Polar Shift Theroy

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Posted on 7/6/2007 by with 0 comments

A pole shift theory is a hypothesis that the axis of rotation of a planet has not always been at its present-day locations or that the axis will not persist there; in other words, that its physical poles had been or will be shifted.

One early popular proponent of a pole shift theory was Hugh Auchincloss Brown , an electrical engineer who advanced a theory of catastrophic pole shift. Brown argued that accumulation of ice at the poles caused recurring tipping of the axis in cycles of approximately 7 millennia.

Charles Hapgood is now perhaps the best remembered early proponent, from in his books The Earth’s Shifting Crust (1958) (which includes a foreword by Albert Einstein) and Path of the Pole (1970). Hapgood speculated that the ice mass at one or both poles over-accumulates which destabilizes the earth’s rotational balance, causing slippage of all or much of earth’s outer crust around the earth’s core, which retains its axial orientation. Based on his own research, he argued that each shift took approximately five thousand years, followed by 20 to 30 thousand year periods with no polar movements. Also, in his calculations, the area of movement never covered more than 40 degrees. His examples of recent locations for the North Pole include the Yukon Territory, Hudson Bay, and in the Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and Norway.[3]

This is an example of slow pole shift motion, which displays the most minor alterations and no destruction. A more dramatic view assumes more rapid changes, with dramatic alterations of geography and localized areas of destruction due to earthquakes and tsunamis. Several recent books propose changes that take place in weeks, days, or even hours,[4] resulting in a variety of doomsday scenarios.

Regardless of speed, the results of a shift occurring results in major climate changes for most of the earth’s surface, as areas that were formerly equatorial become temperate, and areas that were temperate become either more equatorial or more arctic.

Hapgood wrote to Canadian librarian, Rand Flem-Ath, encouraging him in his pursuit of scientific evidence to back Hapgood’s claim and in his expansion of the theory. Flem-Ath published the results of this work in 1995 in When the Sky Fell co-written with his wife, Rose.

Other theories which are not dependent upon polar ice masses include those involving:

  • a high-velocity asteroid or comet which hits Earth at such an angle that the lithosphere moves independent of the mantle
  • a high-velocity asteroid or comet which hits Earth at such an angle that the entire planet shifts axis.
  • an unusually magnetic celestial object which passes close enough to Earth to temporarily reorient the magnetic field, which then “drags” the lithosphere about a new axis of rotation. Eventually, the sun’s magnetic field again determines the Earth’s, after the intruding celestial object “returns” to a location from which it cannot influence Earth.
  • perturbations of the topography of the core-mantle boundary, perhaps induced by differential core rotation and shift of its axial rotation vector, leading to CMB mass redistributions. See, e.g., Bowin.[5]
  • mass redistributions in the mantle from mantle avalanches or other deformations. See, e.g., Ladbury,[6] and Steinberger and O’Connell.[7]

NOTES:

  1. ^ The PaleoMap Project
  2. ^ Science Magazine, “Late Cretaceous True Polar Wander: Not So Fast”
  3. ^ Theory of Crustal Displacement — summarized by Ellie Crystal
  4. ^ POLESHIFTS Theosophy and Science Contrasted, David Pratt January 2000 Part 2 Science, Psychics, and Myths
  5. ^ Carl Bowin, “Mass anomaly structure of the Earth,” Reviews of Geophysics 38(3; August 2000):355-387.
  6. ^ R. Ladbury, “Model suggests deep-mantle topography goes with the flow”, Physics Today, August 1999, 21-24.
  7. ^ B. Steinberger and R. J. O’Connell, “Changes of the Earth’s rotation axis owing to advection of mantle density heterogeneities”, Nature 387(8 May 1997):169.

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