due to crustal displacement however. True Polar wander, associated with variable obliquity — the driver of changing climate — is more aligned with your observations, regarding synchronicity.
    https://sites.google.com/site/earthgyration/Home/climate-change
    The context thereof is conformative to global uniformity concerning geological history and sea level.
    https://sites.google.com/site/zeptepitheconclusion/Home/scientific-journal-manuscript

    “The unfortunate modern-day reality is that our universities train science students to think more and more about less and less. As a result, students by and large never gain the invaluable experience of thinking outside the box; and very few of them go on to develop a holistic approach or an interdisciplinary career. Yet, if there was ever a problem that called for an interdisciplinary approach, it is this one.” – Mark H. Gaffney

    “Nonetheless, it does appear that the leading authorities in the field are prisoners of their scientific training and beliefs.” – Mark H. Gaffney

    Indeed – some form of redemption may be acquired by insight to the character of the beast… further to which, comprehension of its instinctive behaviour, whereby one can find contentment in having gained the knowledge, that to conquer such, no less, calls for a scientific revolution!
    https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/Kuhn.html

  5. Hendrik Dirker says:

    “Because surely a temperature-driven anomaly that effects two continents and stretches across two hemispheres of the Earth cannot properly be described as local or regional. The same event that cooled the coastal waters of Chile probably also caused warming of the coastal waters of central California. Both cases appear to be linked and also synchronised. When faced with a global mystery, does a local or regional solution suffice? Probably not. No, one should tailor the search and the solution to the scale of the phenomenon. In this case, the data surely indicates the need to think globally.” – Mark H. Gaffney

    The phenomenon is not due to crustal displacement however. True Polar wander, associated with variable obliquity — the driver of changing climate — is more aligned with your observations, regarding synchronicity.
    https://sites.google.com/site/earthgyration/Home/climate-change
    Geological history and sea level, in context of global uniformity, is conformative with change in the slant of Earth’s axis.
    https://sites.google.com/site/zeptepitheconclusion/Home/scientific-journal-manuscript

    “The unfortunate modern-day reality is that our universities train science students to think more and more about less and less. As a result, students by and large never gain the invaluable experience of thinking outside the box; and very few of them go on to develop a holistic approach or an interdisciplinary career. Yet, if there was ever a problem that called for an interdisciplinary approach, it is this one.” – Mark H. Gaffney

    “Nonetheless, it does appear that the leading authorities in the field are prisoners of their scientific training and beliefs.” – Mark H. Gaffney

    Indeed – some form of redemption may be acquired by insight to the character of the beast… further to which, comprehension of its instinctive behaviour, whereby one can find contentment in having gained the knowledge, that to conquer such, no less, requires a scientific revolution!
    https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/Kuhn.html

  6. Mark Gaffney says:

    hello Hendrick,
    Welcome! I’m happy you tossed your gauntlet in the ring. However, I need to inform you that your insolation theory cannot explain the facts I have described. For example, your theory fails to explain why the pyramids at Teotihuacan, Mexico and Tiahuanacu, Bolivia point like an arrow to the same location on Baffin Island to which both faunal migrations (in S and N America) are also synchronized. A few days ago, I showed that the agreement between archeology and the extralimital data is spot on. By the way, someone has also fudged your map showing maximum ice extent at the last glacial maximum. Perhaps you are uninformed, but it seems there was a thriving human community in the Yukon at this time. According to your map, it was under a sheet of ice! Mark

    1. Hendrik Dirker says:

      Hi Marck, apologies, my first reply was duplicated, somehow (perhaps an administrator can remove the unwarranted)

      I am puzzled as to, why on Earth, my.. theory should “explain why the pyramids at Teotihuacan, Mexico and Tiahuanacu, Bolivia point like an arrow to the same location on Baffin Island…” – at all?

      Regarding the max. extent of sheet ice map, its establishment generated – whether they willfully ’embellished’ it, or not at all, is of no consequence – simply select any other from your personal favourites.

      Evidence of a thriving human community in the Yukon estimated around 20,000 years old is hardly surprising as it was prior to LGM: from 17450 BC to 10970 BC.

      Before jumping to North aligned conclusions on a non-existing former North Pole, due to dubious crustal shift, it may not be a bad idea to get acquainted with Equinox alignments – such cannot be fudged…
      https://sites.google.com/site/earthgyration/Home/anthropomorphic-gods/astronomical-alignments-of-giza
      Incidentally, Solstice alignments, such as at Giza, can be very informative – a.o. conveying that 1250 BC polar ice was contracted to min. circle limit.
      Best of luck!
      H

    2. Edmond says:

      I agree with polar wander, but long before the human epoch. I do not agree with recent massive crustal movement. To change the rotation poles of a spinning and orbiting fruit, just bump it. No need to separate and slide the skin around the flesh.
      In the human epoch, earth changed obliquity, not geophysical poles. The angle between the orbital and rotation poles righted fast at first, and is still slowly righting, perhaps due to orbital inertia. If the suspected obliquity bump, and mollusc migration, have similar magnitudes, they could either be the same event, causing equatorial temperatures to drop and tropical temperatures to rise (as on other planets with high obliquity); or different events involving limits imposed by gyroscopic and magnetic forces.
      Inside earth, relative inertia of moving magma may support the possibility of catastrophic crustal slip, but very long ago, and not as large as 24 degrees? If the slide were gradual, as in continental drift, magma inertia would be irrelevant? Either way, this particular change may have occurred long before civilisation.
      The cultural record supports obliquity righting (angle between yearly orbital pole and daily rotation pole, reducing) in the human epoch; in orientation of buildings and built sites to gradually reducing solstice angles. Thus northward orientations are not directly meaningful. See Sitterwell’s /Newcombe’s curve, versus Dodwell’s curve of obliquity, on Stoneprintjournal, in my article titled ‘Gobekli Tepe art is not a zodiac’. The two rival curves are compared in Dodwell’s graph (about eighteen pages or clicks into the article).
      Does your scenario account for obliquity temperatures and angles?
      Could earth orbital diameter partly account for Ice Ages, for example if it is currently at minimum, closest to the sun?

    3. Hendrik Dirker says:

      I don’t know who vets this page – I suitably replied here couple of days back and the indications were that my message was awaiting moderation… other than undue bias in favor of the author of the article, I cannot fathom grounds for any rejection thereof.

  7. Mark Gaffney says:

    I avoid using the expression polar shift or polar wander because it is ambiguous. I am not researching magnetic reversals or a movement of the magnetic pole. I am researching the actual movement of the earth’s crust. When this happens the outer skin of the earth moves in unison — all together. The axis of the earth remains unchanged — du to the great stability of the immensely dense and rapidly spinning core. The earth is a gyroscope in this respect. But the outer shell or crust can separate — I speculate a phase shift occurs – probably due to a gravity wave from a planetary sized comet passing near to the earth.

  8. Mark Gaffney says:

    The core of the earth is massive. The comparison with a spinning fruit does not hold up.

  9. Mark Gaffney says:

    Hendrick,

    You are going to have a difficult time defending the map of the Northern Hemisphere at glacial maximum which you posted — because the map has numerous problems. As empirical evidence it is garbage. I hate to be so blunt – but there it is. I do not deny that solar insolation is a factor – it’s part of the background context of our planet. But we live in a dynamic universe, in which the only constant is change. Foreground events are also an important part of our natural history. I am referring to solar storms, enormous explosions at the center of our galaxy, and occasional intruders into our solar system.

    BTW, with regard to Teotihuacan and Tiahuanacu, I gave the link (above) to my other paper – hosted by James McCanney – which plots the archeological alignments. Did you look at it? In that paper I estimate a former north pole position on Baffin Island based on the alignments of three ancient sites. Later, I showed — based on the extralimital migration data — that my estimated N pole position is accurate to within one degree of lat & long. I have since improved on the estimate! I have now placed the former N pole position on Baffin Island to within a few miles. In this regard, the archeological data and extralimital mollusk migration data are both in agreement. In other words , I have presented multiple data sets which are basically spot on. You need to present credible hard evidence — not just a theory — to show otherwise. Put up or shut up. Thus far, you have posted nothing of any substance.

  10. Casual Visitor says:

    Congratulations for your find. I can answer to your call of help.

    What you observed could very well be the result of a gear shift in ocean currents, one that occurred when the Beringian Strait ‘valve’ opened into the Arctic Ocean. During the Ice Age this was dry land and hence shut, but when the sea levels rose it opened for water circulation. This I reckon caused the warm North Pacific Current to start flowing north as Alaskan current, instead of south, as Californian current, which the mollusks data hint upon.

    If there was a warm current flow of surface waters southward from the equator, along the South American coastline, then the other half of your problem is solved.

    Now an explanation on how to test for this and distinguish between the theories.

    Your proposed solution is insufficiently corroborated with data, because you only observed the mollusk extralimital anomaly on western coast of Americas. If the poles shifted, then the same anomaly must be present on all coastlines across the world, in particular on the eastern coasts of the Americas, in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, wherever the temperature sensitive mollusks live. If such transition is not observable, then there was no pole shift, but only an ocean currents gear shift, for the reason described.

  11. Mark Gaffney says:

    Dear casual visitor,

    You raise some good points. I have been searching for evidence of extralimital migrations in east Asia to match those in the western hemisphere. We would expect to find migrations in a southerly direction, just opposite the northern migration along the coasts of N and S America. Indeed, a southward extralimital migration down the coast of Siberia and Japan at the same time would prove the matter decisively, in my opinion.

    Here is the problem: these pristine faunal beds are extremely rare. No doubt, they exist. But many are under water and inaccessible. Sea levels rose at the same time as the crustal shift event. The Caribbean, the east coast of North America and the South China Sea were all affected. India likewise. Hancock found ancient submerged ruins off the coast of western India. Other areas also subsided.

    Fortunately, there is other evidence also for a crustal shift — not mentioned in my article — which tends to rule out your ocean current explanation. Thanks for commenting!

  12. Casual Visitor says:

    Dear mark gaffney,

    Casual Visitor is a name, capital letters apply even though it is a pseudonym.

    “Fortunately, there is other evidence also for a crustal shift — not mentioned in my article — which tends to rule out your ocean current explanation.”

    I am not sure why is this ‘fortunate’. The use of the word ‘fortunately’ is implying that if you find evidence to the contrary you would just ignore it, and that you are not interested in the truth, in which case it would be a waste of time to debate with you.

    I might as well raise some heavier technical issues if you are really interested in resolving the anomaly, but I reckon that for the moment, my Occam Razor simple explanation stands as better until proven otherwise, especially considering that it appears that you do not have any corroborative data from non-Pacific coastlines. To be fair, I’ll quote your own reply to Hendrick as my reply to your undocumented rejection of my potential explanation, offered in good faith:

    “You need to present credible hard evidence — not just a theory — to show otherwise. Put up or shut up. Thus far, you have posted nothing of any substance.”

    Thank you for your reply.

  13. Mark Gaffney says:

    Dear Casual Visitor,

    What evidence to the contrary? If you had such evidence, no doubt, you would already have already posted it. I myself am aware of none. Indeed, the evidence for crustal shift is all around us. We need only learn to recognize it. Incidentally, Occam’s Razor favors Hapgood. The present scientific model of the ice ages is a byzantine amalgam of epi-cycles — reminiscent of the earth-centric science model.

  14. Casual Visitor says:

    Dear Mark Gaffney,

    I have a nasty habit to post the least amount of evidence in comment fields, lesser first, and to keep my best evidence in reserve.

    You have insinuated that you have something that invalidates my Beringian valve answer to your anomaly, but posted nothing. Then, you pretended that my simple explanation is invalidated because of your insinuation. It isn’t. If you have evidence that invalidates my ocean-currents-shifting-gears explanation, as you claimed, then post it. That’s all. Until you do, it stands as better.

    Adding 1 slightly heavier argument here, to explain my ‘evidence to the contrary‘:

    Be aware that if there is a single mollusk community on any other coastline that did not migrated between Pleistocene and Holocene, even though it should have according to the theory of the major crustal shift, then the major crustal shift theory becomes invalidated. I think that you would tend to ignore such evidence. Are you telling me that the only found Pleistocene mollusks fossils in existence anywhere on the world are those on the west coastlines of Americas ? It could be so, but I strongly doubt that.

    As for the Hapgood, his theory became obsolete after the discovery of tectonic plates movement. Combine that with long term climate changes, and that yields enough counter evidence to invalidate Hapgood’s claims.

  15. Mark Gaffney says:

    Dear Casual Visitor,
    You have yet to present any evidence that the narrow strait between Siberia and Alaska affected ocean currents as far south as Peru and Bolivia. The strongest current on the planet is the Antarctic current which is huge — a hundred or more miles wide –and flows from west to east all the way around Antarctica. It is so strong it affects the northern hemisphere — all the way to the Arctic. If you don’t believe this, I suggest you check out the book The Ever Changing Sea by David Erickson and Goesta Wollin, both of whom worked for many years at the Lamont-Doherty Institute studying ocean cores.

    I have been in contact with paleontologists who tell me that faunal communities do not migrate as groups. Species migrate individually as larvae. This does not alter the extralimital migration data I presented – but helps to better clarify the issue. I did not claim that the only late Pleistocene faunal beds are located on the W coast of N and S America. I will repeat again what I already said: these pristine faunal beds are extremely rare – because ocean surf quickly destroys the evidence unless by a chance event of geology a beach is raised up and thus protected. I believe other pristine faunal beds exist – and have been searching for them. You can facilitate this research by doing so as well.

    Plate tectonics is irrelevant to the issue of crustal displacement. It works in centimeters of movement per year — much too slowly to explain the cataclysmic events that have shaped our planet – and human history. Mark

  16. Mark Gaffney says:

    p.s. As regards your comment that “long term climate changes….invalidate Hapgood’s claims”… you have it exactly backwards. I just finished reviewing the ice cores studies underway in central Asia since about 1987. We would expect to find an abundance of ice in those deep cores taken in Tibet and also in Altai Mts of northern Mongolia from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). After all, it was supposedly a time of global cooling. However, that is not what scientists found. All of the ice in the cores taken in the Altai mts was recent – laid down since the start of the Holocene. There was no ice from the LGM. None. Indeed,. glaciers were retreating in Mongolia during the LGM. In Tibet, only one core taken had ice from the LGM. It was a 300 meter long core taken at 20,000 feet in northern Tibet — and dated back 500,000 years. But all of the other cores — even the one taken from Mt Everest at 21,000 feet, had Holocene ice only. None from the LGM. In short, the ice core date from central Asia does not support the present science model of the ice ages. The present model has come to resemble a Rube-Goldberg construction of Ptolemaic cycles and epicycles. It’s time to junk the present failed model — in favor of Hapgood.

  17. Mark Gaffney says:

    This is my second attempt to respond to Casual Visitor’s September 6th post. My first attempt disappeared in cyberspace.

    Your previous comment about the Bering strait answered nothing – as you presented no evidence whatsoever. The most powerful current on earth is the Antarctic current which flows from West to East all the way around the continent of Antarctica. It is 100-200 miles wide and is so powerful it gives birth to other currents, including the Humboldt current which flows north up the west coast of S America. The Antarctic current is so powerful it affects the northern hemisphere all he way to the Arctic. Next to it, the water that flows through the shallow and narrow Bering strait is but a piddle.

    As to your second point, I feel confident there are other pristine beds of mollusk faunal communities out there. They are rare because unusual geologic circumstances come into play to preserve them. Most often, such beds are destroyed by ocean surf – or submerged by subsiding coastlines or rising seas. We must keep searching.

    As for plate tectonics, the process works in slow motion, a few centimeters a year, which is much too slow to explain the cataclysmic changes that have shaped our planet. By comparison, crustal shift occurs within a day – or hours. As for long term climate change, we have learned from many sources that climate change can be abrupt. One ice-core scientist described the change at the end of the Pleistocene: he said, it was as if someone flipped a switch. It was that fast.

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